We performed a comparison between Meraki MX and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The main difference between the two solutions is that Meraki MX is expensive, while pfSense is an open-source solution and is free of charge. In addition, Meraki’s monitoring capabilities could use improvement.
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"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 ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"It can expand easily."
"It's very easy to configure."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The most valuable feature is that we didn't have any problems with Meraki MX."
"A strong, reliable solution for small companies with little or no dedicated IT department."
"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."
"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."
"The initial setup for me was straightforward."
"It is very easy to configure."
"It has very good features; it's easy to use, configure, set up, and deploy."
"The features we have found most valuable are the firewall and the monitoring tools."
"An incomparable stability is achieved with other firewall systems."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"At our peak time, we have reached more than 5,000 concurrent connections."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"The flexibility of adding new kinds of services without spending any money can't be beaten."
"The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"The product’s documentation is good."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"There are problems with the custom reporting of the unique traffic. The data is there, but it is too difficult for us to extract."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."
"The product could incorporate tools like ThousandEyes into the system so we can see things directly."
"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."
"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."
"Expensive licensing and firewall stops immediately working if the license is not renewed at expiration date."
"The solution's pricing should be reduced."
"You cannot use switching behaviors as you see on the Meraki switch."
"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."
"You can only have one tunnel in the whole infrastructure — one tunnel with one device."
"The GUI. There are TONS of plugins for pfSense, as such, if a user wants to add quite a bit of functionality, the GUI will feel a little congested."
"Reporting and real-time monitoring, since I'm used to Watchguard's reporting features, it would be nice to have an embedded solution for reporting."
"pfSense could improve by having a sandboxing feature that I have seen in SonicWall. However, maybe it is available I am not aware of it."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"For the third-party packages, I'd rather have it built-in, like a core feature of pfSense, part of the core model."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"The usage reports can be better."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 57 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Meraki MX is rated 8.2, while Netgate pfSense 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Meraki MX is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ and SonicWall NSa, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Zyxel Unified Security Gateway. See our Meraki MX vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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