We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Meraki MX based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Meraki MX is the winner in this comparison. It is easier to set up and more user-friendly than Cisco ASA Firewall. In addition, Meraki MX is a less expensive solution than Cisco Secure Firewall.
"A strong point of FortiGate is that the graphical interface is complete and easy to use, especially if we think there is a list of operations that we are able to perform inside."
"The wireless control is helpful."
"The interface is very user-friendly and I like it very much."
"The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management."
"It's great for capturing the traffic and troubleshooting it."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"It can expand easily."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"The CLI is the most valuable feature. This solution is very flexible and offers different functionality including firewalls and VPN connectivity."
"Its in-depth monitoring and analysis help us to make better decisions and policies."
"An efficient, easy to deploy and dependable firewall solution."
"It protects our network."
"This solution made our organization more secure and gave us better control."
"An eight because it's a good security solution. It's more mature than its competitors."
"Our company operates in Saudi Arabia, primarily working with government sectors. If any hardware malfunctions, the defective device is removed, and we receive a replacement from the reseller. We have not encountered any issues related to delays in receiving replacements for malfunctioning devices which has been beneficial."
"The traffic inspection and the Firepower engine are the most valuable features. It gives you full details, application details, traffic monitoring, and the threats. It gives you all the containers the user is using, especially at the application level. The solution also provides application visibility and control."
"You can use your web browser to do the configuration which is easier than Cisco CLI transcripts."
"It's flexible, easy to configure, and easy to manage."
"Since it has an integrated dashboard for all the products, customers can get complete network analytics regarding what the user is doing, monitoring, and observing."
"A strong, reliable solution for small companies with little or no dedicated IT department."
"The features we have found most valuable are the firewall and the monitoring tools."
"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."
"It has the most advanced security features, for example, layer 3 and layer 7 firewall capabilities and the end team and IPS protection. It also has IPS, and it has very good functioning of cloning services. You don't actually have to touch the device. If you have multiple companies in different countries, you don't really require this device to be touched. You can get it delivered directly to any office of a country, and then you can simply put your configuration over the cloud. It's very simplified and easy to manage. It gives a very good granular visibility about your network. Earlier, a lot of things were lacking in the network. We were unable to identify where the problem was, but after implementing Meraki MX, we are able to dig down and identify where is the problem. We can easily and quickly identify the sources and the root causes of the issues."
"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."
"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool."
"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good. I hope that their technical support will be better in the future."
"The user interface could be improved to make it less confusing and easier to set up."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"I would like to see them release a patch for ASAv with cross-platform FirePower integration."
"The GUI interface could be improved when compared to other solutions."
"I would like for the user interface to be easier for the admin and network admin. I would also like to be able to access everything from the GUI interface. The way it is now, it needs somebody experience in iOS to be able to operate it. I would like to have a GUI interface."
"I would like for them to develop better integration with other security platforms."
"I wish the Cisco interface was not so granular. Check Point was easier to create specific rules than with ASAv."
"These firewalls are not for beginners."
"I see room for improvement when it comes to integrating all the devices into a central management system. Cisco doesn't provide this, but there are some good products in the market that can provide it."
"Cisco suffers from some integration issues with other products... There is a problem with the Cisco Catalyst Switches in terms of assembling bursts and having them interact properly with the Cisco Firepower."
"Direct logging is something that can be introduced. In the absence of cloud management, the possibility of local configurations and on-premise logins becomes restricted. This limitation stands as a primary concern. When it comes to resolving issues, the inability to access login options hampers troubleshooting efforts. The stability is noteworthy; but when compared to alternative products, its stability is comparatively lower. Additionally, certain limitations are observed in terms of remote control. Price-wise, the solution stands out for its competitive and cost-effective nature compared to other alternatives. Operationally, it is user-friendly and requires minimal effort from administrators, making configuration hassle-free."
"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."
"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."
"We can’t access GUI management and CLI opening features when the Internet is unavailable."
"What I would like to see in the next version is to have more interfaces for WAN links."
"They're very complacent and I find the rule set to be a little arcane."
"Pricing is an area where the solution lacks since it is an expensive tool."
"The problem is that the two licenses do not currently integrate. We have to create separate companies and do an interconnection."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 57 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Meraki MX is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". 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". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ, Netgate pfSense and SonicWall NSa. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Meraki MX report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
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.
Meraki is designed for zero deployments and no in-house firewall specialist personnel. Best to secure Networks like remote offices, branches or home offices. Also to protect Internet Access (your computer accesses the internet).
Cisco ASA is more of a professional firewall, not only protecting internet access but also providing security for publishing services like web servers, data centers, central services. They will need a specialist to install and support them. Therefore offer much more sophisticated protection features.
So you can't really compare these solutions, as they are targeting different markets.
You might compare Cisco to Sophos, but again, these are different protection solutions, one for network protection, the other for client protection. If you look only at the firewall part, you miss a lot in the total protection approach with Sophos.
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports network security and firewall options. We researched both Meraki and ASA. We liked that ASA provides a solid VPN setup and integrates with other Cisco security offerings.
Cisco ASA is great for routing and accessing remote office locations via the remote VPN. We also liked the high availability and customizable nating (Network Access Translation). It is very reliable and easy to use. You can easily configure a site-to-site VPN to connect multiple sites. The support is great - they respond 24/7/365 and there is a lot of documentation available.
The downside is that ASAs are aging. Therefore, Cisco ASAs are best suited to small businesses. If you need something affordable that gets the job done, ASA is a good option.
We chose Cisco Meraki, because, in our opinion, it is a step forward from ASA. The level of security and intrusion detection is great, and because it is cloud-based, it is easy to change the configuration without downtime. Logging is very comprehensive, and management is very simple.
The best feature is content filtering with granular control. Cisco Meraki offers advanced malware protection, including traffic shaping. Another feature we really like is that you can pre-configure devices before they arrive at the installation.
It doesn’t work with DMVPN, which is a downside. Another feature that could use some improvement is reporting, which is not real-time. The price can get expensive but if you can afford it, a full-stack Cisco Meraki system does a great job keeping your network secure.
Conclusions:
If you want a robust but basic firewall, ASA is your best choice. Cisco Meraki is a better choice if you are looking for a next-generation firewall with advanced security features and easy management.