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.
"FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls."
"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."
"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a security device. It can optimize security on the networks of a company. It actually protects the company from attacks from outside. With FortiGate, you can categorize the users. You can create a group of users that can access all of the websites for their work. You can limit other users' access."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"It is quite easy to handle."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"The product is quite secure, easy to manage, and well-connected with other devices."
"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."
"Deployment takes no more than one working day."
"It has very good features; it's easy to use, configure, set up, and deploy."
"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."
"Very easy to use and navigate."
"I love the simplicity of Meraki MX — specifically, the simplicity of the dashboard."
"It is very easy to use and manage. It is also very easy to scale."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"The intrusion detection feature is the most valuable. It is an open-source firewall, so there is a lot of material on it. I also find the open VPN capability very nice. It is pretty customizable. The clustering and the high availability are the two biggest things to be able to get out of a firewall."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"It has a good web cache. I used to use a DHCP server and DNS server. For my company, I use pfSense as a load balancing application."
"I use pfSense because it gives me the flexibility to greatly expand basic firewall features."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"Fortinet could improve the windows opener or the virtual IP solutions for opening windows. The virtual IP settings need improvement as firewalls are trending in new development directions."
"Its customer service could be better."
"The pricing could be reduced or include the first year warranty."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"Meraki MX can come across as an expensive solution."
"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."
"The only stability issue is in Content Filtering. Sometimes we need to report these types of issues to Cisco support."
"You cannot use switching behaviors as you see on the Meraki switch."
"In the next release, because the security is pretty basic, I think they could include additional security features."
"It would be great if the Meraki devices let us see, in real time, the internet demand on a single device."
"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 configuration options for firewall and IPS have limitations."
"It could use a little bit of improvement in the reporting."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"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."
"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."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"It requires more attention to provide a better alternative for open source to small government or educational institutions with reduced budgets in terms of technology."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
"It's just not listed as FIPS compliant for where we're at now in government, which is an issue."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 57 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, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Zyxel Unified Security Gateway. See our Meraki MX vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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