Cisco Meraki MX vs Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 9 out of 10

Based on 114 reviews and ratings

Score 9.6 out of 10

Based on 7 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Cisco Meraki MX

Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

Identification Technologies

Visualization Tools

Content Inspection

Policy-based Controls

Active Directory and LDAP

Firewall Management Console

Reporting and Logging

VPN

High Availability

Stateful Inspection

Proxy Server

Pros

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.

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Infrastructure, Network Administrator II

Dynamic AviationAviation & Aerospace, 501-1000 employees

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Easy deployment.
Backups, snapshotting, etc. make returning to pre-change state a snap.
Threat management, data leak protection, etc. can be done in-line with ease.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Logistics and Supply Chain Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Cons

Possible granular access to switchport settings when using VLAN's.
Wireless models could and should have advanced wireless functionality which is inherent in the Meraki AP devices.
More functionality and customization on the local access pages when device has not connected to the cloud yet.

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Network Engineer

United Vision LogisticsTransportation/Trucking/Railroad, 201-500 employees

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Sometimes the configuration gets out of sync between HA peers, it won't sync, and it also won't say why.
Every time I log in I get warned that the logfile partition is almost full. Yes, I know that, you're deleting the oldest ones, I know: stop telling me about it with a giant pop-up at login.
I like green, but I wish I could choose mauve as a background color for the web interface.

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IT Operations Manager / IT Service Manager

Nashville WrapsWholesale, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Cisco Meraki MX 8.7

Based on 3 answers

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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IT Manager

John Robertson ArchitectsArchitecture & Planning, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Usability

Cisco Meraki MX 8.4

Based on 4 answers

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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Director of Information Technology

Callaway CountyGovernment Administration, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Cisco Meraki MX 9.7

Based on 20 answers

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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Senior Systems Administrator

DRT Holdings, Inc.Aviation & Aerospace, 501-1000 employees

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Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series 10.0

Based on 2 answers

Palo Alto VM series are best selling and industry's top-selling security product which customers prefer while securing their public cloud environment

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Real Estate Company, 10,001+ employees

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Implementation Rating

Cisco Meraki MX 7.0

Based on 3 answers

Good product and simple to use.

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IT Manager

John Robertson ArchitectsArchitecture & Planning, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

The key to Cisco Meraki being the superior product is its ease of use and cloud managed portal. Although other products do offer more knobs, the simplistic design of the Meraki portal makes it easy for any user to integrate it into their new or existing networks. It really is a great product!

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Telecommunications Company, 11-50 employees

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PAN was a much more solid choice, with less infrastructure needs required than Checkpoint. Cost was also a factor, with PAN being cheaper, even without the discounts given by our rep. VPN's are much easier to configure with non-heterogeneous products where the checkpoint is an absolute mess to configure a VPN with.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Logistics and Supply Chain Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Scalability

Cisco Meraki MX 9.4

Based on 18 answers

Actually my largest deployment is limited to 50 sites for a customer. I'm actually in a new one with the aim of deploy more than 1000 sites. I also can't give 10 because I don't know how it will work with many sites. But actually we already have more than 300 sites and the administration is still easy.

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Network Engineer

6hatComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Return on Investment

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.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Utilities Company, 51-200 employees

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Reduced firewall management tasks by an order of magnitude
Reduced needed VPN client support to nearly zero
Allowed reporting/monitoring of bandwidth usage, increasing overall productivity (big brother is watching you.....)

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IT Operations Manager / IT Service Manager

Nashville WrapsWholesale, 51-200 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Cisco Meraki MX Editions & Modules

Edition

MX64	$595¹
MX67	$695¹
MX68	$995¹
MX84	$1,995¹
MX100	$4,995¹
MX250	$9,995¹
MX450	$19,995¹

per appliance

Additional Pricing Details

—

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

Rating Summary

Cisco Meraki MX

Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

Cisco Meraki MX

Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

Cisco Meraki MX

Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

Cisco Meraki MX

Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

Cisco Meraki MX

Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

Cisco Meraki MX

Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

Cisco Meraki MX

Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

Cisco Meraki MX

Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

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