Meraki MX Reviews

The product is used as a firewall. We can use it in remote sites like end-user client offices and data centers.

Ease of management is the best thing about the solution. Cloud management is pretty much the driver.

Most firewall vendors provide a pretty good amount of logging information, like errors, issues, and warnings. Meraki does some of it but does not provide detailed logging information. We can send it to syslog or SIM, but we can't get it from the portal or the device itself. It would be nice to get detailed logging information without third-party software.

I am using the solution currently.

The tool is quite stable. The stability is generally very good.

The scalability is generally pretty good as long as we size it properly. Once we hit a threshold on memory or throughput on a device, we'll have to upgrade it physically. It's a hit or miss. We have to make sure we size it right. If a client is going to stay the same size for quite a while, then it's pretty much all set.

Generally, I don't hear any complaints about the support team. So, I think it's probably decent.

The initial setup was pretty easy and pretty simple.

The time taken for deployment depends on the environment. In some cases, it takes just a couple of hours. It could take a lot longer if it’s a larger environment with multiple locations. Usually, it can be done on the same day. We've got hundreds of clients, so we have a team focusing on upgrades and maintenance. For an individual environment, especially a smaller one, the maintenance can easily be done by one person. We need a team to maintain the tool for a medium or enterprise-level company. If it's only a couple of firewalls or within ten or twenty, it's pretty easy to maintain it. It's all cloud-based, so it's really simple.

I rate the pricing a seven out of ten. The larger MX products are on the expensive side. It is not in the top price range, but it is closer to high than low.

People considering using the product must ensure it's sized properly for the amount of traffic in the environment they’re putting it in. Generally, it's a pretty straightforward product. However, it must provide extended logging. I'd probably rate the solution a nine out of ten if it provided more extensive logging. Overall, I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

As a telecommunications company, we use the tool for our customers. We use it for SD-WAN and standalone devices with Wi-Fi.

The features vary for each customer. The simplicity of configuration is the most valuable feature of the solution.

The product could incorporate tools like ThousandEyes into the system so we can see things directly. If we are going to a public cloud and do not have an end device in the cloud that we can monitor from the dashboard, the tools will allow us to see what a service or customer experience looks like going across that network.

I have been using the solution for about three years.

I rate the tool’s stability a nine out of ten. Stability is very good, but it's not absolutely perfect.

The scalability based on the number of devices is pretty good. However, scalability based on the bandwidth is quite limited. About 35 customers are using the solution.

Technical support's pretty good.

The initial setup is quite straightforward.

We buy a free license upfront. Our customers pay for the solution on a monthly basis. All licenses are expensive compared to what they used to be in the routing domain a few years ago.

If someone wants a couple of SD-WAN components, it's a simple solution. It's more complex for others who require better bandwidth and bigger devices. We can talk to our customers about their needs and make the tool fit the customer's needs. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

I use Meraki MX in my company basically for site-to-site VPN connection, and it serves as a firewall for our normal office environment.

The most valuable features of the solution are the cloud interface for cloud management and the SD-WAN, along with certain features like secure VPN, built-in VPN, SSL, IPSec VPN solutions, and higher availability. It can accommodate carrier support because of which, other than the fiber, I can have one more point to access through a SIM card.

I do not have the kind of feature I need for SSL decryption in Meraki MX. It would be great to see the SSL decryption feature in Meraki MX.

I have been using Meraki MX for three years. I use Meraki MX105. My company is a customer of the product.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I haven't tried the tool's scalability features, but as far as I understood from the tech sheet I saw related to the tool, I rate the solution's scalability a seven out of ten.

Around 300 people in the organization use the solution.

Very rarely do I contact the technical support team of the solution. I usually contact the technical support team of the product when some update happens in the product. I faced some issues while updating the product once, after which I opened a ticket with the support team, and with their guidance and help, I could resolve the issue. The firewall was configured as active-active with high availability, so when one firewall was down, the other one was working fine. I haven't faced too much trouble with the product.

