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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Firepower 1000 Series

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AThe Cisco Firepower® 1000 Series for small to medium-size businesses and branch offices is a family of four threat-focused Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) security platforms designed to deliver business resiliency through superior threat defense. The vendor provides that they offers exceptional sustained performance when advanced threat functions are enabled. The 1000 Series’ throughput range addresses use cases from the small office, home office, remote branch office to the Internet edge. The…N/A

    Cisco Meraki MX

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/ACisco 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

    Pricing
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
    Editions & Modules
    Firepower 1000
    1,000-5,000
    per appliance
    MX64
    $595
    per appliance
    MX67
    $695
    per appliance
    MX68
    $995
    per appliance
    MX84
    $1,995
    per appliance
    MX100
    $4,995
    per appliance
    MX250
    $9,995
    per appliance
    MX450
    $19,995
    per appliance
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
    Cisco Meraki MX is much more simple to configure it if you compare to Cisco Firepower 1000, but it is more limited to pur some complex configurations. The Cisco Firepower 1000 Series is typically deployed as a physical appliance, while the Meraki MX can be deployed as a …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
    As far as FIREWALLS go, the 1000 series is solid, I have had Ubiquiti's fail, Meraki is way to expensive, and Sonicwall's UI is very cluttered.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
    we have chosen Cisco in order to complete the Cisco full stack.
    The price is higher than the competitors devices
    Incentivized
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Meraki MX
    Cisco Meraki full stack is the best way to monitoring your network.
    Troubleshooting is more easy, more graphical and easy to use.
    i like the topology view, the wireless healt, airmarshall … the advanced thread protection and the security center…
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Meraki MX
    cisco ASA is a legacy firewalla that is very outdated.despite it's aN NGFW with advanced security features, we decided to use meraki because of the ease of use and the need of scalability. in these two criteria, ASA is very weak, so we dicided to try the meraki mx product …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Meraki MX
    Both are great products but Cisco Meraki MX is simpler and quicker to get up and in production with multiple FW’s given Auto VPN.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Meraki MX
    Cisco Meraki MX is much more simple to configure, deploy and manage. It's very intuitive and it has a lot of options as a firewall, also it has a SD WAN feature as a very important added value. The performance of the Cisco Meraki MX is very good and for these all reasons Meraki …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Meraki MX
    They are equipment or solutions that provide similar characteristics at the level of routing, administration of internet links and security features for the customer's network. However, we opted for Cisco Meraki for clients who require much more agile deployments, who have …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Meraki MX
    I've used traditional ASAs with and without firepower, newer firepower only Cisco firewalls, and Fortinet FortiGate firewalls. I think Meraki stacks up pretty well to them with most features. I think managing the Meraki is much easier than all of them because of the …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Meraki MX
    Depends on the use case. Meraki shines in the area of ease of management and ease of deployment. This is typically retail customers with many locations or customers with lean IT staff. Meraki MX seems not to do well in complex environments with heavy IT staff requirements. …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    89%
    Would buy again
    17 Answers
    95%
    Would buy again
    124 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    17 Answers
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    118 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    89%
    Happy with the feature set
    17 Answers
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    122 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    87%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    108 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    95%
    Implementation went as expected
    119 Answers
    Features
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Cisco Firepower 1000 Series and Cisco Meraki MX
    Feature
    Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
    8.3
    33 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Cisco Meraki MX
    7.9
    109 Ratings
    9% below category average
    Identification Technologies8.031 Ratings8.3104 Ratings
    Visualization Tools7.230 Ratings8.7102 Ratings
    Content Inspection8.330 Ratings8.1101 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls8.733 Ratings7.5100 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP8.429 Ratings8.090 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console7.232 Ratings6.4103 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging8.333 Ratings7.6107 Ratings
    VPN9.128 Ratings8.8102 Ratings
    High Availability9.232 Ratings9.1103 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection8.828 Ratings7.397 Ratings
    Proxy Server00 Ratings6.957 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
    Small Businesses
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.4 out of 10
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.3
    (34 ratings)
    9.3
    (145 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    9.5
    (7 ratings)
    Availability
    8.1
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    8.3
    (29 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.5
    (34 ratings)
    8.9
    (15 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.1
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (112 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesCisco Meraki MX
