We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and Palo Alto Networks based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products received high marks from users. Meraki MX has a slight edge in this comparison. According to its reviewers, it is easier to deploy and more reasonably priced than Palo Alto Networks.
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"It has improved our organization with control data."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"I like the automatic firmware updates. We use the Active Directory to authenticate VPN users."
"What I like best about Meraki MX is that it's easy to deploy remotely. The product works. It has automatic updates. I also like that Meraki MX is a brilliant device. You turn it on, stick the key in there, activate it, and then you're done. Meraki MX does what my customers need at the end of the day, so I also like that."
"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."
"A strong, reliable solution for small companies with little or no dedicated IT department."
"MX is easy to manage, configure and install."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"Managed centrally over the web: You can manages all your Meraki devices in a single account."
"The features we have found most valuable are the firewall and the monitoring tools."
"The user ID, Wildfire, UI, and management configuration are all great features."
"The DNS sync code in your filtering is the most valuable feature of the Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls."
"You can easily integrate it with Active Directory, and you can use the GlobalProtect VPN for internal and external purposes. The URL Filtering is also clear and the application filtering is a plus. The application filtering is much better when you compare it to FortiGate or other firewall vendors."
"One of the things I really like about it is that we have the same features and functions available on the entry-level device (PA-220), as do large corporations with much more costly appliances."
"The solution is scalable"
"I like that it has high security."
"DNS Security is a good feature because, in the real world with web threats, you can block all web threats and bad sites. DNS Security helps to prevent those threats. It's also very helpful with Zero-day attacks because DNS Security blocks all DNS requests before any antivirus would know that such requests contain a virus or a threat to your PC or your network."
"I like the sandbox feature, and it's very good. It kills each malware deployment in the sense of signatures within five minutes. So, we can secure our network and infrastructure very well within the stipulated time. The WildFire functionality is very good because a few files are also getting blocked. It's critical as malware attacks are also getting ignored, and the logging is very well maintained in this firewall. The most valuable solutions in this field are application-based firewalls. That is the main criteria of the firewall and functionality. We can get all the logs related to this and each and every packet. I like that the firewall is working as an application. The application-based entity we have deployed is well maintained and working very well. We were able to find lots of vulnerabilities when we deployed it, but we could not disclose all. But there were vulnerabilities we could block by updating the firewall and taking actions on clientside machines. So, we got to know that we have lots of vulnerabilities inside the organization too, and we took lots of steps and resolved the number of vulnerabilities. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is an all-in-one solution. It provides every entity log, which is a very good functionality of this firewall. It gives every packet and aspect that the firewall is performing through its logs, and it does it very well. This firewall's unified platform helped eliminate multiple network security tools. If anyone uses P2P sites, cryptocurrency websites, or any illegal sites, we can block it easily. It gives us a proper alert for these kinds of sites, and it properly secures our network. Monitoring is the best thing we are doing here, and we can block this kind of vulnerability as soon as it comes to us."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"Lacks training for new features."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"The way everything is set up could be easier. Currently, people need a lot of experience and knowledge to administer it and to link it to devices."
"In terms of what could be improved, the SD-WAN is quite difficult, because if you install the new box, 15 is okay, but if you change from an old configuration, if there is already configuration and a policy when you change to SD-WAN, you must change the whole policy that you see in the interface."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"The security is not as strong as it could be"
"The product could incorporate tools like ThousandEyes into the system so we can see things directly."
"More detail needed for configuration of the VPN."
"We feel that Cisco provides smaller features, with fewer possibilities versus other solutions out there."
"They need to improve the link between Meraki and Active Directory."
"Expensive licensing and firewall stops immediately working if the license is not renewed at expiration date."
"I do not have the kind of feature I need for SSL decryption in Meraki MX. It would be great to see the SSL decryption feature in Meraki MX."
"The product is quite complex to set up."
"The solution could offer better pricing. We'd like it if it could be a bit more affordable for us."
"They could improve their support and pricing and maybe integration. It's a little more expensive that Check Point but the quality is better. Integration with firewall endpoints could be better. Palo Alto does have very good malware or antivirus protection. I think they could improve on that front."
"As things are evolving, we want to make sure that Palo Alto is able to keep up with what is going on outside. They should continue to do more intelligence-related enhancements and integrate with some of the other security tools. We want to have a more intelligent toolset down the road."
"The solution has normal authentication, but does not have two-factor or multi-factor authentication. There is room for development there."
"Once in a while, they have new features being released that can be buggy. My criticism is more general to all sorts of network or security devices. In general, everybody is releasing less-tested software. Then, it usually ends up that the first few customers who get a new release need to end up troubleshooting it."
"Everything has been great. More machine learning would be something great to see, but I don't know if it's a priority for Palo Alto."
"The solution doesn't support routing in virtual firewall creation, and we want that to be enabled."
"The VPN connectors should be better. We had some challenges in terms of the VPN with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewall, and that's one of the main reasons why we moved to Sophos. Its load handling can also be improved. There were challenges when traffic was high. During peak business hours, it did not function very well. There was a lot of slowness, and the users used to complain, especially when they were connecting from outside. We even reported this to the support team. Their support should also be improved. Technical support was a bit of a concern while using this solution. We didn't get very good support from the Palo Alto team."
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 59 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 164 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls 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 Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". Meraki MX is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ, Netgate pfSense and SonicWall NSa, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Meraki MX vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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