Juniper vSRX and Meraki MX compete in the network security and management category. Meraki MX has the upper hand with its ease of deployment and cloud management capabilities, which are highly valued by users, despite being initially more expensive.
Features: Juniper vSRX provides flexibility and robust security through firewalls and virtual routers. Users appreciate its configuration ease and high performance. Meraki MX is recognized for cloud management and straightforward deployment, offering seamless VPN and traffic shaping capabilities. It is popular for ease of administration.
Room for Improvement: Juniper vSRX requires hardware upgrades for full UTM capabilities, and its interface can be complex. Some users report unsatisfactory technical support. Meraki MX could improve firewall rules flexibility and advanced enterprise features. Though generally satisfactory, complex configurations may need additional support.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Juniper vSRX is versatile, deployed in private, public, and hybrid clouds, with varying user feedback on support. Meraki MX is noted for its straightforward deployment on-premises and in the cloud. Its customer service is seen as reliable, offering solid troubleshooting support.
Pricing and ROI: Juniper vSRX offers good ROI with competitive pricing, though it may be costly compared to competitors, especially if not fully utilized. Meraki MX is generally more expensive but justifies the cost with cloud management and ease of use, though licensing costs are a concern for some.
They have good integration if you have multiple firewalls and it allows you to be able to push out policies to all of them at the same time.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
If we used a similar solution that required a 'per seat' license per VPN, we would have literally spent over 100x what the solution cost us.
The response time for a critical priority one issue was over four hours and they only responded because we threatened legal action for them violating our support contract.
They say they will respond in 24 hours, but I have received responses in a maximum of one hour, which is impressive.
The technical support from Fortinet FortiGate is 24 hours a day seven days a week, and 365 days a year.
I would rate their support a ten out of ten.
The devices will usually fail way before reaching the capacity advertised in the data sheets, especially when you activate several of the features the device can handle.
The solution is working and it is still stable even across all of these devices and servers.
We have over 10,000 users behind it.
Juniper vSRX is a highly scalable solution, and I would rate its scalability a nine out of ten.
All of these issues were resolved in v5.2.
Stability has dramatically improved over the previous main version branch of FortiOS; 5.2.x and 5.4.x are stable enough for critical environments.
Overall, the devices have been very stable.
FortiWAN supports OSPF but does not support the BGP protocol.
Fortinet VPN and DDoS capabilities are great, yet we need to provide a solution that enables CASB and integration to the cloud.
The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate.
I would suggest improving the pricing, particularly the licensing model.
The cost of the original deployment fell below £5,000, and licenses are priced at around £3,000.
Every time you upgrade your license, you also get insurance for the equipment.
Overall, FortiGate is affordable.
The pricing is competitive, being neither the most expensive nor the cheapest option.
The two most valuable features are VPN and firewalling.
WiFi network for visitors isolated from our corporate WiFi network using only one unit
Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it 'readable'
These features are crucial for our network security.
Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.
Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.
What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?
What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?
Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.
Juniper vSRX is a virtualized security platform that provides advanced threat protection for virtualized and cloud environments. It offers a comprehensive set of security features, including firewall, VPN, intrusion prevention system (IPS), and unified threat management (UTM).
With its scalable architecture, the vSRX can be easily deployed and managed across multiple virtual machines, making it ideal for organizations with dynamic and distributed networks. It also supports high-performance data processing, ensuring minimal impact on network performance.
vSRX is designed to integrate seamlessly with Juniper's broader security ecosystem, enabling centralized management and visibility across the entire network.
Cisco Meraki MX appliances are next-generation firewalls with all the advanced security services needed for today’s IT security. The appliances are ideal for organizations considering a unified threat management (UTM) solution for branch offices, data centers, distributed sites, or campuses. Since Meraki MX is 100% cloud-managed, installation and remote management are simple and zero-touch.
Meraki MX’s hardware and virtual appliances are configurable in Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform, and private cloud support is offered through Cisco NFVIS and Alibaba Cloud.
Organizations of all sizes and across all industries rely on Meraki MX to deliver secure connectivity to hub locations or multi-cloud environments, as well as application quality of experience (QoE) through advanced analytics with machine learning.
Cisco Meraki’s advanced QoE analytics offers:
Cisco Meraki’s SD-WAN offers:
The Meraki MX’s SD-WAN is unique in that it can be easily extended to deliver optimized access to resources in public and private cloud environments with virtual MX appliances. Its SD-WAN lowers operational costs and improves the performance of remotely-accessed resources. Users can ensure the availability of the apps and services their employees use most through dynamic path selection, policy-based routing, support for application-layer profiles, and VPN.
Meraki MX offers industry-leading cloud management that has template-based settings which can scale easily from small deployments to tens of thousands of devices. It features an intuitive web-based dashboard for managing mobile devices, united firewalls, switching, and wireless LAN. Users can also benefit from role-based administration, configurable email alerts for a variety of important events, and easily auditable change logs. Meraki MX is capable of producing summary reports with device, user, and application details archived in the cloud.
Meraki MX Key Features
MX has a robust suite of network services in an all-in-one device, which saves you money by eliminating the need for multiple appliances. These services include:
Reviews from Real Users
Meraki MX stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its easy management and its ability to be accessed remotely. Below is some feedback from PeerSpot users who are currently using Meraki MX as their firewall security solution.
Craig B., a central services engineer at Liberty Technology, writes, “The web console for managing everything keeps everything on Meraki and keeps us from going somewhere else. It is why I think a lot of people like Meraki. Comparing it to SonicWall or even a different Cisco firewall, like traditional ASAs, managing Meraki is a thousand times easier because of fluidity. You don't have to rebuild a table just to change one rule. It's much more readable for a human.”
Edgardo C., an IT director, notes,”By using the VPN, we can connect remotely. We have two offices, and we could connect them through the VPN. We could establish a network between two sites, and that has improved and increased communication and productivity. Our remote site is able to access the server remotely.”
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