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.
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"This product is definitely scalable."
"The security on offer is very good."
"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."
"The technical support is excellent. I would rate it as 10 out of 10. When there has been an issue, we have had a good response from them."
"The best solutions for our company are those we have yet to implement so it will be even better in the future for us than it already is."
"Cybersecurity resilience has been paramount. Because there is a threat of losing everything if ransomware or another sort of attack were to happen, the cybersecurity resilience has been top-notch."
"ASDM provides GUI for configurations. The ASDM has made configuring ASA easy. No need to memorize CLI commands."
"There are some hiccups here and there, but compared to the technical support from other vendors, I have had the best experience with Cisco's technical support. I would rate them at nine out of ten."
"The features that are most valuable within the firewall are the IPS as well as the Unified Communications. We also really like the dynamic grouping."
"Firepower has been used for quite a few enterprise clients. Most of our clients are Fortune 500 and Firepower is used to improve their end to end firewall functionality."
"The web interface was easy for me. The configuration is logical, so it's easy to use and easy to understand how to protect, how to open a port, how to manage and how to route a device. That's why I prefer Cisco. It's robust and I never have issues with the hardware. That's why I choose Cisco and not another vendor."
"We've had no issues with the scalability or the stability of this solution"
"The solution's most valuable feature is the Meraki dashboard, which is a single pane of glass."
"Simple to manage."
"Deployment takes no more than one working day."
"A strong, reliable solution for small companies with little or no dedicated IT department."
"I think cloud management is key. The cloud management and support are the two things that make the product great."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"It is a robust SD-WAN solution."
"Tunnel flapping was one of the major things I had seen wherein your internet link remains but your VPN tunnel is down. However, since I got a fix from the TAC team, I have not noticed it, but the customer complained a few times that they couldn't access the internet because of this problem."
"I think they need to improve more in order to be a competitor with the leaders of the field."
"Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud."
"Lacks training for new features."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."
"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."
"Usually, we sell the bundle with the UTM or threat management piece with IPS, IDS. Other providers, such as Palo Alto, are ahead in terms of safe functionality. So, for me, delivering truly safe service is probably something that still needs to be improved."
"Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement."
"The security features in the URL category need more improvement."
"The overall licensing structure could improve to make the solution better."
"Most of the features don't work well, and some features are missing as well."
"I have found that Cisco reporting capabilities are not as rich as other products, so the reporting could be improved."
"Cisco ASA Firewall could improve by adding more advanced features such as web filtering, which is available in the next-generation firewalls. However, the Cisco ASA Firewall I am using could be old and these features have been updated."
"The main problem we have is that things work okay until we upgrade the firmware, at which point, everything changes, and the net stops working."
"The only con that I have really seen with it is the reporting structure. FirePOWER is good. It has been a great help because, before that, it was not good at all."
"Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall can be more secure."
"The problem is that the two licenses do not currently integrate. We have to create separate companies and do an interconnection."
"It is very expensive."
"What I would like to see in the next version is to have more interfaces for WAN links."
"I need more UTM protection security features."
"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 solution's pricing should be reduced."
"We have been having a problem with the VPN. When the energy goes down and is back again, the VPN link doesn't get established. We have to manually turn off the modems and other pieces of equipment and manually establish the VPN. It has been around one month since we have been having this problem, and we don't have enough support from Meraki to solve the problem."
"Could possibly use deeper configurations."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Meraki MX is ranked 2nd in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 58 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.