My experience with the support team was fine, and since most of the things are already available on forums, you can manage everything related to the tool by yourself.

I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

Previously, my company was using Sophos XG Firewall. My company switched from Sophos XG Firewall to Meraki MX. All our company's network devices are from Cisco, and with Meraki MX, we can actually add switches, routers, access points, and everything to the firewall, which in turn offers more stability and secures the network compared to Sophos XG Firewall. Sophos XG Firewall offered an IDPS firewall capable of stopping any kind of intrusion, but I was feeling worried about the switches and access point security. Since our contract with Sophos had expired, we moved to Meraki.

The product's initial setup phase is very easy. It has a very good web interface that is easy to manage and operate.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The deployment was carried out in two sites, which took around two days to complete.

In my country, the product is cheap compared to the UK because of the differences in taxes.

If you are looking for a solution that is easy to manage and offers stability, and if you are not really very specific about SSL decryption, then you can go for Meraki MX.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

Our clients use the solution mostly at the bank's small sites and branch offices. The appliance has security features like firewalls, DDoS protection, and threat prevention. It comes with additional licenses.

WAN optimization is the best feature of the solution. We can customize the product. We can customize events too.

The product doesn't support route summarization and BGP dynamic routing protocol. The product has to provide more flexibility in hardware. It should also introduce route summarization features. It is not an application-aware product.

I have been working with the solution for seven to eight years.

The tool is stable. However, other Meraki products are not stable. I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

The solution is not scalable. I rate the scalability a four out of ten. The hardware has certain limitations in memory. If we need a higher memory, we must change the box. If we need LTE as a backup element within the box and have already deployed one flavor, we cannot use it. We have to replace the box. The hardware is the limitation.

Cisco’s support is quite excellent.

Positive

I rate the ease of setup a seven out of ten. The product is a cloud-based solution, and it has a cloud-based controller. The deployment took a few hours. A single site can be deployed in a maximum of four hours.

The number of people required for deployment depends on the customer’s number of sites.

The product’s pricing depends on the discount Cisco gives to different people. Compared to Juniper or Silver Peak, I rate the tool's pricing a six or seven out of ten.

We require at least three to four people to commission the solution because many integration points are required, like the RBAC policy integration. If we want to deploy MAC authentication, then that's an integration requirement. These things consume more time than the product itself.

We would recommend the solution to our clients, but we would also give them options. Meraki MX is not the only solution. It must be made application aware to compete with Juniper or Silver Peak. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.

There are numerous good features in this solution starting with the ease of deployment and simple configuration. Cisco provides good support and if any hardware needs replacing, they'll do that. Of course, you pay a lot for that. It's an outstanding product with outstanding people on the team. 

The Cisco supply chain is problematic although that may not be all their fault. What I really want is to be able to sell the solution and deploy it for my clients. They are very cagey about the availability of their product and they definitely take better care of their larger clients, pricing out mid-sized organizations. I'd like their policy rules to be closer to those of some of the other vendors. They're very complacent and I find the rule set to be a little arcane. There's no company ou there that does the combination of hardware quality, reliability of service, and most importantly, the quality of the interface. 

I've been using this solution for about five years. 

The stability is great, it's just set it and forget it.

The solution is extremely scalable. The company I currently consult has 500 users but it can go up to the thousands. 

Meraki has the best customer support with very, very knowledgeable tech people. I've never had a Cisco Meraki tech who didn't know what he or she was talking about. That's not the case with other vendors. 

Positive

I've previously used Juniper, Checkpoint and HP Aruba among others.

The initial setup is easy and maintenance is minimal.

The ROI is there because the solution works. If you're going to invest in Meraki, you want to keep it at least five years so you get the value back.

Licensing costs are ridiculously high. You might pay $12,000 for a firewall and then each year it'll cost you another grand or two just for the support which can amount to 15% of the cost of the initial purchase.

