Juniper SRX Series Firewall Reviews

Juniper is a highly flexible platform, and you get more bang for your buck compared to a Cisco product.

The centralized management platform could be improved.

Juniper devices are highly reliable. I haven't had to reboot some of these devices in five years. 

Juniper SRX firewalls are scalable. 

Compared to Cisco support, I would rate Juniper seven out of 10. It varies depending on who you get. 

Neutral

Setting up Juniper firewalls is straighforward if you have experience. You need some CLI experience. Configuring firewalls with a GUI is much easier than using the Juniper platform.

The deployment time depends on the size of the environment. I worked for a hospital system where we deployed a pair and used them as a firewall. It was relatively easy to deploy once we had a plan to bring the services in one by one as opposed to connecting the host of the hospital to us.

Juniper devices are more affordable than Cisco products. 

I rate Juniper SRX Series Firewalls nine out of 10. I recommend getting a centralized management solution because managing Juniper firewalls can be messy without it. 

Our main use case for Juniper SRX is for gateway level protection for all internet users and UTM and to control the user when accessing websites, applications and non-relevant sites.

Our main purpose for using the Juniper security solution is because we are also using Cisco routers, switches etc.. and we wanted unity in the OEM products so that we can maintain all the products in NMS.

The features that I have found valuable are the ones for the main purpose we are using Juniper - its firewall to protect our network for our internet access.

In terms of what could be improved, J-Web, Juniper Web, is sometimes not working great when users are increasing their internet use. Additionally, they need to improve the GUI, graphical user interface, and the firewall management needs to improve. Their CLI is good, but sometimes the GUI is very slow.

Also, the UTM, Unified Threat Management, feature needs to be improved.

We have been using Juniper SRX since January 2018.

Juniper SRX is stable. Stability is okay.

Juniper SRX has scalability. Its current site has 1500 users and we can upgrade to 2 K users.

Right now, we have around 500 - 600 total users, but I think some sections are still under deployment, so all the users are around the 1700 - 1800 range.

We connected with tech support seven or eight months ago. We got good support and a good response.

The initial setup is complex. It takes one week's time for deployment because we are also integrated with Active Directory and Radius Contactless.

We did it with our own team.

Before choosing Juniper, we compared it with two other solutions, but they were banned because they were Chinese products.

I suppose Juniper is a good solution for the railway and metro environment. These projects are very handy and work in the relevant environmental condition, because in this environment we have different climatic conditions. Suppose we require -5 to 55, -5 to 85 compression, some EMCMI specifications, such as EN501214 - Juniper is a good solution in the railway and metro environment, anywhere worldwide and domestic. It is relevant anywhere.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Juniper SRX an eight.

The GUI of the solution is quite good. It's also very different from other solutions. On others, if you need to configure anything, you can do it all from the default gateway. Cisco, for example, has a bit of a more difficult process. Juniper's GUI is easier and it makes configuration easier.

Troubleshooting with the solution is quite easy. If you compare the process to, for example, Fortigate, Juniper is much easier.

The speed of the solution is very good.

The initial setup is very easy.

While the GUI is pretty good on the Juniper side, there can still be tweaks made to it that will make it even better.

I've been using the solution for two years or so.

The stability has been good so far. We haven't had issues with bugs or glitches. It's not a solution that crashes a lot of freezes up. We find it very reliable.

The scalability potential depends on the customer. Some customers are working only on the edge with smaller systems and the other environment is connected to Cisco switches. Some clients mix up switches and use HP or Cisco. Some like ASA, however, that's more expensive. Many go with SRX as an affordable option. 

I have reached out to Juniper tech support a couple of times. I recall the experience being good. I got the answers I needed. I've used technical support from Sophos and Cisco in the past, and in comparison, I find Juniper to be quite good. I'd say we are satisfied with the level of support provided. 

I've used Cisco and Fortigate solutions, among others, in the past as well. I find Juniper easier to use from a GUI aspect. Cisco is better from a CLI perspective.

We did not find the initial setup to be complex. The implementation was straightforward and simple. It didn't really give us any trouble.

The pricing of the product is pretty good. It's less than Cisco, which can be expensive for some organizations.

Our client is a medium, small branch company. When they purchased this firewall, they understood that they could use it for a couple of years.

I have a client that works with Juniper 4200 and 4300 and they find the solution to be very user-friendly.

Overall, I would recommend the solution as it is easy to use and has a pretty good GUI. Customers really seem to like it.

In general, on a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at an eight.

The Juniper SRX is our edge firewall.

We have three in total. Two of them are set up in an HA pair, and the other is standalone in another city.

This product has definitely not improved the way our organization functions.

I am familiar with Cisco products and when we purchased the Juniper units, they told us that if you know Cisco IOS then Juniper SRX is really easy. It isn't. It would be like saying that if you know English, then Chinese is really easy. The reality is that it's completely different. There's no commonality and the philosophies are different. Everything is different.

We purchased it for the basic firewall features but added UTM a little bit later.

The reliability needs to be improved. We purchased three devices and all three have been replaced under RMA. We've had other problems where they have needed to be rebooted.

A couple of times I've run into the problems where they have to integrate with other systems. The Juniper support really doesn't have a clue about other systems. They know Juniper and if everything is Juniper then it's great. However, we have Windows RADIUS Servers and I need Juniper-specific settings for them. Unfortunately, they're having a real hard time telling me what those should be, and they keep referring back to it being Microsoft, which they don't support. When they say that I need to speak with Microsoft, I remind them that these are things that are defined in the Juniper configurations that I need to set up. They seem to forget that not everybody is exclusively Juniper.

