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Juniper Contrail Networking vs Meraki SD-WAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Juniper Contrail Networking
Ranking in Software Defined Networking (SDN)
5th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Meraki SD-WAN
Ranking in Software Defined Networking (SDN)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Software Defined Networking (SDN) category, the mindshare of Juniper Contrail Networking is 6.5%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Meraki SD-WAN is 22.5%, down from 24.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 

Featured Reviews

TA
Smart configuration management eliminates the need to worry about managing the network's configurations
Based on my experience in the Indian market, there are four to five areas that need improvement. First, there is a lack of marketing and awareness about Juniper, making it difficult to reach end-users and deliver solutions. Second, Juniper's education and awareness centers are costly and not easily accessible like Cisco's resources and their understanding of users' requirements. The information is not easily available on online channels like Youtube. Third, Juniper needs to promote its Mist integration better, and pricing is also a significant factor. Finally, Juniper needs to address the market's specific requirements, such as the SME sector, and offer more lower-priced products like a lower-end segment switch. In summary, improving marketing and sales, education and awareness, Mist integration, pricing, and catering to specific market requirements are areas that need improvement. I just want a good feature in the SD-WAN. Juniper should consider integrating its firewall experience with its SD-WAN devices to create a complete package. With everything moving to the cloud, companies require intelligence and security solutions for their on-prem infrastructure. Moreover, Juniper should integrate its SOC solution into its Mist portal and SD-WAN devices, including IPs, IDS, web and content filters, and messaging. This would provide a complete product and give Juniper an advantage over competitors such as Cisco. I believe that with a bundle that includes SOC and UTM flavors in their Mist portal, Juniper can make a significant impact in the market.
Mageshwaran S - PeerSpot reviewer
Experienced streamlined network management with enhanced usability and room for improved security features
On the security features, when compared to Fortinet, they have more patterns and AI-generated ones. Meraki SD-WAN is slowly implementing AI, but it is not yet full-fledged. If AI comes into the picture, it will be helpful. I work with Fortinet where with a single command you can deploy the entire SD-WAN along with FortiGuard within minutes. For AI, it can discover and connect, but currently, we are doing it manually. In Meraki SD-WAN, some features require additional licenses and subscriptions. If these were bundled together, such as 10 or 20 licenses, it would be very helpful for a mini branch or small campus area coverage.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Juniper Contrail Networking is a stable solution."
"Contrail automates the excellent communication between virtual appliances."
"It provides proactive alerting in a single dashboard solution."
"After we finished setting Contrail up, it seemed stable enough. Still, we never tested it in a real environment, so we don't have enough information to say whether it's stable with a given number of users and appliances. We have tested it in a lab environment, but we haven't tested enough to say that the platform is stable."
"The solution is pretty easy to configure."
"Tech support is willing to go the extra mile to resolve issues."
"The redundancy feature of Meraki SD-WAN has most significantly enhanced network performance."
"We have found the product to be quite scalable."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The Meraki interface is really well driven and very mature."
"The most interesting feature is the amount of information you can get from overseeing the system from a centralized place."
"The dashboard is the solution's most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Visibility, especially for the top of the platform, is a nightmare. The top was documented incorrectly and really complex to complete. In the end, it worked but only after several weeks of work with the support of a Juniper solution engineer in Holland."
"Juniper Contrail Networking is difficult if you do not have a certificate for Juniper. Juniper is a different type of configuration or operation than Cisco."
"Juniper needs to address the market's specific requirements, such as the SME sector, and offer more lower-priced products like a lower-end segment switch."
"Concerns were raised about the complexity of involving networking components like MX routers, which often required expertise beyond the scope of software engineers. As a result, users encountered challenges in achieving comprehensive understanding and troubleshooting of networking issues within the Contrail environment."
"Some advanced networking features are not currently available in the Meraki product but are on their roadmap."
"The solution lacks a certain amount of functionality and features."
"The solution needs to enact more advanced protections."
"The adoption of endpoint services or endpoint security should be developed in future releases."
"They stopped doing WAN optimization as a feature set, which is lacking. They need to relook at that and consider WAN optimization as an option."
"There is still some work to do when it comes to AI."
"The product could be improved by being made more simple to use. We had some issues integrating our MPLS with Meraki SD-WAN."
"The solution lacks controllers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are many vendors in the wireless market that offer better pricing, solutions, and management skills compared to Juniper."
"Juniper Contrail Networking is low-cost for small and medium-sized businesses. Cisco and Palo Alto solutions are more expensive."
"The solution is a bit expensive when compared to other products."
"There are no licensing costs for the product subscription."
"This solution is more expensive than competitors."
"They have a baseline software license, and then they've got an SD-WAN software license, and then they've got an advanced security software license. They're low cost, and they'll provide any amount of flexibility that you want from a modeling perspective for payment. Typically, it's either annually or multi-year, but they are a lower-cost company. They're not the most expensive by far."
"I am not aware of the licensing fees."
"The licenses cost a fortune."
"The product is not expensive."
"The price of this solution is good, it is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Retailer
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Juniper Contrail Networking?
Juniper Contrail Networking enables the utilization of tier-two appliances and the creation of virtual networks or appliances. This is facilitated through the use of filtering devices. Additionally...
What is your primary use case for Juniper Contrail Networking?
We use the solution to host many services for multiple clients. We aim to transition from hosting Cisco clients to utilizing virtual appliances. Therefore, we intend to virtualize their infrastruct...
What advice do you have for others considering Juniper Contrail Networking?
Juniper Contrail Networking presents a distinct alternative for those encountering issues with vendor solutions. Consequently, individuals who may have previously hesitated to explore OpenStack sol...
What do you like most about Meraki SD-WAN?
The auto VPN feature is important because it automates many tasks, making things simpler and faster. It helps with setting up devices and changing configurations without manual effort.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki SD-WAN?
The price is a little bit higher than local vendors, for example, Huawei ZTE or H3C. However, some customers require the best quality and performance, thus needing solutions and products from Cisco.
What needs improvement with Meraki SD-WAN?
They have to ask us many questions about configurations. It could be improved with some automation to trigger, for example, telemetry data, so we can determine the state of the deployment as of day...
 

Also Known As

Contrail Networking
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lithium Technologies, Orange Business Services, Cloudwatt, Symantec, Cloud Dynamics, CloudSeeds
École Jeannine Manuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Juniper Contrail Networking vs. Meraki SD-WAN and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.