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Juniper Session Smart Router vs Meraki SD-WAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Session Smart Router
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.1
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Routers (3rd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (6th)
Meraki SD-WAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Networking (SDN) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Networking solutions, they serve different purposes. Juniper Session Smart Router is designed for Routers and holds a mindshare of 3.1%, up 0.7% compared to last year.
Meraki SD-WAN, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Networking (SDN), holds 9.8% mindshare, down 21.2% since last year.
Routers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Juniper Session Smart Router3.1%
MikroTik Routers and Switches17.2%
Cisco Enterprise Routers14.7%
Other65.0%
Routers
Software Defined Networking (SDN) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Meraki SD-WAN9.8%
Cisco ACI9.1%
Juniper Contrail Networking7.5%
Other73.6%
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 

Featured Reviews

Esther Sultaana - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Consultant Storage at Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Secure healthcare connectivity has protected patient data and supports reliable telemedicine
Everything can be improved. It could improve its security stack with malware detection, particularly in healthcare because of ransomware. Now you have IoT vulnerabilities, so something like advanced malware detection or threat analysis would help. This is something I worked with around 2016 to 2017. Perhaps they have added those features, but I know they didn't have it then. Some security profiles for specific medical devices would be helpful. Sandboxing would be good. Dedicated telemedicine routing profiles would be beneficial because we have a lot of telemedicine going on. Real-time sessions for clinicians may need pre-built templates for EHR and EMR. I think those would be good if they're not already there. I don't know what the latest router has, but I know they didn't have those features then. There can always be improvements because technology is constantly advancing. It is a very solid router, and that is one of many industries that could utilize it. Healthcare is one such industry, and if it works for healthcare, then that is a major plus for that router.
reviewer2771085 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant - International Business at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Has simplified cloud deployments for retail environments but needs more advanced features and better pricing
The pricing of Meraki SD-WAN depends compared to which vendors, because it's a bit pricey, so not all retail would go for it unless it's a big retail company, but it depends on your comparison. I usually recommend multiple vendors in mind because it depends on the customer's requirements; you have Fortinet, you have Aruba, you have Huawei, and you have multiple options that may be cheaper than Cisco. Regarding Meraki SD-WAN functionality, it depends on the situation, but I would recommend this product if they have the money. It all comes down to the requirements first because I try to fit the best solution for them. It doesn't depend only if I'm carrying only Cisco, it depends on what their exact requirements are. Cisco is one of the top vendors with the most stable performance in many solutions, but it all comes down to the customer requirements. Mainly the pricing is a concern, and it doesn't fit enterprise customers. For enterprise-grade customers, it's not going to fit; it's not possible to use Meraki SD-WAN. It's not just because of the price; it's for enterprise because of the limitation in features and capabilities. Meraki SD-WAN is not fit for enterprise-grade customers or big deployments.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Juniper Session Smart Router is its unique SDR channel."
"The biggest advantage of Juniper Session Smart Router that really stands out is its reliability and performance."
"Customer service is very prompt."
"Overall, it is very solid."
"Juniper Session Smart Router's real-time analytics and visibility features are easily accessible."
"I can share specific numbers; we achieved a 30 to 60% WAN cost reduction by reducing MPLS usage."
"As compared to the other major vendors in the SD-WAN market, such as VeloCloud, Cisco, and others, the tunnel-free and secure vector routing technology is its major USP, which gives plenty of room to discuss with the customer why IPSec from 1998 is a bit outdated."
"Juniper Session Smart Router has positively impacted my organization because we have multi-cloud solutions that are extremely useful for our M365, Teams communication, Zoom communication, SAP applications, and Oracle-based applications."
"The service provided by the solution is very good."
"Customer support is very good."
"If you want a simple to configure SD-WAN deployment that's easy to monitor and manage, Meraki is a good fit."
"A lot of our customers really enjoy the Meraki Dashboard. It’s a single pane of glass."
"The solution operates via zero-touch configuration."
"SD-WAN is a complete enterprise solution for securing traffic."
"The centralized console manageable from the cloud is one of the advantages."
"The most valuable feature is the single management plane dashboard. Our organization has a global site, we have separated the area, and we have more than five hundred small sites around the world."
 

