Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) vs. Cisco Meraki MX

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) are designed to support carrier edge networks.N/A
Cisco Meraki MX
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Meraki MX Firewalls is a combined UTM and Software-Defined WAN solution. Meraki is managed via the cloud, and provides core firewall services, including site-to-site VPN, plus network monitoring.
$595
per appliance
Pricing
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)Cisco Meraki MX
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
MX64
$595
per appliance
MX67
$695
per appliance
MX68
$995
per appliance
MX84
$1,995
per appliance
MX100
$4,995
per appliance
MX250
$9,995
per appliance
MX450
$19,995
per appliance
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)Cisco Meraki MX
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)Cisco Meraki MX
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)Cisco Meraki MX
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)
-
Ratings
Cisco Meraki MX
7.7
85 Ratings
10% below category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings8.081 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings8.482 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings7.381 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings7.379 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings7.071 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings7.783 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings7.285 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings8.181 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings8.481 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings8.076 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings7.044 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)Cisco Meraki MX
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cisco Routers
Cisco Routers
Score 8.4 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Routers
Cisco Routers
Score 8.4 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)Cisco Meraki MX
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(22 ratings)
8.1
(114 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.2
(5 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.2
(7 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(6 ratings)
8.0
(15 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(81 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)Cisco Meraki MX
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
It is very well suited to act as your aggregator / core switch for mid to large facilities. it is flexible enough to really be useable in small environments but costs may hinder that. It has redundancy of power and management blades that does add a lot of peace of mind and security. Really the only reason you would not use a 9000 series is frankly cost and/or real requirements for performance. They have several versions of this model, plus they have an entire set of lines that can accommodate nearly as much as the 9000. Less demand or less of a budget can weigh in the decision to select this particular model.
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Cisco
Small office, small business, medium business even larger enterprise can work on Cisco Meraki MX if they can sacrifice some of the functionality that Cisco Meraki MX can not provide. To enhance security, I would advise combining with cloud delivered firewall.
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Pros
Cisco
  • [Cisco 9000] Series [Aggregation Services] Routers are exceptionally reliable when compared to other market options.
  • One strength of Cisco routers, in general, is their compatibility with any standard market tools from other vendors.
  • [It is] unmatched in terms of sheer performance.
  • [It] comfortably supports very strong throughput requirements.
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Cisco
  • The management is the best. I'm an old-fashioned networking guy, so I'm used to going to the site itself and connecting. For example, a console cable and start and start configuring. Now since the management is so easy on Meraki I can configure everything from the headquarters from where I sit in Israel and then just go to the site and connect and basically, it's plug and play. After I configure everything from my office in Israel, I can just go to the site for a few hours, and connect everything. Just the magic happens.
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Cons
Cisco
  • [The] upgrade process [is] overly complicated compared to NX-OS or IOS. New images and the current configuration need to be compiled into "golden IOS's". If you don't include the configuration, you will have a clean device with no configuration.
  • [There are] major bugs in every release. We have had to cycle through all of our routers 3 times in the last year for updates due to show-stopping bugs that did not come to light until after the changes were made in production.
  • [It has] terrible documentation. You have to mine their site to get to any documentation for recent versions of IOS-XR. If you make the leap from 32-bit cXR to 64-bit eXR, then the documentation is more or less non-existent. Due to the internal architecture of hardware itself, technical specs can change from software version to software version, so don't expect any sort of firm scalability numbers. You'll have to rely on your sales engineer for that.
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Cisco
  • Map and floor plan area is clunky.
  • The way you need to segment devices by network causes you to need to go to different dropdowns to see everything at a single site. They have improved this and now allow you to add firewall, switches and wireless to create a single site, but still a bit clunky.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
This depends on when Cisco EOL the product.
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Cisco
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.
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Usability
Cisco
[I am] always impressed with Cisco products, from the functionality to the customer support.
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Cisco
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
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Support Rating
Cisco
In some ways, the platform is a big improvement over our previous IOS and NX-OS devices: They offer version-controlled configuration staging/commits. They have a robust portfolio of network protocols and features even beyond datacenter devices. Due to the use of NPUs instead of relying entirely on ASICs for forwarding, new versions of the software are able to improve hardware performance and capacity. Unfortunately, I have run into more bugs on IOS-XR than I ever did on IOS or even NX-OS (which has a shocking number of bugs of its own) and you have to be a licensing guru to get your order right the first time.
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Cisco
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
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Good product and simple to use.
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
When we are integrating the ASR9000 router with other devices then there should be the same device that can cater to the throughput. We can use the Cisco 9600 Switch which can be easily integrated and can handle the speed in terms of uplinks 40G can be handled. Adding to this Cisco DNA Center can be integrated to do the automation and monitoring purposes.
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Cisco
Overall, for a new network admin or a non-IT person, the Cisco Meraki MX is much easier to configure for a single site than the Cisco ASA Firewalls. ASA can be quicker for those with a background in Cisco command line OS.
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Scalability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Cisco
The Cisco Meraki MX is basically a good product, but not perfect. If you compare the Cisco Meraki MX with a Fortigate or Cisco Firepower, you quickly realize that this system can do less than the reference product. The Cisco Meraki MX can be used in small environments, but in large environments you have to check carefully whether it really makes sense to use it.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • We didn't need to buy new devices when we were increasing backbone capacity from 1G to 10G.
  • Due to the modular nature of the software, when there is an issue with any running services, we need not reboot the whole device which affects all clients and availability.
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Cisco
  • VPN tunnel between locations has been up 99% of the time in the 7 years that I have used the Cisco Meraki MXs in my current position. That does not include ISP issues because, in my mind, that shouldn't dictate the performance of the Cisco Meraki MXs.
  • Sometimes we get phishing emails with malicious links in them. We are able to block the URLs on our network using the Cisco Meraki MXs, and the appliance configuration sets in less than a minute. Blocking that link for anyone over VPN or on the LAN.
  • The interface is really simple and configuration is a breeze, which makes deploying a new Cisco Meraki MX really fast and easy. Replacing an Cisco Meraki MX is even easier, Just remove the old and add the new and all the configuration stays for the new appliance to use. Saves so much time and money.
  • The biggest thing is we have not had really any issues with any of our Cisco Meraki MXs going down in the past 7 years. The reliability with these devices are amazing.
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ScreenShots