We performed a comparison between Check Point CloudGuard Network Security and Meraki MX based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Unified Threat Management (UTM) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."FortiGate SD-WAN facilitated a smooth transition for our customers between their two internet service providers, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity without any downtime."
"We've found the solution to be pretty stable."
"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"We use a lot of function on the IPS and it works well for us."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"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 usage in general is pretty good."
"The VPN is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature for me is that you have just one license. You can test and implement everything you need with one license. You do not need to pay for separate module licenses when you want IPS or other features."
"It really is a pretty complete solution."
"The comprehensiveness of the CloudGuard’s threat prevention security is great, especially once they integrate Dome9 in the whole thing. That really ties the whole thing together, so you can tie your entire cloud environment together into one central location, which is nice. Previously, we had three or four different tools that we were trying to leverage to do the same stuff that we are able to do with CloudGuard."
"We find all the features valuable, particularly the firewall, application control, URL filtering, and HTTPS detection."
"The tool's most valuable features are IPS and blades. These features are valuable for security."
"We find Check Point valuable because they are 100% focused on security. It totally closes the potential vulnerability channel. We can check our mail and our attachments and we can scan everything easily. We get an immediate report about the situation of the attachments. We can discover if the target's security attack was started from phishing, etc. We also enjoy using the additional features that protect our internal customer from targeted attacks."
"Check Point CloudGuard technical support is good."
"The most valuable feature is the centralized dashboard, which is used for managing all of the Check Point Security Gateways."
"Simple to manage."
"The dashboard is very intuitive and easy to understand."
"MX is easy to manage, configure and install."
"We switched to Meraki because it lets you see what's happening in your LAN and WAN in a graphic and web environment."
"The most valuable feature is that we didn't have any problems with Meraki MX."
"Its ease of configuration and management is very useful for us and for other companies that don't have an onsite IT person. It is easy to configure and easy to manage. It is easy to configure the VPN with the Auto VPN feature."
"I think cloud management is key. The cloud management and support are the two things that make the product great."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate should improve the VPN tokens."
"One area for improvement is the performance on bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"The solution needs to improve its integration with cybersecurity."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"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."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"The support we receive when we need to upgrade is not satisfactory and has room for improvement."
"It can be difficult to install properly without prior training"
"For major upgrades, it's still necessary to destroy the VMs and re-create them again. Doing that would mean new public IPs as well."
"They are coming out with more SD-WAN express route support from a firewall perspective. That would be great."
"Most clients nowadays tend to move to the cloud and their data security is key. If CloudGuard could be able to give the client that full visibility of how their data is protected on the cloud, then that would be a great selling point for Check Point."
"CloudGuard functions just like any other firewall. It functions very well. The only thing that could maybe be improved would be to integrate some tools that are not integrated with the SmartConsole, like the SmartView Monitor that we need to open on a different application to access."
"Sometimes, if you aren't familiar with the solution, it can be a bit complex, but it does become easier to use with time. However, every time they launch a new version, it becomes more complex and you need to take time to get familiar with all the changes. For every version that they upgrade, you need to upskill yourself."
"The product can still grow."
"What I would like for future updates would be faster updates to apply, and perhaps a greater presence in the local language for the regions of Latin America."
"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."
"It would be nice to get detailed logging information without third-party software."
"We had minor issues with Meraki MX. We had a couple of RMAs, so that could be an area for improvement, but in terms of how the RMAs went, the turnaround time and getting those back into redeployment were quick. Another area for improvement in Meraki MX is that when you're scaling for multiple locations, you need to use the same model, but the model you'd need is only available for a short time. The specific model you require could be out of stock, or Meraki isn't making that model anymore, so Meraki should improve that."
"The only stability issue is in Content Filtering. Sometimes we need to report these types of issues to Cisco support."
"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."
"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."
"Meraki MX firewalls are great for small to medium-sized businesses, but other solutions are better for enterprise-sized companies."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 5th in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 121 reviews while Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 58 reviews. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is rated 8.6, while Meraki MX is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security writes "Highly reliable, great visibility, and centralized management". 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". Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is most compared with Azure Firewall, VMware NSX, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Cisco Secure Firewall and Fortinet FortiGate-VM, whereas Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and Netgate pfSense. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Meraki MX report.
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