We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and Sophos UTM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Unified Threat Management (UTM) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Simple to manage."
"To me, the analytics feature is one of the most valuable in Meraki MX. I also find that it has good usability as it's cloud-based. Another valuable feature of Meraki MX is that it's simple to use and it's user-friendly."
"It's flexible, easy to configure, and easy to manage."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"WAN optimization is the best feature of the solution."
"The internet traffic shaping has been very valuable."
"We switched to Meraki because it lets you see what's happening in your LAN and WAN in a graphic and web environment."
"It is very easy to configure."
"The most valuable feature is the IPS. It also protects us from malware."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the simple-to-use interface."
"It gives us the ability to manage our firewalls from the cloud and deploy a unified configuration onto them. Other competitors like Meraki have that ability, but they fail to optimize it in the way that Sophos has."
"Sophos UTM's best feature is SIM in the cloud, which combines the gateway solution and endpoint solution to send telemetry data to the cloud and provides full contact visibility regarding security."
"What I like about the solution is the ease of use."
"This is a very stable product."
"The most valuable feature is ransomware protection."
"It improved bandwidth utilization and provided link load balancing features for internet and intranet lease lines."
"An area for improvement in Meraki MX is that it needs some provision, as supplying the unit through Cisco can be tedious at times, but as far as the product itself and its offerings, Meraki MX is five-star all the way."
"You cannot use switching behaviors as you see on the Meraki switch."
"The whole Cisco Meraki range requires easier access for cameras. For a security center, it would be helpful to have easier access to cameras through the portal. Its licensing cost could also be better."
"I need more UTM protection security features."
"The IPS, the Intrusion Prevention System, can be improved."
"The solution's pricing should be reduced."
"Direct logging is something that can be introduced. In the absence of cloud management, the possibility of local configurations and on-premise logins becomes restricted. This limitation stands as a primary concern. When it comes to resolving issues, the inability to access login options hampers troubleshooting efforts. The stability is noteworthy; but when compared to alternative products, its stability is comparatively lower. Additionally, certain limitations are observed in terms of remote control. Price-wise, the solution stands out for its competitive and cost-effective nature compared to other alternatives. Operationally, it is user-friendly and requires minimal effort from administrators, making configuration hassle-free."
"We could have more reporting options and the ability to send alarms to the administrator."
"The UI can be cumbersome and, sometimes, features are not where you think they should be."
"There needs to be some improvement in the IPsec VPN. There is implementation only support. I have version one. I'd be most interested in having IP version two from the protocol."
"The interface configuration could be improved."
"Updates come out agonizingly slowly, a trickle."
"The management suite is easy and the agent is easy to develop."
"Sophos should improve its ability to check something like bandwidth consumption for users or something more real-time."
"I would like to see the SD-WAN feature improved."
"The solution is not scalable."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 58 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Meraki MX writes "Cost-effective, simplified, easy to manage, and reliable with advanced security features and granular visibility". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". Meraki MX is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall and Sophos XG, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Fortinet FortiGate, Sophos XG, OPNsense and Juniper SRX Series Firewall. See our Meraki MX vs. Sophos UTM report.
See our list of best Unified Threat Management (UTM) vendors.
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To be honest, if you are still buying firewall appliances and UTM licenses you are already behind a very obvious requirement to move to Cloud security. Buying UTM does not solve the growing risk of mobility and cloud application delivery. It would be worthwhile reading Gartner's SASE paper on security transformation. Or research Zscaler, who has been delivering this model for 10 years.
If a user is in your network behind your UTM, what stops him from connecting to his mobile phone Hotspot and bypassing all UTM, DLP, etc. Security has to move from the network to the endpoint. Protection regardless of location, device or network. Anything less is a massive compromise and a false sense of actual security.
Sophos gives on-premise UTM functionalities that work like traditional UTMs (such as FortiGate, Firepower and the likes). Meraki MX devices are managed from the cloud and are subscription-based but also extremely easy to configure.
If you want a very easy to configure solution with a minimum IT staff and prefer OPEX over CAPEX, go with Meraki.
If you want on-premise control, and prefer CAPEX over OPEX, go with Sophos.
I haven't had any experience with Sophos, but in small business environments I've found the Meraki devices to be needlessly complex. As one who has worked quite a bit with enterprise Cisco devices, I can't say I'm surprised. In my opinion, complexity doesn't necessarily denote better functionality.
Most concerning to me, though, the Meraki devices also stop functioning entirely if you don't renew. their licenses, and it's some $500 per year *per device.* Any situation where a license not being reactivated can shut down your entire network is a huge concern, particularly at such high cost. We aren't talking Karen not being able to use Acrobat or something here... we're talking entire site outage. That is enough to make any technician worth their salt have a mild seizure.
When it comes to Security, I have very good experiences with Sophos, I can say the security solution is absolutely great in Sophos. Whereas I have never used Meraki, so I can't comment anything on it.
SD-WAN; no experience on any of the requested products, so better not to make any false comment/advice.