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.
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"You can purchase switches and you don't need to do anything with them. You just put in the firewall and the switches get all the policies and rules that you already have in the firewall. With Fortinet, you just connect the FortiSwitch to the Fortinet and that's it."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."
"The solution can scale well."
"You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances."
"The most valuable features are the policies, filtering, and configuration."
"I like the automatic firmware updates. We use the Active Directory to authenticate VPN users."
"Easy to deploy with a simple configuration."
"The most valuable feature is that we didn't have any problems with Meraki MX."
"The dashboard is very intuitive and easy to understand."
"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 is a robust SD-WAN solution."
"Dual WAN connections are greatly simplified and point-to-point VPNs automatically connect regardless of what WAN connection is active."
"We work also with domain control (DC) from Microsoft or Amazon. We use a whole virtual appliance with Meraki."
"Its user interface and simplicity are the most favorite parts for our clients. They find it stable and easy to use. Its performance is also good."
"The most valuable feature of SonicWall TZ is the double authentication, where it asks for one password and again asks for a four-digit code, which changes every 30 seconds."
"SonicWall TZ is very user-friendly and has network MAC binding. Additionally, the firewall works well."
"I find the security we are able to do with the policies to be valuable. The monitoring is valuable as well."
"The product is easy to deploy."
"With the main firewall routing there, we can do connectivity point-to-point. On the low bandwidth we can connect in all the branches with my corporate office."
"I've found the technical support to be helpful."
"They give good protection to my network and support it."
"The search tool needs improvement. It's very difficult to search for policies right now."
"The logging details need to be improved."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. However, my issue is the performance only. When I use all the profiles, this affects the performance. From the beginning, I should have had a better sizing of the box."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"Usually, we sell the bundle with the UTM or threat management piece with IPS, IDS. Other providers, such as Palo Alto, are ahead in terms of safe functionality. So, for me, delivering truly safe service is probably something that still needs to be improved."
"Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"The current lead time is longer for Meraki MX, and it needs to be improved."
"The product is quite complex to set up."
"When we do API integrations with Meraki, they have always been hard as well as tedious to build. The data that we want out of the API integrations has been only recently available. Six months ago, it was hard to get someone to build something correctly or useful with Meraki APIs. Recently, they have made more data available on the API, but it is just a start. They need to do more."
"Meraki MX can come across as an expensive solution."
"It would be nice to get detailed logging information without third-party software."
"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."
"Pricing is an area where the solution lacks since it is an expensive tool."
"The product could incorporate tools like ThousandEyes into the system so we can see things directly."
"We require centralized monitoring of the network features, which they have but they are not to the level that we require."
"FortiGate has a client DNS in the firewall, but SonicWall doesn't have that. To create or configure a site-to-site VPN tunnel, we have to give a DNS name. Currently, we have to get the DNS name from a third party and then include it in SonicWall, whereas FortiGate has its own client DNS, so it provides a DNS name, and it does not require a third party. There should be a graphical option to view the network utilization and bandwidth usage."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"The small business line has less PPS throughput."
"I would like the solution to build in more redundancy. I"
"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."
"Full monitoring obviously needs to be improved. We need full monitoring covered under the security licensing."
"The solution must provide more ports."
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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