We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and OPNsense based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."
"The most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"It performs very well."
"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."
"The GUI is good."
"The solution is stable."
"Point-to-point VPNs can dynamically follow IP changes with no need for static IPs."
"Deployment takes no more than one working day."
"Its ease of configuration and management is very useful for us and for other companies that don't have an onsite IT person. It is easy to configure and easy to manage. It is easy to configure the VPN with the Auto VPN feature."
"I think cloud management is key. The cloud management and support are the two things that make the product great."
"Dual WAN connections are greatly simplified and point-to-point VPNs automatically connect regardless of what WAN connection is active."
"In a week, we can make new policy and view what all our users did."
"Both the scalability and the scalability are great with Meraki MX."
"The technical support people from Meraki are brilliant."
"The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication. Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls. Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used."
"It is a very good solution. I like the dashboard. I can see what is going on and manage it as I like it."
"It has firewall and VPN capabilities, which are very valuable features."
"The most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities."
"The DNS-level filtering is impressive for thwarting time scanners."
"URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me."
"The graphic user interface is very good and it is user-friendly which makes the product easy-to-use."
"The technical support is very good."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"I think there could be more QoS features"
"The solution is very expensive."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"It would be nice to get detailed logging information without third-party software."
"It can be hard to get a hold of the solution’s technical support team."
"The problem is that the two licenses do not currently integrate. We have to create separate companies and do an interconnection."
"FortiGate is cheaper than Meraki. Even the license renewal is less than Meraki."
"We had minor issues with Meraki MX. We had a couple of RMAs, so that could be an area for improvement, but in terms of how the RMAs went, the turnaround time and getting those back into redeployment were quick. Another area for improvement in Meraki MX is that when you're scaling for multiple locations, you need to use the same model, but the model you'd need is only available for a short time. The specific model you require could be out of stock, or Meraki isn't making that model anymore, so Meraki should improve that."
"Management can be improved in Meraki MX."
"The product could incorporate tools like ThousandEyes into the system so we can see things directly."
"The product is quite complex to set up."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
"When using the solution at the beginning was difficult. There was a steep learning curve."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"There are a few weaknesses. For example, there is a lack of some features that I have in certain commercial products."
"I think the most important thing is that it should be easily accessible, but currently, that doesn't seem to be the case. We need a hardware platform that's based on common standards and open computing principles, which would be like a commodity and benefit us greatly."
"There are some add-ons that need enhancements to make management easier for users, especially the reporting features. Some reports don't show the level of detail I'm looking for, and I've had trouble installing certain add-ons, especially for Internet bandwidth shaping within my company."
"The scalability needs improvement."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 59 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while OPNsense 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 OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and Azure Firewall, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and IPFire. See our Meraki MX vs. OPNsense report.
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