Cisco Firepower 1000 Series vs. Cisco Meraki MX

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
The Cisco Firepower® 1000 Series for small to medium-size businesses and branch offices is a family of four threat-focused Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) security platforms designed to deliver business resiliency through superior threat defense. The vendor provides that they offers exceptional sustained performance when advanced threat functions are enabled. The 1000 Series’ throughput range addresses use cases from the small office, home office, remote branch office to the Internet edge. The…N/A
Cisco Meraki MX
Score 9.0 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 Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
Editions & Modules
Firepower 1000
1,000-5,000
per appliance
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 Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
Considered Both Products
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Cisco Meraki MX is much more simple to configure it if you compare to Cisco Firepower 1000, but it is more limited to pur some complex configurations. The Cisco Firepower 1000 Series is typically deployed as a physical appliance, while the Meraki MX can be deployed as a …
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
As far as FIREWALLS go, the 1000 series is solid, I have had Ubiquiti's fail, Meraki is way to expensive, and Sonicwall's UI is very cluttered.
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
we have chosen Cisco in order to complete the Cisco full stack.
The price is higher than the competitors devices
Cisco Meraki MX
Chose Cisco Meraki MX
Cisco Meraki full stack is the best way to monitoring your network.
Troubleshooting is more easy, more graphical and easy to use.
i like the topology view, the wireless healt, airmarshall … the advanced thread protection and the security center…
Chose Cisco Meraki MX
cisco ASA is a legacy firewalla that is very outdated.despite it's aN NGFW with advanced security features, we decided to use meraki because of the ease of use and the need of scalability. in these two criteria, ASA is very weak, so we dicided to try the meraki mx product …
Chose Cisco Meraki MX
Both are great products but Cisco Meraki MX is simpler and quicker to get up and in production with multiple FW’s given Auto VPN.
Chose Cisco Meraki MX
Cisco Meraki MX is much more simple to configure, deploy and manage. It's very intuitive and it has a lot of options as a firewall, also it has a SD WAN feature as a very important added value. The performance of the Cisco Meraki MX is very good and for these all reasons Meraki …
Chose Cisco Meraki MX
Depends on the use case. Meraki shines in the area of ease of management and ease of deployment. This is typically retail customers with many locations or customers with lean IT staff. Meraki MX seems not to do well in complex environments with heavy IT staff requirements. …
Chose Cisco Meraki MX
They are equipment or solutions that provide similar characteristics at the level of routing, administration of internet links and security features for the customer's network. However, we opted for Cisco Meraki for clients who require much more agile deployments, who have …
Chose Cisco Meraki MX
I've used traditional ASAs with and without firepower, newer firepower only Cisco firewalls, and Fortinet FortiGate firewalls. I think Meraki stacks up pretty well to them with most features. I think managing the Meraki is much easier than all of them because of the …
Features
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
8.3
33 Ratings
4% below category average
Cisco Meraki MX
7.8
147 Ratings
11% below category average
Identification Technologies8.031 Ratings8.1142 Ratings
Visualization Tools7.230 Ratings8.5139 Ratings
Content Inspection8.330 Ratings8.0136 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.733 Ratings7.7137 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.429 Ratings7.8118 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.232 Ratings7.1138 Ratings
Reporting and Logging8.333 Ratings7.3144 Ratings
VPN9.128 Ratings8.8137 Ratings
High Availability9.232 Ratings8.7138 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.828 Ratings7.5132 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings6.578 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 8.8 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.1 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(34 ratings)
9.1
(178 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(2 ratings)
8.6
(16 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(5 ratings)
8.1
(10 ratings)
Availability
8.1
(2 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
8.3
(29 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(34 ratings)
8.3
(19 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.1
(2 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(145 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
I think it is well suited for smaller companies or (as in our case) extension to a central system with higher performance. My personal guess is, that it can be quite annoying with those delays in bigger environments, when 20 or more devices needed to be managed. From the point of security, support and updates it works quite good and seem to have no downsides.
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Cisco
The Meraki MX lineup is well suited for organizations that need centralized management of multiple locations, as it allows for both quick deployment and simple/easy remote administration all from a single pane of glass. It also works very well for providing VPN access for remote workers and helps monitor end-device uptime. It does, however, fall a bit short in its firewall's customization, compared to traditional appliances (like our WatchGuard Firebox), so perhaps less suited for organizations that need more customization, as the Meraki MX lineup is primarily designed for simplicity and straightforward cloud-based management.
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Pros
Cisco
  • My organization is all Cisco and wants to stay in the Cisco life cycle, Firepower 1000 series is great for small to medium-size office.
  • Very robust enterprise-grade security solution with updated threat features to handle any current and upcoming threats. The solution is backed by Cisco to ensure constant security updates. Integrated AnyConnect remote client VPN is a big plus to allow for secure remote workers access. Easier to set up a site to site VPN due to the large user base and case studies published on integrating to other manufacturer solutions.
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Cisco
  • The Cisco Meraki MX series is phenomenal at allowing us to remotely manage networks. So the devices usually act as the brain behind our client's networks, which makes it really, really easy for our team to take a look at what's going on in those client network environments, resolve any issues, and make sure that our client's networks are staying secure.
