We performed a comparison between Hillstone E-Series 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."The solution is stable."
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"We use the filtering feature the most. It has filtering and inbuilt securities. We can create customized rules to define which users can access a particular type of site. We can create policies inside the firewall."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good."
"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."
"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."
"The installation is easy, we have not had any complaints from our customers."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients a secure connectivity."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It only took a few hours to deploy."
"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."
"Five out of five ROI."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"The features we have found most valuable are the firewall and the monitoring tools."
"We've had no issues with the scalability or the stability of this solution"
"Managed centrally over the web: You can manages all your Meraki devices in a single account."
"The security level of our organization has changed by using Meraki MX Firewalls. We didn't have the UTM before, but now we have sandboxing, tray scanning, attack preventions and monitorization. Our security level has improved."
"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."
"To me, the analytics feature is one of the most valuable in Meraki MX. I also find that it has good usability as it's cloud-based. Another valuable feature of Meraki MX is that it's simple to use and it's user-friendly."
"I use Meraki in my POCs and with my customers as well."
"The product is quite secure, easy to manage, and well-connected with other devices."
"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"The visibility of the network can be better. The GUI can be improved for better visibility of the network flow. Other solutions have better GUI in terms of network visibility."
"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."
"When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"The current usage reporting is very basic."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"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."
"Meraki has some hidden features and information that is only privy to their engineers. If that information became available to us, then it would improve our ease of management, and we would be able to make certain adjustments instead of having to go to them."
"Management can be improved in Meraki MX."
"The client-side VPN is weak. The product could be improved with deployment templates."
"They need to improve the link between Meraki and Active Directory."
"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."
"You can only have one tunnel in the whole infrastructure — one tunnel with one device."
"The IPS, the Intrusion Prevention System, can be improved."
Hillstone E-Series is ranked 33rd in Firewalls with 9 reviews while Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 57 reviews. Hillstone E-Series is rated 9.0, while Meraki MX is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Hillstone E-Series writes "A user-friendly and marketable solution with a virtual switching capability". 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". Hillstone E-Series is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, OpenVPN Access Server, Netgate pfSense and A10 Networks Thunder CFW, whereas Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and Netgate pfSense. See our Hillstone E-Series vs. Meraki MX report.
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