We performed a comparison between Barracuda CloudGen Firewall and Meraki MX based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."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."
"The solution is very user friendly. The user interface in particular is quite nice."
"The most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."
"The SD-WAN feature is the most valuable. This feature evolved from link load balancing. It has helped us in terms of our uptime and privatizing applications whenever we experience an outage. The SD-WAN feature has been a plus for us. Two-factor authentication has allowed us to add more users in terms of remote working. We have two-factor authentication for remote workers to authenticate them before they get on the network."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"Good load balancing feature."
"The wireless control is helpful."
"Most people are using enterprise applications remotely, and there is no license for SSL VPN, or in other words point-to-site. There is no limit on that. On other devices there is a specific limit and you have to pay per use for SSL VPN."
"If an employee tries to get or move a file that is not permitted to them - for example if he wants to copy it to a USB - he will not have the right to do that, because Barracuda manages who has the right to copy, and what you copy to a USB. The USB is encrypted with a specific code from Barracuda and will only be decrypted into any other laptop in the company if they allow it to see it."
"Inbound and outbound traffic analysis, rule creation wizard, and the GUI portal are among the key features."
"Its stability and SD-WAN features are the most valuable."
"It provides a lot of functionality adhering to the current trends."
"Add-on features such as Virus Scanning, ATP, and web filtering add another level of protection and block malware before it gets to the end user."
"Single sign-on is also good. If you are accessing your corporate firewall from your home, during that time there is integration with AD. You can use your AD password to access your SSL VPN. It's not like if you buy an additional SSL VPN... You can directly integrate with your AD. If you change your password on the AD side, your client-to-VPN password also gets changed. You can integrate all your passwords from a single console. It's not like admin has to change your password, it's a single sign-on."
"Live monitoring of what is happening inside and on the interfaces, either ingress or egress."
"I love the simplicity of Meraki MX — specifically, the simplicity of the dashboard."
"We work also with domain control (DC) from Microsoft or Amazon. We use a whole virtual appliance with Meraki."
"A strong, reliable solution for small companies with little or no dedicated IT department."
"We switched to Meraki because it lets you see what's happening in your LAN and WAN in a graphic and web environment."
"It is very fast to implement."
"Real Auto VPN with load balancer without needing a public IP. It is simple and functional."
"Meraki makes it easy to be secure and know where the holes are to fix them. We have been fixing anything that we have ever found for 20 years. We keep up-to-date with firmware upgrades. We just try to stay on top of everything for security, like maintaining updates and getting rid of old systems. I feel like we're on top of it."
"It prevents us from being hacked and delivers information about who and where the attack came from."
"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve the integration with Active Directory. Additionally, I would like to have a Cloud Controller, such as they do in the Cisco Meraki solution."
"I feel that the reporting needs to be improved."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"The scalability could be better."
"Its customer service could be better."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"The biggest issue that I have with this solution is that it is not super intuitive. Once you know what to do, things make sense, but you can't just open the program and start doing things. It would be great if there was a little bit more guided usage inside the program."
"Barracuda CloudGen Firewall should work a little bit more with the logs so that, in our company, we can generate a little bit more reports and get a bit more statistics, which would be fine for us."
"The biggest downside is that it is quite an expensive product."
"There is room for improvement in performance and the support language. The support they're providing right now is from a different country, and in our country, there are people—network admins and IT heads—who don't speak English properly. So Barracuda needs to provide support agents who speak additional languages, such as Bangla."
"Sometimes we have a need for detailed reports. Barracuda NG Firewall does not have a reports module and uses a satellite application."
"The analytics are weak."
"Its interface could be better."
"We would like to see a solution that is focused on container deployment, which is very important right now."
"I do not have the kind of feature I need for SSL decryption in Meraki MX. It would be great to see the SSL decryption feature in Meraki MX."
"They need to improve the link between Meraki and Active Directory."
"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."
"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 IPS, the Intrusion Prevention System, can be improved."
"Management can be improved in Meraki MX."
"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 whole Cisco Meraki range requires easier access for cameras. For a security center, it would be helpful to have easier access to cameras through the portal. Its licensing cost could also be better."
Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is ranked 26th in Firewalls with 35 reviews while Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 59 reviews. Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is rated 8.2, while Meraki MX is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall writes "Feature-rich, robust, and easy to set up". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Meraki MX writes "Cost-effective, simplified, easy to manage, and reliable with advanced security features and granular visibility". Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and Sophos UTM, whereas Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and Netgate pfSense. See our Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. Meraki MX report.
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