Cisco Meraki MX Firewalls is a combined UTM and Software-Defined WAN solution. Meraki is managed via the cloud, and provides core firewall services, including site-to-site VPN, plus network monitoring.
$595
per appliance
WatchGuard Network Security
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
WatchGuard Network Security is a network security and firewall software. WatchGuard includes secure Wi-Fi, multi-factor authentication, and network intelligence products and services designed for SMB’s.
We have used just regular switches with regular firewalls, third party firewalls kind of do the same thing. But the problem with that is that there's a lot of configuration to be done if IP addresses changes. But with the Meraki, I don't have that problem because it's all in …
The closest thing would be just a traditional Cisco router with a DMVPN network set up, but I haven't really interacted with anything on Meraki's level. The closest thing would just be a traditional Cisco router with a VPN network.
The Meraki Dashboard has been a lot more intuitive than CradlePoint NetCloud. We switched from CradlePoint to Cisco Meraki MX because we were already familiar with the interface which allowed us to be familiar with a single dashboard.
The inclusion of unified threat management UTM capabilities were considered a crucial part of the deployment of this solution, which the easy cloud management permitted to build trust in a new solution that no member of the team knew, added that the Cisco is very well known and …
the feature rich unified threat management UTM capabilities were a crucial part of the deployment of this solution that the industry leading cloud management was an pivotal point (previously known by several members of the team), and the Cisco brand is very power full and a …
Cisco Meraki MX and Cato Networks both offer cloud-managed networking solutions, but they take different approaches. Meraki MX is a traditional hardware-based solution backed by Cisco's established networking expertise. It provides integrated security features, SD-WAN …
The top capabilities of unified threat management (utm) protects the company while maintaing costs reduced with great scalability. Cisco core values of quality and resiliency also add a part in choosing Meraki.
The enormous difference between Catalyst and Meraki products is the granular and simple deployment. The Cisco security appliance firewall gives one and you more granular activity whereas the Cisco Meraki MX is focused on plug and play and it gets one and you going. I like …
For some customers, WatchGuard Network Security was the preferable choice. Its price point, compactness, portability, accessibility, ease of design, installation, implementation, configuration, management, monitoring, alerting, user education, technician training, power usage, …
I'm not sure what else is out there, but our team is pretty good at researching and looking at the big picture. I've never had complaints about the experience with various Watchguard products, and am impressed by the new features they announce and integrate with relative …
Watchguard Network Security is easier to use and more effective that its competitors, with certifications you can trust and a good reputation, we can rest assured that our network security is in good hands. Competitors have also demonstrated poor aftersales support, which has …
We chose WatchGuard Network Security specifically because of the firewall implementation. It was easy for us to pick a product that had everything packaged together versus having to buy another firewall and network security software separately from the VPN software.
Each of these systems have already been in place at former employers when I transitioned. While each one has its benefits and drawbacks, as a whole, they all do a great job providing protection against malicious intent. I would say that WatchGuard Network Security is much …
As I mentionned before, the WSM tool and Dimension is the main reasons we stock with WatchGuard beside being satisfied with deployement results at our clients infrastructures.
Our tech had previous experience with WatchGuard Network Security and the Fortinet devices we were using weren't functioning to the standards we needed them to. As costs have increased with WatchGuard Network Security and across the board, we are looking for a different vendor …
I honestly feel they're best in class, I've used other platforms but when it comes to comprehensive security I don't think they offer as many features, or the level of security that we needed. Again the support has been excellent for us too, and keeping our firewalls up to …
WatchGuard Network Security blows them out of the water in my opinion just with the ease of use alone and the ability within the logs. The details of logs are better and help maintain better support. Some features like policies is just so far advanced for maintaining better …
In comparison with other network security companies and its services', WatchGuard Network Security seems to be a more economic choice for our customers needs
WatchGuard Network Security is in league with SonicWall regarding value and features but is not as robust as Sophos or Fortinet. It is also not as simple to configure as Sophos or Fortinet. We selected WatchGuard based solely on the recommendation of an outside party, and that …
Our corporate parent company wants us to switch to Cisco products, but the value the Watchguard Security System brings is more than enough that our organization requires. It has great reporting and analytics and simplified updates and maintenance.
with WatchGuard we have a long history of partnership precisely due to the close relationship with the commercial and technical people who work at WatchGuard. It is an excellent relationship of collaboration and growth that has allowed us to choose WatchGuard as our first …
I find WatchGuard's Network Security interface clunky and outdated. I’ve had to dig in multiple locations to find the answer to a question numerous times. Reviewing and reconfiguring a WatchGuard that has been deployed by someone else is time consuming compared to competitive …
We used Meraki MX with our remote sites and connected the MX 68 to our main MX 85. We routed traffic to our enterprise network and shared application and internet access to remote sites. We have routed traffic and allow only trusted IP address sources using the firewall rules implemented in the Meraki MX. In other scenarios, if the internet is lost, the Meraki will go offline; thus, stable internet access is important to maintain connectivity
Watchguard is well suited for small businesses without significantly complex networks and infrastructure. WatchGuard firewalls perform well on IPv4 networks and offer basic security features that match other vendors that target the small business market. WatchGuard firewalls are less appropriate for mid-sized business and larger. There is limited IPv6 support, and the firmware often lacks some or all of more advanced features that businesses that size often need.
It provides a really good single pane of glass so you can really easily identify end to end, what is going on in your environment.
It provides the ability for someone that doesn't necessarily need a really deep level of knowledge to be able to operate and maintain it. I think that's probably a big selling point, but I think definitely for the people that I'm selling the products who just having a dashboard and being able to log onto it and see if things are good or bad is quite key. So it does that really well.
