We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and Sophos XGS 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 most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"FortiGate SD-WAN facilitated a smooth transition for our customers between their two internet service providers, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity without any downtime."
"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"Ease of management is the best thing about the solution."
"I like the automatic firmware updates. We use the Active Directory to authenticate VPN users."
"I love the simplicity of Meraki MX — specifically, the simplicity of the dashboard."
"Intrusion detection and prevention (IDS/IPS): The best feature. It can detect malware, even a virus, and warn you by email about the device that has it. When the Meraki detects that something is wrong, it automatically blocks the connection or the intrusion, delivering a graphic report with all the necessary content."
"It is very easy to use and manage. It is also very easy to scale."
"They have very good technical support and I have relied heavily on them."
"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."
"It's flexible, easy to configure, and easy to manage."
"The solution is cost-effective and easy to manage."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos XGS is the application control."
"The most valuable features of Sophos XGS are a set of functionalities that are quite commendable, they call it synchronized security, where all the solutions share defense lines with each other."
"The scalability of Sophos XGS is very good."
"All the features are valuable, in my opinion, but for us the most important features are the network security, application control, and web server protection. Sophos Sandstorm is another good feature off the top of my head."
"Spam filtering is what I love most about XGS."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"I would like to see improvements in the support from Fortinet. Here in the Philippines, whenever we have problems with a Fortinet product, we mostly ask for support from distributors and resellers and not directly from Fortinet."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"It needs more available central management."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"FortiGate is cheaper than Meraki. Even the license renewal is less than Meraki."
"We have been having a problem with the VPN. When the energy goes down and is back again, the VPN link doesn't get established. We have to manually turn off the modems and other pieces of equipment and manually establish the VPN. It has been around one month since we have been having this problem, and we don't have enough support from Meraki to solve the problem."
"What I would like to see in the next version is to have more interfaces for WAN links."
"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."
"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."
"You cannot use switching behaviors as you see on the Meraki switch."
"Meraki tech support staff have a lot more visibility into your network than you do, which is frustrating at times. I understand the approach is to keep the dashboard easier to understand. This will frustrate more advanced users at times."
"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."
"I recommend Sophos increase the user capacity of the firewall by 1.5 times. For example, say the firewall can accommodate 1,000 users now, then it should handle a load of 1,500 users."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"It would be good if we could do dual customization."
"In my view, Sophos operates effectively in a reactive mode, focusing on static detection and forwarding traffic. However, Fortinet takes a more proactive approach, blocking both connection and route connections. While Sophos forwards any connection in both inbound and outbound traffic, I believe this is a positive aspect, especially in a country with various sizing considerations. This is my perspective, emphasizing the significance of Sophos XGS in software work."
"The reporting could be better."
"They should customers who are facing issues with their product reviews; they found bots in it. If they can do their proper research and use the user analysis and testing, that would greatly help the clients."
"Reporting could be improved. The structure could be better because most of the reports aren't detailed."
"In future releases, this solution could have more graphical elements on the dashboard to make it easier to understand."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 57 reviews while Sophos XGS is ranked 17th in Firewalls with 58 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while Sophos XGS 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 Sophos XGS writes "Easy to use, simple to learn, and offers great reporting". Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and OPNsense, whereas Sophos XGS is most compared with Sophos XG, OPNsense, Netgate pfSense, WatchGuard Firebox and Sophos UTM. See our Meraki MX vs. Sophos XGS report.
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