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Cons
Cisco
  • ACLS in gui are PIA cant see object details
  • Objects in ACLs dont show IP addresses
  • Have to renames every object to name+ip to make acl GUI useable
  • Speed to data can use improvement.
  • Health warnings should allow you to resolve you have to dig n search in some cases.
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Cisco
  • Layer seven firewall rules. Just making them more granular. We've been in meetings with Cisco SES where I've said feature requests many times and that's one of the big ones where it's just a little cumbersome to implement layer seven rules right now.
  • Just making them more granular. We've been in meetings with Cisco SES where I've said feature requests many times and that's one of the big ones where it's just a little cumbersome to implement layer seven rules right now.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
It is quite good, robust and reliable but not always so easy to manage and configure. The tools could be improved and the price is not low for an entry level firewall
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Cisco
The simplicity and ease of use for the Meraki Dashboard make it an easy choice for our organization to renew our Meraki Enterprise Agreement. We will likely continue using the Meraki MC67-C, MX450, and other MX models in their catalog until we shift away from Meraki completely
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Usability
Cisco
Firepowers are secure, reliable, central management and configuration is easy and they fit in well with our existing Cisco infrastructure. Good feature set and support. Good management and control with chassis manager and central control with additional Firepower Management Centre.
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Cisco
Some features simply aren't there, but the ones that are there are pretty easy to use. Sometimes it is easy to get lost when trying to find the specific device you want to work on, but that's mostly due to how rarely we have to go into the interface.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
Has not let me down yet.
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Cisco
Meraki MX devices support high availability (HA) configurations, which ensures minimal downtime if one device goes offline. This feature has helped us maintain a stable and reliable network, even in cases of hardware failures. ince Meraki is cloud-managed, we've noticed that the cloud infrastructure is generally highly reliable, with minimal service interruptions or downtime. This makes it easier to manage the network remotely without significant availability concerns. Meraki automatically pushes firmware updates and patches, which helps maintain system stability without requiring manual intervention. These updates are rolled out in a manner that ensures minimal disruption to service.
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Performance
Cisco
Great performance even on the lower end model of the series. You can push a lot of traffic through these devices without much performance impact. If you decide you want to inspect encrypted traffic however, you may take a big hit on the cpu and memory of the box, but they still manage to keep up even with all the bells and whistles turned on.
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Cisco
The interface is pretty responsive. The lower end devices are easy to overwhelm if you have a lot of throughput. Be sure the model you get is rated for the amount of traffic you will have. Overbuild if possible, otherwise you won't be fully leveraging the connection from your ISP.
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Support Rating
Cisco
I have had troubles with Firepower Management Center and the FTD's in the past. Sticking to a Gold Star image and upgrading when the "bugs" are fixed is great. That still doesn't mean you are left vulnerable though. The extra features are just not enabled yet. Great product and calling support is readily available for any issue.
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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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In-Person Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Cisco
great when they offered it, really tested your knowledge with hands on and see what your peers from other orgs know. glad to see that we were ahead of the curve of what our peers knew
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Online Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Cisco
it was okay as it was moderated but still better than nothing and done via semi self paced webex meeting
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
Utilize the new FMC cloud which is available in Cisco Defense Orchestrator.
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Cisco
Implementing Meraki MX devices in phases—starting with a pilot group or select branch offices—was invaluable. This allowed us to identify potential configuration issues, troubleshoot problems, and refine our setup before rolling it out company-wide. It also helped to get feedback from early users and adjust the deployment strategy accordingly. The SD-WAN capabilities in Meraki MX were essential for optimizing our WAN traffic and ensuring better application performance across various locations.
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco Meraki MX is much more simple to configure it if you compare to Cisco Firepower 1000, but it is more limited to pur some complex configurations. The Cisco Firepower 1000 Series is typically deployed as a physical appliance, while the Meraki MX can be deployed as a physical or virtual appliance.The Firepower 1000 Series has a more complex user interface, with a steeper learning curve, but offers more customization and configuration options. The Meraki MX has a simpler, more intuitive interface,
Read full review
Cisco
Cisco Meraki MX provides simplicity and scalability while cutting costs. With Meraki MX, you get a Security appliance, router, and Firewall in one appliance and managed with one GUI. These features enable the network engineers to maintain large-scale enterprises with a single dashboard from a remote site or anywhere with internet, all thanks to the Meraki cloud dashboard
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Scalability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Cisco
When I first started with my company we had various infrastructure and a mix of tech. Since going to Cisco Meraki MX we have noticed better network performance and our new sites are much easier to bring online. Users have noticed an improvement in VPN connection and getting into all our systems.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • We have seen improved throughput on our internet.
  • It took several attempts with Cisco engineers to configure the device; it requires a deep set of knowledge to set up in a more complicated environment.
  • This will allow us to move forward with a more stable and configurable environment with security available we didn't have before.
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Cisco
  • From a positive impact? Basically it allows us to set up shop very quickly. It allowed us to add sites to our network very quickly. From a negative perspective, I think the only thing is that I can see from a negative perspective is I have a preference to working with ACLI in terms of how I engage with the youth tool At the moment, the only way to actually engage with a tool is on a gui and sometimes what I'd actually like is more detailed information in terms of actual configuration that you'll actually get out of ACLI.
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ScreenShots