Layer seven firewall rules. Just making them more granular. We've been in meetings with Cisco SES where I've said feature requests many times and that's one of the big ones where it's just a little cumbersome to implement layer seven rules right now.
Just making them more granular. We've been in meetings with Cisco SES where I've said feature requests many times and that's one of the big ones where it's just a little cumbersome to implement layer seven rules right now.
It is already in place and the client is happy with it. We don't see a need to change what is already working. We want the Meraki to stay out of the way and keep things operating, and that's what it does.
I'm giving this note to WatchGuard Network Security due to its ease of daily support (after acquiring necessary knowledge in the solution), which allows agility in configuration changes, its integration of several reliable security features (such as SSL VPN, VPN Virtual Interfaces between companies, and others) and functional and stability in operation, with no downtime in the equipment due to problems or malfunctions
The Cisco Meraki MX series is very easy to use. Setting up user VPN access, site to site VPN to tie multiple locations together and managing all your devices. You can even download the latest firmware and install without ever leaving the dashboard. Meraki is the very definition of easy to use
Although it might take some time to figure out, we have been able to use WatchGuard's online reference library and tech support to create/implement/modify all of our filtering rules and exceptions needed. There really has not been a shortcoming other than perhaps a learning curve.
Meraki MX devices support high availability (HA) configurations, which ensures minimal downtime if one device goes offline. This feature has helped us maintain a stable and reliable network, even in cases of hardware failures. ince Meraki is cloud-managed, we've noticed that the cloud infrastructure is generally highly reliable, with minimal service interruptions or downtime. This makes it easier to manage the network remotely without significant availability concerns. Meraki automatically pushes firmware updates and patches, which helps maintain system stability without requiring manual intervention. These updates are rolled out in a manner that ensures minimal disruption to service.
Availability has always been a strong point of this product, it is rare that watchguard does not have a solution for customers' network monitoring needs.
The interface is pretty responsive. The lower end devices are easy to overwhelm if you have a lot of throughput. Be sure the model you get is rated for the amount of traffic you will have. Overbuild if possible, otherwise you won't be fully leveraging the connection from your ISP.
The performance of WatchGuard Network Security is very good, in the years that we have used the solution we have only had a single error and Watchguard itself was able to solve it. Furthermore, when purchasing any product, the partner always evaluates the capacity of the solution to recommend the most appropriate product for our needs.
I haven't ever had a bad experience with Meraki support. On the few occasions where I wasn't understanding the UI or needed some clarification about what a setting actually would do, I contacted them and they were very quickly able to provide help. Returns are simple and fast, too. We had to return a defective device one time and they shipped the replacement before we had even un-racked the one that was faulty. Unlike many other vendors, they didn't ask use to a do long list of scripted diagnostics, they just took my word for it that the device was broken and sent out a replacement immediately
For something that is considered business critical they should be far more responsive. Security isn't something to take lightly in today's work environment and so long as its working you are happy. But when it doesn't and you need that professional assistance, they weren't always there and I ultimately resolved my issues with the help of Google.
great when they offered it, really tested your knowledge with hands on and see what your peers from other orgs know. glad to see that we were ahead of the curve of what our peers knew
We participate to a in person training and the three days of learning was really useful and complete to gain skill to solve the major part of the problem we encounter during our life. And more the in person training give us the opportunity to create a network with other WatchGuard partner.
Implementing Meraki MX devices in phases—starting with a pilot group or select branch offices—was invaluable. This allowed us to identify potential configuration issues, troubleshoot problems, and refine our setup before rolling it out company-wide. It also helped to get feedback from early users and adjust the deployment strategy accordingly. The SD-WAN capabilities in Meraki MX were essential for optimizing our WAN traffic and ensuring better application performance across various locations.
I had my key information for setting up the firewall, and they assisted me in finding the settings and appropriate places to enter data. They also helped troubleshoot when I didn't understand some of their feature concepts, and we got it running.
We previously evaluated WatchGuard Firebox Cloud, but we needed a solution that was a bit more straightforward to deploy and manage. The MX met that need for us. However licensing costs for both solutions are still a bit high.
I think the solutions are comparable, but the cloud management piece is critical for MSPs these days. We need to be able to schedule and push out updates as soon as they are stable and ready. Insurance companies and government regulations mandate this.
When I first started with my company we had various infrastructure and a mix of tech. Since going to Cisco Meraki MX we have noticed better network performance and our new sites are much easier to bring online. Users have noticed an improvement in VPN connection and getting into all our systems.
This product is very scalable since previously everything related to Watchguard was on premises but that has now changed with the inclusion of watchguard cloud. Now the product has evolved to have full control of firewalls at the cloud level.
From a positive impact? Basically it allows us to set up shop very quickly. It allowed us to add sites to our network very quickly. From a negative perspective, I think the only thing is that I can see from a negative perspective is I have a preference to working with ACLI in terms of how I engage with the youth tool At the moment, the only way to actually engage with a tool is on a gui and sometimes what I'd actually like is more detailed information in terms of actual configuration that you'll actually get out of ACLI.
at least 3-5X a year (that I know of), this device has single-handedly prevented members of our staff from inadvertently connecting to services they did not intend and could have resulted in security disruption
although you can never rule out human-behaviour-engineered threat, it's helpful to know that our network has a higher level, enterprise-class control and monitoring behind it
any time our network might be showing signs of abnormal performance, the WatchGuard control panel is the first place I turn to help identify the level of concern. It can quickly set my mind at ease and help to identify the specific device that might be out of compliance
