We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and SonicWall TZ based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Users consider Meraki MX devices to be part of a comprehensive next-generation firewall solution with all the advanced security services required for today’s IT marketplace. They say it is also a robust dynamic Unified Threat Management (UTM) tool. Meraki MX offers zero-touch installation, is cloud-based, and can seamlessly integrate with most of today’s popular platforms. Many users feel SonicWall TZ can be bulky and slow and is lacking some key features.
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"The payment function for applications is good."
"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."
"The solution is extremely reliable."
"The interface is very user-friendly and I like it very much."
"Deployment takes no more than one working day."
"You can use your web browser to do the configuration which is easier than Cisco CLI transcripts."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"Since it has an integrated dashboard for all the products, customers can get complete network analytics regarding what the user is doing, monitoring, and observing."
"Intrusion detection and prevention (IDS/IPS): The best feature. It can detect malware, even a virus, and warn you by email about the device that has it. When the Meraki detects that something is wrong, it automatically blocks the connection or the intrusion, delivering a graphic report with all the necessary content."
"Easy to administer and saves time when you have many smaller locations that you have to manage."
"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."
"Dual WAN connections are greatly simplified and point-to-point VPNs automatically connect regardless of what WAN connection is active."
"It protects against intrusion while allowing needed access."
"Once it's configured properly, the solution is unbreakable."
"The most valuable features are unified threat management which provides security intelligence and the VPN for both site-to-site and remote access."
"The stability is very nice."
"Good VPN connection."
"It lets me monitor in live time if someone is 'hogging' bandwidth."
"We are very much happy with the support."
"The product is easy to deploy."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"The pricing could always be better."
"We can’t access GUI management and CLI opening features when the Internet is unavailable."
"Meraki has some hidden features and information that is only privy to their engineers. If that information became available to us, then it would improve our ease of management, and we would be able to make certain adjustments instead of having to go to them."
"MX can only be managed via a web interface, but I'm accustomed to using a CLI or a graphical interface. I would also like to see more reporting features. It doesn't provide enough information for me to know precisely about some clients."
"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."
"Expensive licensing and firewall stops immediately working if the license is not renewed at expiration date."
"From the improvement perspective, we need more monitoring capabilities. We want to have full-based access visibility, such as, what is happening when something is trying to reach and it is denying. We cannot see some parts of it. The integration of active directory with this product is not very fruitful. It has some bugs or lacks in the functionality of active directory integration. We are unable to identify where exactly and whether it has really applied our policy."
"The product doesn't support route summarization and BGP dynamic routing protocol."
"FortiGate is cheaper than Meraki. Even the license renewal is less than Meraki."
"I currently have two of the issues from SonicWall. One issue is that the IP is not the public IP. Sometimes it moves to an alternate source and I have to refresh the new IP then we can go on."
"We have been facing issues with reporting."
"It could be made more user friendly."
"The solution's pricing could be made cheaper."
"There can be an improvement in analysis and reporting. We need enhancement on the reporting side."
"Its reporting can be improved. Currently, we cannot directly get the user names. It only shows the IP, which makes it a bit confusing because we need to use the IP to find the user. If we could directly get the name of the user, it would be better."
"The dashboard needs to be improved."
"We encounter issues while generating new reports."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 59 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while SonicWall TZ is rated 8.0. 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 SonicWall TZ writes "Has efficient user access control feature and good technical support services ". Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense and SonicWall NSa, whereas SonicWall TZ is most compared with Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, SonicWall NSa, WatchGuard Firebox and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Meraki MX vs. SonicWall TZ report.
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