We bought three Juniper SRX345s about four years ago, and we are still using them today.

We have had glitches that necessitating rebooting the device. For example, a couple of times, they just stop routing on certain VLANs, and one time, it was our server VLANs, so our DNS was down and no one could get to anything. People thought that our internet connection down but actually, it was the DNS and the routing to it had been stopped.

We're a relatively small organization so we didn't scale it.

All of the people in the organization are protected by the devices.

I have used technical support quite a bit, and they are really good. I would rate them an eight out of ten. There is almost always room for improvement.

Prior to the Juniper SRX devices, we had some Cisco ASAs. They were reaching end-of-life so we had to replace them.

At the time we were shopping, Cisco was behind in their technologies. Had they kept up with the technology and provided a comparable device at a competitive price, we would have stayed with Cisco.

We hired a contractor to set up the units.

The IT manager and I, being the network admin, are the only ones who touch it. We try to keep the software updated on all of our devices.

My advice to anybody who is implementing this product is to make sure that they fully understand Junos OS. Over the past four years, I have become moderately proficient with Juniper SRX. There still a lot to learn but I also have contractors that I can get assistance from if needed. For example, currently, I'm trying to set up RADIUS and I'm having some problems with it.

In summary, I think that their design philosophy is really good, but the execution leaves a bit to be desired.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

We help the customers. In some cases, we recommend it. Based on the customer demand, if a customer feels that they have to go with Juniper Firewall because they have experience with that product, then we go with it. Otherwise, we generally recommend Meraki devices.

The threat intelligence capability in SRX is there. But for all of those things, we need to go for the configurations.

It is a good product. There are a lot of security features, like packet sniffing and malware protection. All of those features are available. For that, we need to take separate licenses.

There is room for improvement in customer service and support. The customer interaction is not up to par. 

It is also very delayed.

I have experience with this product. 

Juniper customer support, from the feedback side, is not as per my expectation level.

Neutral

Compared to Meraki, Meraki is very easy to handle. Even the L1 and L2 people can handle it very easily. We do not need so much expertise to use Meraki. 

Compared to Meraki, Juniper SRX firewall is complex. Configuration as well as managing the devices is complex.

Compared to Meraki, it’s expensive. Juniper products are more expensive.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten because of the complexity of configurations and the maintenance.

I use Juniper SRX Series Firewall for research purposes.

You can be very specific with what you can put in the solution. I can have the solution as my management interface. The ports are really versatile for their application and don't always have to be used for the purpose for which they were made.

When I was going to upgrade the OS, the solution didn't accept certain USB devices. So, I had to put in the OS using a trivial FTP server. Otherwise, the solution is really advanced. It's really hard to get a hold of the firmware for it. Even if you applied for customer support, getting to the software side is a little harder.

If you want to upgrade the OS, you have to do this by special pauses. You can't just upgrade from an old version to the newest one. You have to make middle landings.

I have been using Juniper SRX Series Firewall for two weeks.

Juniper SRX Series Firewall is a stable solution, but it depends on how you set it up. You can make the solution unstable if you want to, but it will be stable if you set it up correctly.

Juniper SRX Series Firewall is really scalable, but it depends on how you set up the network topology.

The solution's initial setup depends on what interface you use. If you use the J-Web, it's quite easy. If you do it by console, it isn't always clear what order you should be doing things on when you apply the settings. When you first come into the console, you might not know they're in the FreeBSD shell but not the Juniper OS.

The solution's deployment is actually ongoing. I had it up for once, but I upgraded it because it was a really old version of the OS. Currently, the biggest hurdle is that when you cross over to a new version, you have to occupy one port for management. In the previous version, I could select an in-line management instead of dedicated out-of-band management.

Now, I have to sacrifice one port for the management. It's not needed for my application, but now I am forced into having a management interface. I also noticed that several vulnerabilities have been discovered lately in the Juniper OS.

Juniper SRX Series Firewall is worth its money.

You should read all the release notes before you change the OS because you don't know what you're giving up and what new features you're getting. It's not always that the newest OS is the best for you. So, select the OS based on your specific deployment needs and not just to have the newest one.

Overall, I rate Juniper SRX Series Firewall an eight out of ten.

We are using Juniper SRX as a network firewall.

The most valuable feature of Juniper SRX is that it is plug-and-play. Additionally, it has a lot of capabilities in one device.

Juniper SRX could improve by adding an IPX feature.

I have been using Juniper SRX for approximately three years.

We have less than 50 percent of our company using Juniper SRX.

We have approximately 10 people using this solution.

I have not contacted the support from Juniper SRX.

I use Fortinet and Cisco solutions.

I rate Juniper SRX a nine out of ten.

It was a MPLS implementation for a Coal India product.

We have more than 10,000 people using this solution in telecommunication.

For the routers, every feature is quite essential and this is a complete router. The firewall applications are scalable.

To compare with Fortinet, Juniper needs to improve their security features.

I have been using this solution for three years.

It's stable.

It's easily scalable.

I would rate technical support 4 out of 5. They're responsive.

It's easy to set up. I would rate it 5 out of 5.

It takes a maximum of 30 minutes to deploy everything.

Two engineers are enough for maintenance because it's pretty stable and the hardware quality is very good.

For a medium-sized organization, the cost for the licensing and implementation of Juniper SRX for 10 users would be about $300-400.

Juniper is lagging behind compared with Fortinet and Cisco.

I would rate this solution 10 out of 10.

If you have the routing solutions and you want to use Juniper as a complementary solution, you could use it. But if you want it mainly for the firewall, I would recommend Fortinet or Cisco instead.