We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and SonicWall NSa based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Meraki MX has a slight edge in this comparison. Unlike SonicWall NSa, its users report a proven ROI.
"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."
"It is useful for protecting and segregating the internal networks from the internet. Most of our customers also use the FortiGate client to connect to their offices by using the VPN client, and of course, they usually activate the antivirus, deep inspection, and intrusion prevention services. They are also using it for web filtering and implementing various policies dealing with forwardings, NAT, etc."
"Easy to implement, and it is also reliable."
"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."
"It is a safe product."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"The technical support people from Meraki are brilliant."
"Deployment takes no more than one working day."
"It has the most advanced security features, for example, layer 3 and layer 7 firewall capabilities and the end team and IPS protection. It also has IPS, and it has very good functioning of cloning services. You don't actually have to touch the device. If you have multiple companies in different countries, you don't really require this device to be touched. You can get it delivered directly to any office of a country, and then you can simply put your configuration over the cloud. It's very simplified and easy to manage. It gives a very good granular visibility about your network. Earlier, a lot of things were lacking in the network. We were unable to identify where the problem was, but after implementing Meraki MX, we are able to dig down and identify where is the problem. We can easily and quickly identify the sources and the root causes of the issues."
"The most valuable feature of Meraki MX is I can manage the solution from anywhere remotely, I can throttle bandwidth, and create all rules. Additionally, it is secure for our customers."
"I think cloud management is key. The cloud management and support are the two things that make the product great."
"It is very fast to implement."
"Easy to administer and saves time when you have many smaller locations that you have to manage."
"The most valuable feature I've found is VPN and web protection, particularly with navigation assessment. We use the application control feature to create rules controlling specific application navigation."
"The product is working okay. The product is working feature-wise."
"It has good reporting, the reporting is marvelous."
"The features I found most valuable are email security and web filtering."
"Sometimes I have some queries, and the SonicWall support team resolves my queries."
"SonicWall's sales support is much better than other vendors'."
"SD-WAN is a good feature."
"Our old firewall was running as HA (High Availability) on two different but identical rack mounted servers. Moving to SonicWall allowed the company to move to one unit, yet accommodate more connections because it had sixteen ports and handled fail-over better than the old firewall solution."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"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."
"It would be nice to get detailed logging information without third-party software."
"I need more UTM protection security features."
"In the next release, because the security is pretty basic, I think they could include additional security features."
"As far as what needs to be improved — nothing really comes to mind. It does what we need it to do."
"Meraki MX firewalls are great for small to medium-sized businesses, but other solutions are better for enterprise-sized companies."
"The product is quite complex to set up."
"They are not ready for managed security services. Their Cloud GMS product is weak, barely out of beta (buggy)."
"Needs a more detailed reporting feature."
"We also use the Sophos Firewall for web configuration, which we don't have in SonicWall. Only Sophos has those options. If SonicWall included that feature, that would be a benefit for us."
"The problem primarily with SonicWall is it's a Unix box. And it's all software, all the activities, blocking, censoring, everything has to happen in the software. If you start hitting the box with a lot of sessions it slows down and that's not what I expect from a firewall."
"Having to deal with too many lower-level people in technical support means that it takes longer to resolve issues, so escalating support tickets should be faster."
"We have used other solutions such as pfSense and Linux native firewalls. I prefer SonicWall NSa but if you are going to use something for an enterprise you need another solution."
"The ongoing service fees are high."
"The implementation for VLANs is a little bit cumbersome. It would be good to make that a little bit easier."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 59 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. 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 NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Meraki MX vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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