The big thing now is SD-WAN and it's been that way for a number of years. I always remind clients that Meraki is one of the biggest players in the SD-WAN market, meaning their hardware is deployed under another label as being the SD-WAN box. I always suggest that clients buy the equipment from Cisco because the provider's likely going to use it anyway and leverage their technology. It's important to size the solution according to your needs. There are different tiers of performance so don't oversize or undersize. It's better to aim a little higher and anticipate replacing the equipment in five years.

I rate the solution 10 out of 10. 

One of our customers is actively running Meraki MX as a cloud solution in their enterprise. They use it for their local area network, and they also use it for their SD-WAN product. It is used for its connectivity purposes.

The solution's most valuable feature is the ease of management of the dashboard. We can see everything from the dashboard, making it easy for us.

Our client is happy with the tool at the moment. We don't have anything bad to say about the product at the moment. We support our clients and the fact that everything is on the cloud, makes it easy for us to troubleshoot.

Improvements are required more on the side of troubleshooting. With the logs and considering the fact that we are in the cloud, we lose some of those features that you would ideally see when plugged into a switch. Something like logging and stuff are areas where improvements are required. It gives you more indication on what is really happening with the switch or router.

I have been using Meraki MX for a few years. My company is a reseller and gold partner of Cisco.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Once we set up the tool, we are able to scale the branches to different locations, and most of the time, the central device is able to increase capacity. We do the design work to make sure that we are able to scale in the future.

My clients are small and medium enterprises. My clients are banks that probably have 90 branches.

The solution's technical support is top-notch. I think we had an issue once where we did a misconfiguration, or rather we were trying to migrate and lost the cloud connectivity. When we reached out to the support team, they responded pretty quickly. I rate the technical support a out of ten.

I rate the support services as an eight out of ten.

Positive

If one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the product's initial setup phase as an eight.

The product's installation phase is very easy.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

The solution can be deployed in a few hours. Once we are prepared with everything, you just need to go for the plug-and-play option to be able to use it.

A team does the deployment. The staging is done in the office, but then we just need a team of guys to run around the different locations for racking and stacking. All the configuration is done probably by one or two people in the office.

The tool's prices are okay compared to the traditional solutions. We find Meraki MX platform to be cheaper compared to the regular tools, like SD-Access.

My company mostly deals with Cisco, and we are really satisfied with its tools. Our partnership with Cisco is good. My company is a gold partner with Cisco, so we have good pricing models.

AI is a topic that I think we started discussing with our customers towards the end of the last year. AI is here, but I would say not very many customers are using it yet. But it's a topic that we are trying to discuss with our customers.

I would recommend Cisco Meraki because of ease of use. I think we are highly compared to other solutions, probably in the market in this region, Cisco Meraki is highly skilled not only in Meraki, but with Cisco products too. The support that the customer would get from the tool and from our company is top-notch.

Cisco Meraki is very easy to use. Coming from a traditional background, we had to control the devices and configure them. Cisco Meraki is very easy to use for medium enterprises. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

Whenever a customer has a linear environment, we generally prefer Meraki MX since it doesn't require any manpower or IT-related managers to deploy it. It's better to use Meraki MX because it has a single dashboard. The solution allows customers to utilize their complete infrastructure like MX firewalls, MS switches, or MR wireless access points. Meraki MX provides ease of use for the customer.

Customers have to understand that Meraki MX is a license-based product, and the device won't work without a license. Since it has an integrated dashboard for all the products, customers can get complete network analytics regarding what the user is doing, monitoring, and observing. It is easy to use, and as an admin, I can get details of every device in the dashboard from my home or anywhere else.

Also, we can easily find out if there is any breakout and if the device has failed suddenly, even at midnight. We can easily trace out if there is any issue with the device, cable, or port. We can find out everything and get the details from the dashboard. The solution's dashboard is flexible and can be easily operated by anybody. Even a non-IT guy can also manage the Meraki infrastructure.

