We performed a comparison between Azure 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."The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."
"The pipe filter application is an outstanding feature."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiGate are the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and firewall control applications."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"The security on offer is very good."
"The solution can autoscale."
"I can easily configure it."
"In terms of the reporting, it's beautiful. It integrates with Azure monitoring and with Azure policies. That piece is a big help. You can set governing policies and you can use the application firewall, as well as the Azure Firewall, to enforce those policies."
"Network filtering is valuable. The scalability capability from the cloud-native service helps us a lot because it simplifies our day-to-day maintenance activity."
"The solution should be capable of self-scaling, which is one of the features we like about it."
"Microsoft's technical support is very good. They're quite knowledgable and responsive."
"One of the notable advantages of Azure Firewall is its user-friendly interface, which closely resembles or shares similarities with other Azure components."
"Azure Firewall is a cloud-native solution that removes the pain of load balancers."
"Meraki MX has been a stable solution so far, and I haven't faced any issues with it."
"Real Auto VPN with load balancer without needing a public IP. It is simple and functional."
"We switched to Meraki because it lets you see what's happening in your LAN and WAN in a graphic and web environment."
"You can use your web browser to do the configuration which is easier than Cisco CLI transcripts."
"Deployment takes no more than one working day."
"The internet traffic shaping has been very valuable."
"It's flexible, easy to configure, and easy to manage."
"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."
"Application management can be improved."
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"The solution doesn't offer the same capabilities of Fortinet. It should offer intrusion prevention and advance filtering. These are two very useful features offered on Fortinet that Azure lacks."
"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."
"The solution lacks artificial intelligence and machine learning. It might be in the roadmap. However, currently, it's not available."
"Azure should be able to work better as a balancer also, instead of just being a firewall. It should have a wider mandate."
"The threat intelligence part could be better. I don't see why our customers have to get an additional solution with Azure Firewall. It would be great if they made it on par with Palo Alto."
"For larger enterprises, they need to adjust the scalability."
"The tool needs to improve the onboarding and transition process for on-prem users."
"For large organizations, a third-party firewall would be an added advantage, because it would have more advanced features, things that are not in Azure Firewall."
"More detail needed for configuration of the VPN."
"You can only have one tunnel in the whole infrastructure — one tunnel with one device."
"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."
"Management can be improved in Meraki MX."
"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."
"In general, the SD-WAN feature needs to be improved. The load sharing and load balancing of the traffic should be improved. I have had some problems with these features in the past."
"Meraki MX can come across as an expensive solution."
"They're very complacent and I find the rule set to be a little arcane."
Azure Firewall is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 60 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Meraki MX is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Azure Firewall writes "Easy to use and configure but could be more robust". 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". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and Check Point NGFW, whereas Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and Sophos UTM. See our Azure Firewall vs. Meraki MX report.
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