We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW and Meraki MX 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."The initial setup is straightforward."
"The solution is scalable."
"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"I appreciate FortiGate's flexibility, which allows for centralized management through FortiManager."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."
"It is easy to use. We chose this product for the possibility to have virtual domains (VDOMs). We are building another company in the group, and we would like to split the firewalling rules and policies between these two companies. Each company would be able to manage its own policies and security rules, which is an advantage of Fortinet FortiGate. We can define VDOMs, and every company can manage its own VDOM as if it has its own physical firewall, but in fact, we would be using the same physical appliance because we are also using the same internet lines. So, it allows us to reuse the existing resources without the disadvantage of having to compromise on policies and security. Each company can choose its own way of working."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"The Check Point API let me make 100 net rules in just 10 minutes, which saved us time."
"We do not have any problems with stability."
"On the firewall side, the security efficacy is good."
"Now we can add application signature in the same rule base & don't have to create a different policy for that."
"We use Check Point to complete the network compliance rules."
"One of the most valuable features is performance improvement, wherewith ClusterXL and CoreXL, you can improve performance."
"We never had an outage of the appliances or the consoles. Stability is very strong. I never had a problem related to stability."
"We are delighted with the powerful management console and diagnostic tools."
"When you try to create an IP or when you have an alert about when a website is banned, these features are helpful."
"Meraki MX offers advanced filtration options, plus it behaves like a router and a firewall at the same time."
"Easy to deploy with a simple configuration."
"The dashboard is very intuitive and easy to understand."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"A strong, reliable solution for small companies with little or no dedicated IT department."
"We switched to Meraki because it lets you see what's happening in your LAN and WAN in a graphic and web environment."
"You can use your web browser to do the configuration which is easier than Cisco CLI transcripts."
"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more capabilities for troubleshooting VPN connections. For example, I do get some feedback about the current status, but I could use some history and logging of important events. The information is logged in our Syslog server, but I could use that information from the device. If they could provide a GUI to have some more insight on what's going with my VPN would be useful."
"The main thing for a normal operations guy who is creating tools and firewalls, it is quite difficult to manage. It requires an expert level of knowledge in Check Point products to manage these scalable platform appliances and the virtual firewall that comes with it. We have to educate our guys and give them training on a regular basis to work on these products."
"I still don't have access to the reporting service."
"The product could provide an easier user interface and management, by combining all functions (network and policy configuration) into one single application rather than split it into different applications."
"The upgrade is something we would like to be improved in the future as the frequency of hotfixes is too much, and by the time we finish the one round, we already have the new version released and are required to upgrade."
"Check Point solutions have always been more complex to deploy than their competitors."
"It's too expensive for mid-market companies."
"The need to offer scheduled policy pushes in Smart Console."
"Internet load balancing provides either active/passive or active/active load balancing, however, I would like to see more options that provide SD-WAN capabilities while also allowing for more than two links."
"The product is quite complex to set up."
"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."
"Load balancing options and ability to manage a couple of Internet connections."
"Right now, you can postpone the update but eventually, if you don't do the update, it will install the updates automatically for you and that's something that is not working for me."
"You can only have one tunnel in the whole infrastructure — one tunnel with one device."
"It would be great if the Meraki devices let us see, in real time, the internet demand on a single device."
"The only stability issue is in Content Filtering. Sometimes we need to report these types of issues to Cisco support."
"They need to improve the link between Meraki and Active Directory."
Check Point NGFW doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 277 reviews while Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 58 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Meraki MX is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Check Point NGFW writes "Good antivirus protection and URL filtering with very good user identification capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Meraki MX writes "Cost-effective, simplified, easy to manage, and reliable with advanced security features and granular visibility". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and Sophos XGS. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Meraki MX report.
See our list of best Unified Threat Management (UTM) vendors and best Firewalls vendors.
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