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    I think it is well suited for smaller companies or (as in our case) extension to a central system with higher performance. My personal guess is, that it can be quite annoying with those delays in bigger environments, when 20 or more devices needed to be managed. From the point of security, support and updates it works quite good and seem to have no downsides.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    The Meraki MX lineup is well suited for organizations that need centralized management of multiple locations, as it allows for both quick deployment and simple/easy remote administration all from a single pane of glass. It also works very well for providing VPN access for remote workers and helps monitor end-device uptime. It does, however, fall a bit short in its firewall's customization, compared to traditional appliances (like our WatchGuard Firebox), so perhaps less suited for organizations that need more customization, as the Meraki MX lineup is primarily designed for simplicity and straightforward cloud-based management.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • My organization is all Cisco and wants to stay in the Cisco life cycle, Firepower 1000 series is great for small to medium-size office.
    • Very robust enterprise-grade security solution with updated threat features to handle any current and upcoming threats. The solution is backed by Cisco to ensure constant security updates. Integrated AnyConnect remote client VPN is a big plus to allow for secure remote workers access. Easier to set up a site to site VPN due to the large user base and case studies published on integrating to other manufacturer solutions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • The Cisco Meraki MX series is phenomenal at allowing us to remotely manage networks. So the devices usually act as the brain behind our client's networks, which makes it really, really easy for our team to take a look at what's going on in those client network environments, resolve any issues, and make sure that our client's networks are staying secure.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • ACLS in gui are PIA cant see object details
    • Objects in ACLs dont show IP addresses
    • Have to renames every object to name+ip to make acl GUI useable
    • Speed to data can use improvement.
    • Health warnings should allow you to resolve you have to dig n search in some cases.
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    It is quite good, robust and reliable but not always so easy to manage and configure. The tools could be improved and the price is not low for an entry level firewall
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    The simplicity and ease of use for the Meraki Dashboard make it an easy choice for our organization to renew our Meraki Enterprise Agreement. We will likely continue using the Meraki MC67-C, MX450, and other MX models in their catalog until we shift away from Meraki completely
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cisco
    Firepowers are secure, reliable, central management and configuration is easy and they fit in well with our existing Cisco infrastructure. Good feature set and support. Good management and control with chassis manager and central control with additional Firepower Management Centre.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    Some features simply aren't there, but the ones that are there are pretty easy to use. Sometimes it is easy to get lost when trying to find the specific device you want to work on, but that's mostly due to how rarely we have to go into the interface.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    Has not let me down yet.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Cisco
    Great performance even on the lower end model of the series. You can push a lot of traffic through these devices without much performance impact. If you decide you want to inspect encrypted traffic however, you may take a big hit on the cpu and memory of the box, but they still manage to keep up even with all the bells and whistles turned on.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    I have had troubles with Firepower Management Center and the FTD's in the past. Sticking to a Gold Star image and upgrading when the "bugs" are fixed is great. That still doesn't mean you are left vulnerable though. The extra features are just not enabled yet. Great product and calling support is readily available for any issue.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    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
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    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
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    it was okay as it was moderated but still better than nothing and done via semi self paced webex meeting
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    Utilize the new FMC cloud which is available in Cisco Defense Orchestrator.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Cisco Meraki MX is much more simple to configure it if you compare to Cisco Firepower 1000, but it is more limited to pur some complex configurations. The Cisco Firepower 1000 Series is typically deployed as a physical appliance, while the Meraki MX can be deployed as a physical or virtual appliance.The Firepower 1000 Series has a more complex user interface, with a steeper learning curve, but offers more customization and configuration options. The Meraki MX has a simpler, more intuitive interface,
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    Cisco Meraki MX provides simplicity and scalability while cutting costs. With Meraki MX, you get a Security appliance, router, and Firewall in one appliance and managed with one GUI. These features enable the network engineers to maintain large-scale enterprises with a single dashboard from a remote site or anywhere with internet, all thanks to the Meraki cloud dashboard
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • We have seen improved throughput on our internet.
    • It took several attempts with Cisco engineers to configure the device; it requires a deep set of knowledge to set up in a more complicated environment.
    • This will allow us to move forward with a more stable and configurable environment with security available we didn't have before.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots