Cisco Meraki Z3 Teleworker (discontinued) vs. pfSense

Like it's name suggests, the Cisco Meraki Z3 Teleworker is well suited for remote or teleworkers. It simplifies connecting remote workers in a secure way to internal networks via Meraki SD-WAN capabilities with great versatility for both, remote workers and administrators. Wireless and cable connections make it perfect for remote workers and the central dashboard with its possibilites for simple setup are pros for the Cisco Meraki Z3 Teleworker.

Incentivized

pfSense is incredibly budget friendly and capable for organizations of all sizes. My specific scenario, working for a non-profit organization, requires budget consciences decisions without compromising security and function. pfSense has helped tremendously in accomplishing this. It specifically tackles advanced routing, static routing, remote access, intrusion prevention, in a single platform, mostly available for free.

Incentivized

• Provide visibility into user home network.
• "Always on" type of network experience without VPN.
• Managed and provisioned through the Cisco Meraki dashboard.

Incentivized

• Easy to use. Good user interface design! Easy to understand and easy to set up.
• Lower hardware requirement. 3 years ago, we used an old PC to run it. Now, we have changed to a router device with Celeron CPU and 8GB RAM. It runs smoothly with a 1000G commercial broadband.

Incentivized

• No roaming between MR Access Points and Z3
• No 5G connectivity (already fixed by Z4)

Incentivized

• There is no API for making changes. This can be a hindrance in environments where auto-deploying something needs firewall rules or HAProxy configs updated. Since all settings are stored in an XML file and then configs are generated from that, even manually updating config files cannot be done.
• Beware that some network cards can have issues. pfSense is based on FreeBSD, so it's best to look on their compatibility list before deploying.

Incentivized

pfSense can be a very elementary firewall but can also be as comples as you want, according your needs. I'd always reccomend a HA solution when used in a company and, for bigger companies, commercial license is recommended. It's also very adptable to everyone's needs.

Incentivized

pfSense+ basic provides "As Available" email support. pfSense+ Pro offers 24 hr turn around email support. pfSense+ Enterprise offers 24/7 phone support.

Incentivized

At the time of implementation, we were not aware of a comparable product from Cisco or comparative vendor. We had initially deployed the Z1 appliance and had so much success that the transition to the Cisco Meraki Z3 Teleworker was a quick and easy fit for us. The device is easy to deploy and just works.

Incentivized

PFSense is not a fully featured and supported enterprise-grade solution; however, it does offer a lot of similar functionality at a fraction of the cost for more minor requirements.

Cisco Meraki Z3 Teleworker acts not just as a gateway but also as a VPN and Firewall. The performance is great and it solves a lot of situations, that I mentioned before. I highly recommend buying and trying it.

Incentivized

• Good visibility for IT team so we can monitor and validate the teleworker traffic
• Zero Touch Provisioning so we do not need to send a Engineer to configure it.
• Consumer-grade network security

Incentivized

• pfSense has only had positive impacts on our company. We are not a huge company so not having to buy licenses to get all these features have been excellent.
• I was not around when our current sysadmin decided to use pfSense, but I am assuming from day one it was probably a 100% return on investment since it does everything we need it to and it was open source software.

Incentivized