Cons

"Everything can be improved. It could improve its security stack with malware detection, particularly in healthcare because of ransomware."
"I found some weaknesses on their hardware. They are sometimes breaking very often."
"One area for improvement that I have observed is related to the VPN, where I frequently notice VPN flaps or disconnections between Juniper Session Smart Router and the SD-WAN hub device in the data center, which should be addressed to prevent users from experiencing any downtime."
"Juniper Session Smart Router should have a more user-friendly graphical interface because the user interface is complex, and some upgrade operations are sometimes difficult."
"Juniper Session Smart Router can be improved by simplifying onboarding for traditional network teams and providing better documentation for complex deployments, as well as improving the GUI for operational workflows and better migration tooling."
"Juniper Session Smart Router could improve its documentation to become more competitive. It has very little documentation, and you have to rely mainly so much on support to do something, which I feel should not be that way."
"Juniper Session Smart Router can improve the integration for Wi-Fi devices and add additional Sassy deployments."
"Juniper Session Smart Router could be better in terms of software performance."
"I'd like to see improvements in the client VPN area. Currently, we use L2TP over IPSec, which, while widely supported, can be buggy on Windows due to Microsoft's implementation, not Meraki's."
"Some advanced networking features are not currently available in the Meraki product but are on their roadmap."
"The scalability is okay, but the solution is much more suited to small and medium-sized companies and isn't really suited for large ones."
"Cisco should enhance the GUI interface to provide more details for users to troubleshoot."
"Meraki SD-WAN has to significantly improve the company's network performance."
"From the perspective of the customer, the price is not terribly cost-effective; it should be more attractive to the market."
"The area I think this solution should improve is the pricing."
"From the vice perspective, they just are not as robust as some of the other vendors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a simple bandwidth-based license and the orchestration comes bundled with the solution by default."
"We are currently renegotiating the offer for the licenses and the license bundle model. The license for an ISP has to be different from the license for an end customer. This is something we are currently renegotiating with Juniper, but, of course, the pricing for the licensing is always an issue when you want to get more customers."
"Any license you buy until January 2021 gets you an extra year for that purchase."
"Meraki's pricing is on the higher side, which may limit who can afford to use them."
"The product is not very expensive."
"The pricing is fair, but if they can make it less it would be even more attractive."
"The licenses cost a fortune."
"The tool offers term licenses. You have the same term licensing model available for all of your equipment, which is good for management."
"I don't have information on the exact cost of Meraki SD-WAN, but I'd rate it a three out of five just because the licensing model is very much associated with the Meraki solution."
"There are no licensing costs for the product subscription."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
21%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise32
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Juniper Session Smart Router?
I personally did not do the pricing. I imagine it was okay because the company did purchase it. In a lot of instances, particularly as it pertains to healthcare, they don't want to spend too much. ...
What needs improvement with Juniper Session Smart Router?
I think the current Juniper focuses more on switching rather than routing, which is a weak point in the product. Currently, I and my customers have not utilized the Session Awareness feature of Jun...
What is your primary use case for Juniper Session Smart Router?
I have been running my own company and working with Juniper Session Smart Router for almost 10 to 12 years because Larsen & Toubro is my client who will use Juniper devices for switching and fi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki SD-WAN?
When compared for the long run, it is reasonable, but for the short term, such as one year, it is costlier, especially compared to other OEMs such as FortiGate. If the license expires in FortiGate,...
What needs improvement with Meraki SD-WAN?
The pricing of Meraki SD-WAN depends compared to which vendors, because it's a bit pricey, so not all retail would go for it unless it's a big retail company, but it depends on your comparison. I u...
What is your primary use case for Meraki SD-WAN?
For Meraki SD-WAN, I always go with retail companies.
 

Also Known As

128T Networking Platform, 128 Technology SD-WAN, Juniper SSR Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Revation Systems
École Jeannine Manuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, MikroTik, Juniper and others in Routers. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.