Meraki MX Reviews

Our primary use is perhaps a little unusual. Many of our clients like the product, or want to consider the product, and we own it so that we can do valid product comparison and testing.

These particular firewalls are a very good solution for a company that doesn't have an IT employee working directly on IT. For small companies with no IT department, it is very user-friendly. 

The feature I find most valuable is the auto VPN. That is because it is really easy to configure and it's really reliable. The way we do traffic shaping and the way we block trafficking, it's very easy to configure. It is also easy for clients to maintain even without IT employees.

The product could improve most by improving the client VPN. The auto VPN works for site-to-site but they have an issue with the client VPN. For example, if I connect the client VPN, I cannot block clients for specific access inside of the company. Because of the limitation, you need to make a rule for everyone and it's not very easy to do. What you really want is to have a specific client VPN with specific (fine-grained) access to different areas.

One other thing that they should have to improve product utility is some kind of templates.  For example, templates for configuration of use in a vertical market would be useful.

They have a very good product. If you contact technical support, they should already know more about your methods and your needs. Management of the firewall is on the cloud and to be so easy for the user to configure, they remove some of the more complicated options. If you want an option, you need to contact support in order to enable it. They could have, for example, a different dashboard for more advanced features that you would be responsible to pay more for.

The solution is very stable. We don't have a measurable percentage of return on the equipment.

We don't have big clients that need to scale a lot. Our biggest clients have five firewalls. At most, we are talking about 200 users all on the same side under the same firewall. We don't do much scaling.

The technical support is very good. Anytime we ask about some issue that we cannot solve we send an email for Meraki and receive a reply in minutes. 

We are installing Sophos for clients as well. Because we had so many clients interested in the capabilities of the Meraki products, it was time for us to know more about the client needs and how we could help them. If they want everything integrated, like antivirus, the products are implemented differently and may be more fitting to the client's situation depending on the client's needs. 

In our organization, we only have one Meraki firewall. I bought an MX to explore using this product for customers.

The installation is straightforward. With Cisco Meraki, it takes only half-an-hour. For very specific, customized rules that some clients want it takes more time. The standard firewall working with regular rules would take one-hour maximum.

We are certified by Cisco. As we are certified technicians we do the installations. We do it with a two-person crew deployed to our clients.

We are using the advanced Meraki license. We pay on a monthly basis. The cost depends on the size of the company, of course. The prices of all different brands — Cisco, Sophos, Palo Alto, FortiGate, Check Point — are almost the same. We are talking about a maximum of 10% difference. If you do a very good comparison, they are very similar in functionality and price.

Every brand has its own licensing model. Cisco has two different license types. Sophos has more license types and modules that you can put on your firewall like FortiGate and Check Point. Of course, if you want more features, you have to pay for it. If you want the basic models, it is much cheaper. So it is very difficult to say. The price can increase with basic models if you need to add on, but if you buy with a total protection license, you don't have additional costs but the initial costs are higher.

Every time we consider introducing a new brand here in the company, we need to evaluate it very well. If you mix a lot of brands, you need a broader knowledge base and more technical guys to give you support. I need a guy to understand Sophos, I need a guy to understand Cisco. If I support installations of another brand, I need more people who have a specialty in that new brand.

We looked into Palo Alto, we needed to know more about that solution. We had a meeting one year ago with Check Point. We decided to keep on working with Sophos and Cisco Meraki.

I would give this solution about an eight out of ten. They can buy the brand directly or from a partner. They need to consider performance. I have to be totally honest about Meraki. Because of the client VPN, the lack of an easy way to implement templates with Meraki, that's really only enough for an eight.

We usually work with small businesses, so their requirements are simple. They just need to have a firewall to protect their internal network. Mainly that is it. So it's a simple firewall.

If Meraki could handle more than one internet connection and a bonding formula then that would be valuable. Load balancing options and ability to manage a couple of Internet connections, that's it. This is the main thing I see that the solution needs.

We've used Meraki for one year, so it's not enough time to evaluate the ability but it's still working.

Since we've only used it for one year, there's still a question about scalability.

We usually buy it and we install it ourselves. So we don't need support.

The initial setup is straightforward for a simple firewall. Deployment takes no more than one working day.  For deployment, you only need a technician, a well-trained technician to go onsite and just install it. The rest could be supported online, if they need on-site support it's very rare.

