We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and WatchGuard Firebox based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, both solutions received similar ratings in all categories.
"Unified Threat Management (UTM) features."
"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."
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"It is easy to use and performs very well."
"It blocks the vulnerabilities that can negatively impact us."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"We can use our devices to check all of the perimeters. It secures email websites."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"Ease of management is the best thing about the solution."
"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."
"It has a helpful feature for database troubleshooting issues."
"We've had no issues with the scalability or the stability of this solution"
"I think cloud management is key. The cloud management and support are the two things that make the product great."
"In a week, we can make new policy and view what all our users did."
"The features we have found most valuable are the firewall and the monitoring tools."
"The simplicity of configuration is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"The product's usability is good. It is straightforward and simple. One of the benefits is that it is easy to navigate and intuitive."
"It saves us time in the respect that we now have the template built for it so we can get in and get it done. We've had much less problem supporting Voice over IP technologies from different companies. Because our client base has grown over the years, we're probably saving 20 to 30 man-hours a month now that we've got this on a good stable level."
"The most valuables feature of WatchGuard Firebox are the VPNs, and web filtering where we can stop users from going to malicious sites."
"One of my favorite features is the Geolocation service, where you can actually block specific activity or IP addresses registered to certain countries. For example, I don't want any web traffic from Russia or North Korea. I may even lock down certain policies down to 'I only want U.S. IP addresses.' I find that very useful."
"It protects me against malicious websites, as well as malicious downloads, as a perimeter anti-virus. I've also seen it blocking a lot of pings and different probes."
"WatchGuard has a very easy VPN and branch office VPN setup, so we use those pretty extensively."
"One of the most valuable features is the Geolocation. Because we aren't a multinational corporation, it allows me to look at things which might be suspicious to make sure that they are legitimate transactions rather than people sniffing around the network."
"What I found most valuable in WatchGuard Firebox is that it's a functional platform that works, and each of its features works well. The solution also has good reporting and dashboard capabilities. I also find the overall performance of WatchGuard Firebox great."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"The pricing could always be better."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"There are SD-WAN network monitoring, SD-WAN features, Industrial Databases, Internet of Things, Detection, etc., however, we do have not licenses for those features. We thought that if you bought a product, you should have all of the features it offers. Why should you need to make so many extra purchases to enable features? They should have one price for the entire offering."
"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."
"Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement."
"We would like to see a better training platform implemented."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"It would be great if the Meraki devices let us see, in real time, the internet demand on a single device."
"The product could incorporate tools like ThousandEyes into the system so we can see things directly."
"I need more UTM protection security features."
"Pricing is an area where the solution lacks since it is an expensive tool."
"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."
"They need to improve the link between Meraki and Active Directory."
"The problem is that the two licenses do not currently integrate. We have to create separate companies and do an interconnection."
"Meraki MX can come across as an expensive solution."
"I would like to have a little more control over access points and the ability to see the bandwidth that is passing through a specific access point. We are not able to see that. We can see what traffic is passing through the Firebox itself, but we can't identify if it is coming from a particular access point or not."
"An area for improvement is that when we use a web administration link, there is no security."
"The documentation for the System Manager/Dimension configuration, could be a little bit clearer... The use case where you have multiple sites with multiple firewalls, and one site that has the System Manager server and the Dimension server, wasn't really well defined. It took me a little bit of digging to get that to actually work."
"The level of support from WatchGuard is not as good."
"The solution's pricing could be improved."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say their web blocker feature. It is still quite a confusing setup, especially when you want to filter out a particular category for granularity. For example, you do not want to filter Facebook but you do want to filter Facebook games only. It can be done, but the process to do it is very confusing."
"Firebox would be improved with integration for endpoint protection solutions."
"There is room for improvement in the threat protection, data packet inspection, and performance of the solution. Generally, it's just a lower-end product. It does the job but doesn't do it very well."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 59 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 4th in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 79 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while WatchGuard Firebox 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 WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and Check Point NGFW, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Meraki MX vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
See our list of best Unified Threat Management (UTM) vendors and best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Unified Threat Management (UTM) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
