Cisco Meraki MX vs SonicWall NSA Series | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 9 out of 10

Based on 115 reviews and ratings

Score 8.7 out of 10

Based on 16 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Cisco Meraki MX

SonicWall NSA 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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Ease of configuration. Easy to add WAPs, etc.
Reliable.

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President, Principal

Klaxon IT SolutionsHospital & Health Care, 11-50 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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The logging interface is voluminous and difficult to get quick and good information from.
SonicWall NSA is trying to mimic Palo Alto Network's investigative features but falls far behind.

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Kenny McGarrity

IT Infrastructure Manager

Pace SupplyWholesale, 1001-5000 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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SonicWall NSA Series 9.0

Based on 3 answers

Cost, ease of use and reliability after implementation. It's a great and easy product to use to meet the needs of smaller organizations that want a more "legitimate" setup without going overboard or spending Cisco money. Great product. Can be rack mounted or stand alone. VPN easy to setup and update. A great product to start with and grow with in a developing organization.

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President, Principal

Klaxon IT SolutionsHospital & Health Care, 11-50 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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SonicWall NSA series interface is way better than either Watchguard or Checkpoint. Even though people want to dismiss SonicWall NSA, they have the advanced features of its competitors, but with the easy interface. With all things being equal, I consider Palo Alto Networks to be the most preferred enterprise firewall, with SonicWall NSA being second and the rest trailing far behind.

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Kenny McGarrity

IT Infrastructure Manager

Pace SupplyWholesale, 1001-5000 employees

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Scalability

Cisco Meraki MX 9.4

Based on 20 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

No answers on this topic

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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Saved money on implementation and administration staff.
Covered the sophisticated needs of many organizations.

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President, Principal

Klaxon IT SolutionsHospital & Health Care, 11-50 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

SonicWall NSA Series Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

Rating Summary

Cisco Meraki MX

SonicWall NSA Series

Cisco Meraki MX

SonicWall NSA Series

Cisco Meraki MX

SonicWall NSA Series

Cisco Meraki MX

SonicWall NSA Series

Cisco Meraki MX

SonicWall NSA Series

Cisco Meraki MX

SonicWall NSA Series

Cisco Meraki MX

SonicWall NSA Series

Cisco Meraki MX

SonicWall NSA Series

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