Barracuda Web Security Gateway vs Cisco Meraki MX

For a larger organization, this is a must. It provides insight into what the users are doing online and most malicious sites will no longer be accessible if access is denied. This can also give access to non-work related sites, but in a limited capacity, based on user or time of day. Though a smaller company would benefit from the features, it may be cost prohibitive.

We run 30+ sites, we can easily identify when a site loses connectivity, and check the event log to see what the issue is. We have fail-over connections at all our sites and can proactively manage each of them under the portal. We had a connectivity issue in a rural area recently and were able to diagnose the fault instantly, disable the suspect device from connectivity and reboot the firewall and OT was back up and running within 5 mins.

• Control of domains/sites allowed for access. We can be sure our users are not using their online activity to accidentally, or intentionally, to go to malicious, threatening, intolerance, hate, or pornography.
• Reporting is easy and informative. Reports allow you to summarize for specific time periods, and then drill down to see time spent, or bandwidth used.
• Blocking and/or allowing instantly for a specific user or groups is easily done and takes effect immediately.

• The appliances are very, very easy to use. You could set one up for basic use with minimal documentation.
• Intuitive menus in the Meraki Dashboard make traversing your options and finding what you need very easy.
• Good support options and a healthy knowledge base with well-written guides.

• More configuration in the reporting options would be helpful; there are a number of reports available to run, however more options for customisation would be useful.
• The ability to add a list of domains/URL patterns to whitelist or block would be beneficial; while you can do a bulk edit, you can't just copy and paste the URLs in, you have to modify the line of text so that it matches the format, and adds it to the list. The ability to just import a list of addresses would be a huge time saver.

• As soon as network equipment is seen by the MX, it labels it, making it confusing as to if a device is rogue
• The reporting in the Client window is not real-time, [it's] not really accurate until some time has passed
• Individual client bandwidth usage seems to be inaccurate in the clients window

As we have it in place now, we will continue to keep it at our remote sites. Future expansion is something we are reviewing, and may well start with some of the larger switches as they seem to offer good performance and management at a reasonable price. Wireless is also something we're investing in and their devices are great for that.

There are a lot of settings you can adjust. The web log is easy to use. If a user is having issues accessing a website, you can go in and see what's being blocked and why. After that, you can make adjustments fairly easy. The GUI is easy to navigate and updating the software is a simple click of a button.

The Cisco Meraki MX series is very easy to use. Setting up user VPN access, site to site VPN to tie multiple locations together and managing all your devices. You can even download the latest firmware and install without ever leaving the dashboard. Meraki is the very definition of easy to use

Barracuda support is always available, 24/7. They are always friendly, supportive, and follow-up with anything they promise. Any ticket that is opened is touched constantly by the support team until it is remedied

I haven't ever had a bad experience with Meraki support. On the few occasions where I wasn't understanding the UI or needed some clarification about what a setting actually would do, I contacted them and they were very quickly able to provide help. Returns are simple and fast, too. We had to return a defective device one time and they shipped the replacement before we had even un-racked the one that was faulty. Unlike many other vendors, they didn't ask use to a do long list of scripted diagnostics, they just took my word for it that the device was broken and sent out a replacement immediately

Good product and simple to use.

SonicWall, Barracuda NG Firewall, and WatchGuard provides Content Filtering, but are primarily firewalls with Content Filtering features. The Web Filter is a dedicated appliance with more storage space and better reporting of users.

We continued using Cisco Meraki MX after taking over the client since they are familiar with it and enjoy the reporting it provides. We use pfSense for most new deployments as the controls it gives us are slightly better than the Cisco Meraki MX controls. That isn't to say Cisco Meraki MX is bad; it just isn't suitable for many of our clients that are multi-tenant, which is one of the weaker offerings from Meraki. For our clients that were already using Cisco Meraki MX when we adopted them, there was no reason to change, it does the job, and it does it well.

I've used MX devices in one location organizations, multi-building campuses, and multi-national organizations. All implementations can be easily managed with Meraki equipment thanks to the dashboard and cloud-based management features. Being able to seamlessly connect any site with any other via SD-WAN makes a large-scale deployment a straightforward project. [...] With the use of [...] virtual products, secure connectivity with cloud providers is like adding any other site.

• I came into the company with Barracuda already implemented so it worked well for a number of years.
• Their support contract was a bit pricey.
• For what the company paid for the system, Barracuda was worth the money over the 10 years it was implemented.

• Previously I managed Cisco ASA equipment and enjoyed these firewalls. The need to train other admins and deployment at MSP clients were at the top of my list for switching to Meraki MX. The learning curve is much less steep for new security admins and the central dashboard allows coolabritive efforts when admins are in different locations. Built-in change management makes it easy to see who made specific changes as changes are logged on the dashboard.
• Other content filtering solutions that I have used had more bells and whistles, but given the cost, complexity, and management overhead, I am very pleased with Meraki’s solution.