We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series 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 IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"The GUI is good."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a security device. It can optimize security on the networks of a company. It actually protects the company from attacks from outside. With FortiGate, you can categorize the users. You can create a group of users that can access all of the websites for their work. You can limit other users' access."
"The wireless control is helpful."
"Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"It's very easy to configure."
"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."
"They have very good technical support and I have relied heavily on them."
"The internet traffic shaping has been very valuable."
"A strong, reliable solution for small companies with little or no dedicated IT department."
"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."
"It is very easy to use and manage. It is also very easy to scale."
"The simplicity of configuration is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"It has the ability to create Palo Alto VM-series using software."
"It is reliable and the support is very good."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series's most valuable feature is the visibility of the environment."
"A solid operating system with all the necessary data center security features."
"It is nice to have a rock solid security platform that we can count on."
"It allows us to see all our traffic to properly secure it and only allow what is needed through the firewall."
"With the improved visibility we now have, the traffic is being properly monitored, which means that we are better able to manage it. These are improvements that we saw very quickly."
"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"Application management can be improved."
"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."
"I would like to see a more intuitive dashboard."
"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license. There must be some of kind synergy between the license so we don't have to pay for every individual license that we would like to have."
"The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI."
"FortiGate is cheaper than Meraki. Even the license renewal is less than Meraki."
"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."
"Meraki MX firewalls are great for small to medium-sized businesses, but other solutions are better for enterprise-sized companies."
"The configuration options for firewall and IPS have limitations."
"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."
"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."
"I need more UTM protection security features."
"More detail needed for configuration of the VPN."
"Recently, they introduced their Prisma Cloud solution. Compared to the previous technologies, like Panorama, which is used for centralized firewall management, or even the individual firewalls, it's a bit challenging to integrate the traditional firewall policies into Prisma Cloud."
"We have run into some issues with scaling and limitations associated with some of the configurations."
"All areas need improvement: manufacturing, education, financial, etc."
"Just sometimes it can be a bit sluggish navigating through pages. That is just purely because of Java."
"I would like a way to do everything programmatically, or be able to copy the configs from different prices at different levels."
"We feel that the setup was complex. So, we asked the tech team about the setup process. They explained how to deploy it in the right way, which made it very simple."
"It would be good if the common features work consistently in physical and virtual environments. There was an integration issue in the virtual deployment where it didn't report the interface counters, and we had to upgrade to the latest version, whereas the same thing has been working in the physical deployment for ages now. It seems that it was because of Azure. We were using VMware before, and we didn't have any such issues. We do see such small issues where we expect things to work, but they don't because of some incompatibilities. There also seems to be a limitation on how to do high availability in a virtualized environment. All features should be consistently available in physical and virtual environments. It is not always easy to integrate Palo Alto in the network management system. We would like to be able to compare two network management systems. They can maybe allow monitoring an interface through the GUI to create a reference or do a baseline check about whether your network monitoring system is actually giving you the correct traffic figures. You need traffic figures to be able to recognize the trends and plan the capacity."
"The solution must improve Zero Trust integration and use cases."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 59 reviews while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 53 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series 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 VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and Netgate pfSense, whereas Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Sophos UTM. See our Meraki MX vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series report.
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