The solution's lead time should be improved because the deliveries are a bit slow. The current lead time is longer for Meraki MX, and it needs to be improved. We currently take two to three months to get the materials, but customers are not willing to wait that long. We need to improve the lead time so customers can get their products faster.

I have been working with Meraki MX for the last seven years. I have a partnership with Cisco, so I provide the solution to end customers. I am also a reseller.

Meraki MX is a stable product, and I didn't see any challenges or issues regarding the solution's stability from the customer side. If the device fails, it's easy to raise a small ticket or RMA, and you'll get the device within the timeline specified by them.

Meraki MX is an easily scalable solution. I generally take care of medium and enterprise customers. I have worked on every segment. Generally, mid-size and enterprise-level customers with multiple branches opt for Meraki MX.

The solution's technical support team is very good. Whenever we raise a TAC ticket, they generally come on live and take the case. We rarely use Cisco TAC because, as of now, we are able to implement it ourselves. So whenever required, we generally use the technical services of Cisco.

Positive

I used to work with Cisco's standalone firewalls, such as the ASA and FTD firewalls. However, I am now predominantly working with the Meraki MX firewall.

Compared to other solutions, Meraki MX is easy to configure. We don't need to go for the CLI command prompt configurations. Everything is easy with Meraki MX since it has a completely dashboard-related configuration.

Meraki MX's initial setup is very easy, and you can easily install the solution.

Once you know the dashboard serial number and license key, you can configure the dashboard before getting the devices and then add the devices. Later, you just need to plug in these devices with the internet, and then you can easily configure it.

If you get four hours, you can take a small downtime from the customer and install the solution very easily. Even the updates will take over the night. So there is no manpower or time required to do these activities. You can initiate the patches and all kinds of downtime activities from home.

One or two people are needed for the solution's deployment. The solution's maintenance is very easy and not difficult at all.

Meraki MX's pricing is cheaper as compared to Cisco's standalone products. You need to take a yearly, three years, or five years license for the solution.

Generally, customers need to pay for the product's hardware and license. Apart from that, the solution has two types of support called CON-ROB and CON-RO4. This facility is for RMA to replace their devices as quickly as possible.

I advise users to plan for the solution nicely, and if you plan it properly, you won't have any hiccups when you receive the hardware. Generally, a firewall is designed based on the customer's environment, sessions, and users. We need to calculate these factors and need to think about future scalability. If you size the solution appropriately based on these factors, you won't get any hiccups from the solution. Before procuring it, plan nicely for the solution and get the requirements.

Meraki is a good solution that is used by everyone these days.

Overall, I rate Meraki MX ten out of ten.

It is a robust SD-WAN solution. It has multiple valuable features, including cellular gateways and cellular failover.

The configuration options for firewall and IPS have limitations. We do not have access to CLI, similar to other Cisco products. This particular area needs improvement.

We have been using Meraki MX for ten to twelve years.

It is a stable platform.

The platform is suitable for small to enterprise businesses.

We have had some experience working with Meraki MX's technical support team. Their response depends on the engineer's location. The support is good in some areas. For a few places, the Level 1 engineers don't have enough knowledge to deal with issues, and we have to get Level 2 or Level 3 support.

Neutral

The initial setup requires basic technical knowledge. It is easy to install. You can use the Zero Touch deployment method if your organization is spread across multiple locations worldwide.

The product's price depends on use cases. The equipment is overall reasonable. Although, enterprise licensing is expensive.

In comparison with FortiGate, Meraki MX is very competitive with SD features. It is easy to use and set up. It has a simple configuration process, making it a robust product point. However, in terms of interface, FortiGate and Palo Alto can display more complicated information, is simple to use, and has more configuration abilities.

Meraki MX needs improvement in a few areas, including the dashboard, configuration options, firewalls, and technical licensing model. I advise others to go for it if they have more technical expertise for an easy setup process. 

I rate Meraki MX a seven out of ten.