Mandatory cloud licences and what expiry does, the cloud-only dashboard, jurisdiction and the US primary controller, end-of-support dates, exploit record, MSLA billing and cloud-delivered DLP, from Meraki's own documentation, each with its source.
| Topic | Cisco Meraki — from their own documents | Zedmos |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing model | Hardware plus a mandatory cloud licence for every device: MX editions Enterprise, Advanced Security or Secure SD-WAN Plus, on 1-, 3-, 5-, 7- or 10-year co-termination terms or 12 to 84 months under the subscription model. Under co-termination, once the 30-day grace period after expiry ends, the organisation is shut down and its devices become non-operational.Sources: Meraki docs: licensing FAQ · Meraki docs: MX security and SD-WAN licensing · Meraki docs: license info page, co-termination · Meraki docs: licensing for MSPs | Software, licensed per firewall, with no hardware in the licence. A lapsed licence makes the console read-only for that firewall; the firewall keeps enforcing and never drops a packet. |
| Management console | The Meraki Dashboard is a cloud service; devices keep running on their last known configuration when connectivity to it is lost but cannot be reconfigured, and the documentation describes no on-premises dashboard. Multi-customer management is the MSP Portal, which activates for any account with access to several organisations; each customer is normally a separate organisation.Sources: Meraki docs: cloud architecture · Meraki docs: managing multiple organizations · Meraki docs: managed service providers | One console, multi-tenant from the first firewall. Run it as a container on your server under your domain, or use ours at console.zedmos.com, operated from Frankfurt. If it is unreachable, every firewall keeps enforcing. |
| Jurisdiction | Cisco Systems, Inc., San Jose, California, listed on Nasdaq (CSCO). Meraki's Europe region stores management data in Germany, but the global cloud is orchestrated by a Primary Controller in Cisco Meraki's US-based data centres, which holds organisation definitions, high-level configuration and administrators' login credentials.Sources: Cisco Form 10-K, fiscal 2024 · Meraki docs: EU hosting configuration guide · Meraki docs: dashboard data storage | A German company. A self-hosted console keeps firewall logs, personal data under the GDPR (CJEU C-582/14), in your own controllership. Our licence and threat-intelligence services run in Frankfurt. |
| Hardware lifecycle | End-of-sale is typically announced up to six months ahead and support runs five years after it; after end-of-support Meraki no longer guarantees that the hardware can connect to the management cloud. The MX65 and MX65W reach end of support on 28 May 2026 and the MX84 on 31 October 2026.Sources: Cisco Meraki support policies · Meraki docs: end-of-life products and dates | The support period is the software's: at least five years from placing on the market (CRA Art. 13(8)), published, and independent of any box. The hardware is yours to keep or replace. |
| Exploit record | Cisco as a whole has 97 entries in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue (version 2026.09.11), 7 of them flagged for known ransomware use; 17 concern the ASA, FTD and Secure Firewall Management Center line, and none names Meraki. Fifteen were added in 2026.Sources: CISA KEV — Cisco | 0 entries. Published, with our CRA class, an SBOM per release, the disclosure path and the support period, on a page that stays up whatever the number becomes. |
| MSP billing | The Managed Services License Agreement: monthly post-paid on the previous month's licence usage, with Meraki Cloud Service among its product terms; the Managed Services Enterprise Agreement is offered only to Gold or Premier Provider partners. For end customers, the Cisco Enterprise Agreement 3.0 is a three- or five-year agreement with a $100,000 minimum.Sources: cisco.com: MSLA product terms · TD Synnex: Cisco buying programs · cisco.com: Enterprise Agreement 3.0 FAQ | MSP tier: multi-tenant, unlimited firewalls, billed monthly in arrears on the month-end count. Your brand on the console and on the box. |
| AI and data loss prevention | Cisco AI Assistant is built into the Meraki dashboard on all licence tiers. DLP is not a function of the MX: it is delivered from the cloud by Cisco Secure Access, a cloud-delivered security service edge, to which Meraki SD-WAN steers traffic over Auto VPN tunnels.Sources: Meraki docs: AI Assistant · cisco.com: Secure Access · cisco.com: SASE with Meraki at a glance | DLP and the AI gateway run on the box. 61 content detectors; prompts, uploads and files checked before they leave; the model that decides runs on your hardware. |
| Price changes, 2025–2026 | Per reseller notices, hardware list prices rose by an average of 3.4 % on 13 September 2025 with matching service uplifts in October 2025, and further adjustments took effect on 18 April 2026 attributed to memory-market volatility. In February 2026 Cisco's CEO said further adjustments would follow as necessary.Sources: Cisilion (Cisco partner): price changes · The Register, 12 February 2026 | No hardware in the price. The licence is not tied to an appliance list, so a hardware price change does not propagate into a renewal. |
| What Cisco has that Zedmos does not | 27.6 % of the Ethernet-switch market (IDC, 4Q25), a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN for the fifth consecutive year with over 173,000 SD-WAN customers, Talos, described by Cisco as the world's largest non-governmental threat-intelligence organisation, 24-hour TAC, about 90,400 employees, and a 99.99 % uptime SLA for the Meraki cloud.Sources: IDC, Ethernet switch market 4Q25 · Cisco blog: Gartner SD-WAN Magic Quadrant 2024 · Cisco Umbrella: Talos · Cisco Meraki trust | None of those. A small German vendor with a published exploit record, a console you own, and a licence that does not care which box it runs on. |
Cisco is the largest networking company in the world and Meraki is its cloud-managed line. The comparison is about how the two products are licensed, where they are managed from, under whose law, and what the public record says. Every claim on the left carries its source; if one is wrong, write to us and it will be corrected.
Checked: 2026-09-13
Zedmos is compared with Cisco Meraki above on licensing, management, jurisdiction, exploit record and what each is delivered as. Zedmos is software on hardware you own, managed from a console you host yourself or use hosted from Frankfurt, licensed per firewall, from a German vendor under EU law, with zero entries in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue. The last row of the table is what Cisco Meraki has that Zedmos does not.