We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and Palo Alto Networks based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products received high marks from users. Meraki MX has a slight edge in this comparison. According to its reviewers, it is easier to deploy and more reasonably priced than Palo Alto Networks.
"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 feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"The most valuable feature is the policy routing and application control."
"Provides good firewall security and has great VPN features."
"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls. We can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"It has a helpful feature for database troubleshooting issues."
"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."
"It has very good features; it's easy to use, configure, set up, and deploy."
"I use Meraki in my POCs and with my customers as well."
"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 prevents us from being hacked and delivers information about who and where the attack came from."
"MX is easy to manage, configure and install."
"The technical support people from Meraki are brilliant."
"The most valuable feature is the security provided by the ATP."
"One of the things I really like about it is that we have the same features and functions available on the entry-level device (PA-220), as do large corporations with much more costly appliances."
"We like the fact that this product can provide multiple layers of protection depending on our clients requirements, and can be configured to whatever level of protection and the specific protocols that they want."
"It has the typical features of a next-generation firewall. It can do application control, antivirus, content filtering, etc."
"I like the sandbox feature, and it's very good. It kills each malware deployment in the sense of signatures within five minutes. So, we can secure our network and infrastructure very well within the stipulated time. The WildFire functionality is very good because a few files are also getting blocked. It's critical as malware attacks are also getting ignored, and the logging is very well maintained in this firewall. The most valuable solutions in this field are application-based firewalls. That is the main criteria of the firewall and functionality. We can get all the logs related to this and each and every packet. I like that the firewall is working as an application. The application-based entity we have deployed is well maintained and working very well. We were able to find lots of vulnerabilities when we deployed it, but we could not disclose all. But there were vulnerabilities we could block by updating the firewall and taking actions on clientside machines. So, we got to know that we have lots of vulnerabilities inside the organization too, and we took lots of steps and resolved the number of vulnerabilities. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is an all-in-one solution. It provides every entity log, which is a very good functionality of this firewall. It gives every packet and aspect that the firewall is performing through its logs, and it does it very well. This firewall's unified platform helped eliminate multiple network security tools. If anyone uses P2P sites, cryptocurrency websites, or any illegal sites, we can block it easily. It gives us a proper alert for these kinds of sites, and it properly secures our network. Monitoring is the best thing we are doing here, and we can block this kind of vulnerability as soon as it comes to us."
"The most valuable features are the IPS/IDS subscriptions."
"One of the simple features I like about Palo Alto firewalls is that it's extremely easy to find out what's happening in the network. The reporting is phenomenal, and it's easy to find which threats have been detected and what traffic is going through the box. When a customer notices something is wrong, you can quickly check the amount of traffic going through the firewall around that time. If there is anything out of the ordinary, you can decide it needs to be investigated further."
"I like the architecture because it separates the management plan process and the data plan process."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
"I think they need to improve more in order to be a competitor with the leaders of the field."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"Its price could be better."
"A lack of integration between our data centers."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"Expensive licensing and firewall stops immediately working if the license is not renewed at expiration date."
"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."
"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 IPS, the Intrusion Prevention System, can be improved."
"In the next release, because the security is pretty basic, I think they could include additional security features."
"FortiGate is cheaper than Meraki. Even the license renewal is less than Meraki."
"The product could incorporate tools like ThousandEyes into the system so we can see things directly."
"They need to improve the link between Meraki and Active Directory."
"I like the reports, but I wish the reporting was a little better. When I set up the automatic reports to come in, they're pretty basic. I would like them to be a little more advanced at the ACC monitoring and things like that. I still enjoy all the daily alerts that I get and all the daily PDFs and reports, but I just feel that it could expand upon the visualization of the reports."
"Technical support could be faster."
"I would like integration with Evident.io and RedLock."
"The VPN has room for improvement."
"The bugs can be improved."
"The solution needs some management tool enhancements. It could also use more reporting tools."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls work slowly for vulnerability management. Its performance could be faster."
"There is a bit of limitation with its next-generation capabilities. They could be better. In terms of logs, I feel like I am a bit limited as an administrator. While I see a lot of logs, and that is good, it could be better."
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 58 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 163 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls 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 Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". Meraki MX is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ, Netgate pfSense and SonicWall NSa, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Meraki MX vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.