In terms of advice, I would say you should really prepare for open source because you have more control. For us here, we are well trained in firewalling as we have access to open source software and we are good at it. Open source gets rid of all the licensing issues. Meraki is a good solution, but it's not the best solution out there.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

The application visibility, performance visibility, and the failover capability for VPN are excellent.

The security is not as strong as it could be. The lack of HTTPS encryption is a big challenge that I have with Meraki. Essentially, the Meraki device is blind to any threats that are encrypted, and currently, somewhere in the neighborhood of 3/4 to 80% of all internet traffic is encrypted. In other words, you basically have a blind security guard watching the network.

I have been using Meraki MX for over five years.

We've had no issues with the scalability or the stability of this solution.

The price varies depending on the hardware platform as well as the type of license and whether you're adding security or not. 

If you're going to go with Meraki as your primary gateway, I'd recommend having a secondary security solution in your back pocket.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of seven.

We are using Meraki MX for Wi-Fi.

The most valuable feature is that we didn't have any problems with Meraki MX.  

Management can be improved in Meraki MX. 

We have been using Meraki MX for eight years.

Stability and scalability are good. We didn't have any issues. 

Our experience with technical support was fine. We don't have any problems at all.

The initial setup was very quick and straightforward.

The pricing is fine at the moment.

I would recommend Meraki MX. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. It can have better management. 

I use Meraki in my POCs and with my customers as well.

From a subscription base or price perspective, there's some room for improvement.

They also need more security features. There are good security features now, but I need more of the security features to offer UTM protection.

I would rate this solution nine out of 10. As a solution, there is no need for improvement, it's a good solution.

Out of the features, I think the web filtering is most important here, and the SD-WAN solution.

Currently, if you make a rule in the firewall you have to add all of the IPs. If I'm working with an object for, say, an object group, where I put every single IP that I want into it, and then I apply it on a rule, it's a little bit easier to configure because you have a better overview of that. The overview is not completely clear. It's a bit difficult. But control of network objects is something I really want because it makes it easier to maintain.

Also, there's not enough control over system updates. Right now, you can postpone the update but eventually, if you don't do the update, it will install the updates automatically for you and that's something that is not working for me. It can happen during business hours, for example, and then you have a big issue.

In my opinion, it's a pretty stable solution. The solution is really running in a very stable manner.

It's pretty scalable. I have, worldwide, over a million users.

As of right now, I've never needed technical support. I've never had one issue with Meraki.

We previously used Cisco ASA. We switched because it was an all-in-one solution. With Cisco, we couldn't configure the ASA-1, so we needed special equipment. It became an expensive solution. Meraki is also expensive, but it's a little bit less expensive and it's easier to configure than Cisco ASA.

The initial setup for me was straightforward and was not that difficult. The first time, it took a bit, but after that, I configured templates so it made it faster. I can roll out a firewall in five minutes.

I did the implementation myself. I oversee the maintenance as well.

As advice, I would say that you should look first through the community and see the different issues that people are running up against, so you're aware of what's going on. Meraki is very easy to configure. So if you want an easy to configure firewall, I think Meraki is a good solution for you.

I would rate this solution between an eight and nine out of ten. The product still needs work and the features could be better.

The security level of our organization has changed by using Meraki MX Firewalls. We didn't have the UTM before but now we have sandboxing, tray scanning, attack preventions, and monitorization. Our security level has improved. 

The most valuable feature is the cloud solution because it is configurable from anywhere. It is very user-friendly and not hard to learn. 

We feel that Cisco provides smaller features with fewer possibilities versus other solutions out there. 

The basic configuration takes 10-15 minutes which is great. 

Our users find the entire package quite expensive. The price of the application itself is not expensive but if you take a license, it costs more than the application itself. If you get it for five years, it is almost double the price of the application.

We looked at Sophos products and there is something to be said about their ability to build a price out of what your user wants. This is not an option with Meraki. 

It is a good fit for our business needs and our client needs. 

Meraki MX offers advanced filtration options, plus it behaves like a router and a firewall at the same time.

There is room for improvement relating to third-party VPNs.

You can only have one tunnel in the whole infrastructure — one tunnel with one device. I cannot have multiple terminals running from each of the devices to the same third-party.

I have been dealing with Meraki MX for nearly five years.

Meraki MX is both scalable and stable.

The technical support is quite good — very fast.

The initial setup was very straightforward. Deployment took roughly two hours, max.

If you are a small scale company looking for an SD-Wan solution, plus UTM box-type combination, then Meraki is the best option — based on the price and the features available.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Meraki MX a rating of nine.