We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The main difference between the two solutions is that Meraki MX is expensive, while pfSense is an open-source solution and is free of charge. In addition, Meraki’s monitoring capabilities could use improvement.
"FortiGate SD-WAN facilitated a smooth transition for our customers between their two internet service providers, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity without any downtime."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."
"The product is easy to use and is stable. The SV1 functionality is a benefit."
"The most valuable features are the possibility of having one fabric for switching on security."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"The most useful functionality of Fortinet FortiGate is the user interface, multiple engines, and their cloud with the latest integrations. Additionally, the Security Fabric tool is very good."
"The security level of our organization has changed by using Meraki MX Firewalls. We didn't have the UTM before, but now we have sandboxing, tray scanning, attack preventions and monitorization. Our security level has improved."
"It prevents us from being hacked and delivers information about who and where the attack came from."
"It is very fast to implement."
"The technical support people from Meraki are brilliant."
"Traffic Shaping: The device lets you decide how you want to use your internet services. Due to the fact that Meraki can accept dual WAN, you can decide the way you balance the data traffic."
"We've had no issues with the scalability or the stability of this solution"
"Site to Site VPN: The device can establish a VPN connection to multiple sites in a mesh environment in seconds, and without complex VPN knowledge."
"In terms of WAN optimization, it's completely cloud-controlled. Anyone can manage their network environment from a mobile phone."
"I have found the firewall portion for the blocking most valuable."
"The redundancy and scalability ARE very nice."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"I can manage it easily by myself."
"Firewall system for small, medium, and large data networks. It allows you to provide security to your environment: DMZ networks, LAN, WAN, etc."
"The flexibility of adding new kinds of services without spending any money can't be beaten."
"It is a better firewall than others and it has better features."
"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."
"Fortinet needs more memory to save the log files. We need it to save the logs on the hardware and not in the cloud. I know this feature is available in FortiCloud, but if we need this log locally, it is not available."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"Maybe they could make some features more accessible, such as a way to translate directions between two networks that share the same subnets."
"The solution lacks sufficient filtering."
"We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"When we do API integrations with Meraki, they have always been hard as well as tedious to build. The data that we want out of the API integrations has been only recently available. Six months ago, it was hard to get someone to build something correctly or useful with Meraki APIs. Recently, they have made more data available on the API, but it is just a start. They need to do more."
"They need to improve the link between Meraki and Active Directory."
"Pricing is an area where the solution lacks since it is an expensive tool."
"In general, the SD-WAN feature needs to be improved. The load sharing and load balancing of the traffic should be improved. I have had some problems with these features in the past."
"We feel that Cisco provides smaller features, with fewer possibilities versus other solutions out there."
"The IPS, the Intrusion Prevention System, can be improved."
"The configuration options for firewall and IPS have limitations."
"In the next release, because the security is pretty basic, I think they could include additional security features."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"I would like to see multiple DNS servers running on individual interfaces."
"The GUI. There are TONS of plugins for pfSense, as such, if a user wants to add quite a bit of functionality, the GUI will feel a little congested."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"pfSense is not user-friendly. I hope to have something to make the interfaces more user-friendly."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
"We are at the moment looking to use it as a proxy service so that we can limit what websites people go and view and that sort of thing. That's an area I've struggled with a little bit at the moment and it could be a bit easier to set up."
"Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 59 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and SonicWall NSa, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Check Point NGFW. See our Meraki MX vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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