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Juniper Session Smart Router vs Meraki SD-WAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Juniper Session Smart Router
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Routers (6th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (14th)
Meraki SD-WAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Networking (SDN) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Networking solutions, they serve different purposes. Juniper Session Smart Router is designed for Routers and holds a mindshare of 2.6%, up 0.5% compared to last year.
Meraki SD-WAN, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Networking (SDN), holds 13.7% mindshare, down 24.0% since last year.
Routers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Juniper Session Smart Router2.6%
MikroTik Routers and Switches18.5%
Cisco Enterprise Routers14.4%
Other64.5%
Routers
Software Defined Networking (SDN) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Meraki SD-WAN13.7%
Cisco ACI10.1%
Juniper Contrail Networking7.5%
Other68.7%
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 

Featured Reviews

Bashir Bashir - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Vegol
Real-time visibility has strengthened network control and supports long-term enterprise use
Juniper Session Smart Router could improve its documentation to become more competitive. It has very little documentation, and you have to rely mainly so much on support to do something, which I feel should not be that way. Otherwise, functionality-wise, I feel it is perfect. It is way high and expensive; that is why most of my clients on the lower end, I cannot suggest Juniper. It is too pricey. Of late, I am seeing them changing the interface; the UI is changing, and that is a good thing. But still, I feel you can standardize the syntax to be in line with the rest of them.
Mageshwaran S - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at airtel
Experienced streamlined network management with enhanced usability and room for improved security features
On the security features, when compared to Fortinet, they have more patterns and AI-generated ones. Meraki SD-WAN is slowly implementing AI, but it is not yet full-fledged. If AI comes into the picture, it will be helpful. I work with Fortinet where with a single command you can deploy the entire SD-WAN along with FortiGuard within minutes. For AI, it can discover and connect, but currently, we are doing it manually. In Meraki SD-WAN, some features require additional licenses and subscriptions. If these were bundled together, such as 10 or 20 licenses, it would be very helpful for a mini branch or small campus area coverage.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"They provided us with a customized product according to our requirements."
"As compared to the other major vendors in the SD-WAN market, such as VeloCloud, Cisco, and others, the tunnel-free and secure vector routing technology is its major USP, which gives plenty of room to discuss with the customer why IPSec from 1998 is a bit outdated."
"Because we are talking directly to engineers in the US, the support is usually the best you can possibly get."
"The most valuable feature of Juniper Session Smart Router is its unique SDR channel."
"The solution is especially Session's smart, application-aware, AI-based."
"Customer service is very prompt."
"The best feature is the easiest way to deploy configuration and also back up them, and also to roll back quickly if there's an incident."
"For telecom companies, I think zero-trust segmentation is the way to go because if you allow anything that you do not understand, then it becomes a problem."
"Meraki Solutions setups make it one of the best products I have ever worked with."
"The features of SD-WAN are very appealing because you have a centralized dashboard and multiple options to terminate. You have an internet leased line, which means that you can connect your broadband and 3G and 4G cellular networks on the same router. This makes it easy for us to manage everything on a single dashboard. That is, you can integrate multiple stacks in such a way that you do not have to maintain any other dashboard. You get single-pane-of-glass accessibility with Meraki."
"The solution has many features available."
"I like the entire set of features and the analytics."
"A lot of our customers really enjoy the Meraki Dashboard. It’s a single pane of glass."
"The most valuable features include understanding the throughput of bandwidth, traffic shaping, alerts and outages, and the integrated VPN, which are crucial for managing the network effectively."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of setting up Meraki SD-WAN."
"Meraki SD-WAN is a very stable and scalable solution with good technical support."
 

Cons

"The UI of the SSR conductor is the main part where improvements can be done. Today, for every configuration step, you have to do a series of clicks."
"Juniper Session Smart Router could be better in terms of software performance."
"Juniper Session Smart Router could improve its documentation to become more competitive. It has very little documentation, and you have to rely mainly so much on support to do something, which I feel should not be that way."
"I found some weaknesses on their hardware. They are sometimes breaking very often."
"Juniper Session Smart Router can improve the integration for Wi-Fi devices and add additional Sassy deployments."
"The UI of the SSR conductor is the main part where improvements can be done. Today, for every configuration step, you have to do a series of clicks. What we are missing there are wizards. For example, I have two applications, and I want one application to be prioritized against the other. In such a case, a wizard for assigning policies to a service without configuring each step by hand would be very helpful. There should be an overhaul of the GUI of the conductor. The functionality they have got in the Mist portal should be baked into the conductor itself. It would be really great, but as we all know, that won't happen."
"Regarding improvement, we still need to see what it can do."
"If Meraki obtains the technology to provide network assistance, then it can implement it manually in Meraki SD-WAN."
"Technical support could be more knowledgeable and responsive."
"The solution needs to enact more advanced protections."
"There are literally things you cannot do at this point in a graphical user interface that can be done from a command line."
"I think Meracki still has some work to do in terms of catching up with other companies when it comes to AI."
"The integration with other tools must be improved."
"If the license expires in FortiGate, the basic functionality will work, but in Meraki SD-WAN, the entire system will shut down."
"They need to offer proper integration of the security features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are currently renegotiating the offer for the licenses and the license bundle model. The license for an ISP has to be different from the license for an end customer. This is something we are currently renegotiating with Juniper, but, of course, the pricing for the licensing is always an issue when you want to get more customers."
"It is a simple bandwidth-based license and the orchestration comes bundled with the solution by default."
"The pricing is reasonable and we can choose the software or the feature."
"The license model may need improvement."
"The pricing is fair, but if they can make it less it would be even more attractive."
"Regarding pricing, Meraki SD-WAN is quite competitive, especially compared to solutions like Fortinet. However, it's essential to consider that Meraki requires cloud orchestration, which adds to the overall cost. Overall, it's one of the most competitive solutions from Cisco for SD-WAN."
"Meraki's pricing is on the higher side, which may limit who can afford to use them."
"Any license you buy until January 2021 gets you an extra year for that purchase."
"The product is not very expensive."
"They have a baseline software license, and then they've got an SD-WAN software license, and then they've got an advanced security software license. They're low cost, and they'll provide any amount of flexibility that you want from a modeling perspective for payment. Typically, it's either annually or multi-year, but they are a lower-cost company. They're not the most expensive by far."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
22%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise32
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Juniper Session Smart Router?
Juniper Session Smart Router could improve its documentation to become more competitive. It has very little documentation, and you have to rely mainly so much on support to do something, which I fe...
What is your primary use case for Juniper Session Smart Router?
I have not tested Sophos on a larger scale, as I use Sophos in a very office environment and Juniper in telecom. Because we have Juniper switches and Juniper firewalls, we have not centralized them...
What do you like most about Meraki SD-WAN?
The auto VPN feature is important because it automates many tasks, making things simpler and faster. It helps with setting up devices and changing configurations without manual effort.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki SD-WAN?
When compared for the long run, it is reasonable, but for the short term, such as one year, it is costlier, especially compared to other OEMs such as FortiGate. If the license expires in FortiGate,...
What needs improvement with Meraki SD-WAN?
The pricing of Meraki SD-WAN depends compared to which vendors, because it's a bit pricey, so not all retail would go for it unless it's a big retail company, but it depends on your comparison. I u...
 

Also Known As

128T Networking Platform, 128 Technology SD-WAN, Juniper SSR Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Revation Systems
École Jeannine Manuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, MikroTik, Juniper and others in Routers. Updated: March 2026.
886,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.