We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The main difference between the two solutions is that Meraki MX is expensive, while pfSense is an open-source solution and is free of charge. In addition, Meraki’s monitoring capabilities could use improvement.
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Quota."
"The cloud management system is really valuable."
"It's flexible, easy to configure, and easy to manage."
"It is a robust SD-WAN solution."
"I like the automatic firmware updates. We use the Active Directory to authenticate VPN users."
"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."
"In a week, we can make new policy and view what all our users did."
"When you try to create an IP or when you have an alert about when a website is banned, these features are helpful."
"Deployment takes no more than one working day."
"It works. I put pfSense in, and it works. I can't think of any trouble I ever had with it. It runs on heat-sensitive appliances. They don't need a fan, so they don't overheat. It is affordable, fast, and very high-speed. It is built on BSD Unix, and it pretty much runs on any Intel processor."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"It's a good solution for end-users. It's pretty easy to work with."
"For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"The VPN is my favorite feature."
"What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"There is one big configuration file with no separations for the unique VDOMs. Maybe they could separate individual VDOM configuration files with the root VDOM configuration file referencing the individual VDOM config files."
"In the next release, because the security is pretty basic, I think they could include additional security features."
"It would be nice to get detailed logging information without third-party software."
"The only stability issue is in Content Filtering. Sometimes we need to report these types of issues to Cisco support."
"It would be nice if the different services, including the SIEM SOC and endpoint detection and response (EDR) were integrated into one, so that I don't have to go to different vendors for different services."
"We had minor issues with Meraki MX. We had a couple of RMAs, so that could be an area for improvement, but in terms of how the RMAs went, the turnaround time and getting those back into redeployment were quick. Another area for improvement in Meraki MX is that when you're scaling for multiple locations, you need to use the same model, but the model you'd need is only available for a short time. The specific model you require could be out of stock, or Meraki isn't making that model anymore, so Meraki should improve that."
"We do not have account managers in our region for the solution. Some governments don't use the product since it is attached to the internet."
"The product could incorporate tools like ThousandEyes into the system so we can see things directly."
"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."
"Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great."
"User interface is a little clumsy."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"Also, the GUI is helpful, but it's not user-friendly. It's complicated. It should be more intuitive for the average user and have an excellent graphical view. Of course, the user will typically know about network administration, but it still should be easy to understand."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"If you want to take advantage of all of the solution's options, you need to have a bit of a technical background. It's not for a layperson."
"There is more demand for UTMs than a simple firewall. pfSense should support real-time features for handling the latest viruses and threats. It should support real-time checks and real-time status of threats. Some other vendors, such as Fortinet, already offer this type of capability. Such capability will be good for bringing pfSense at the same level as other solutions."
"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 58 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while Netgate pfSense 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and SonicWall NSa, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Stormshield Network Security. See our Meraki MX vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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