The Firebox M Series is WatchGuard's line of 1U rack-mount and modular chassis next-generation firewalls. Models range from the M290 for branch office and SMB rack deployments up to the M5800 chassis for large enterprise and service provider environments. All M Series appliances run Fireware OS and support the complete WatchGuard Total Security Suite, including IPS, antivirus, application control, content filtering, DNS Watch, and Threat Detection and Response. The M4800 and M5800 are modular chassis systems with flexible network interface module support.

The x90 and x95 designations indicate hardware tiers within the same chassis generation. The x95 models (M295, M395, M495, M595, M695) use higher-performance processors that deliver more firewall throughput, more concurrent connections, and more VPN tunnel capacity than their x90 counterparts. If your current traffic and inspection workloads fit within the x90 specs, either variant works. If you plan to enable full deep-packet inspection across all traffic or expect significant user growth over the next two to three years, the x95 gives you the headroom without a chassis change.

Yes. All current M Series Firebox models connect to WatchGuard Cloud for centralized policy management, traffic reporting, and security event monitoring. You can manage firewalls across multiple locations from one portal without being on-site at each location. WatchGuard's RapidDeploy zero-touch provisioning feature also runs through WatchGuard Cloud and simplifies deployment of M Series appliances at remote data centers or branch offices.

The M Series hardware operates as a stateful firewall and VPN router without a subscription. The next-generation security features, including IPS, antivirus, application control, content filtering, DNS Watch, and Threat Detection and Response, require an active Total Security Suite or Basic Security Suite license. We sell hardware only, hardware bundled with multi-year licensing, and standalone renewal licenses. Our pre-sales team can help you choose the right subscription tier for your inspection requirements and budget.

Start with firewall throughput and Branch Office VPN tunnel count. The M290 at 5.8 Gbps suits branch office racks with up to 75 VPN tunnels. The M390 at 18 Gbps handles growing businesses with up to 250 tunnels. The M590 moves into large enterprise territory at 500 tunnels and 750 VLAN segments. The M690 is built for very large enterprises needing 1,000 tunnels and 15 million concurrent connections. If you plan to run full Total Security Suite services on all traffic, size up at least one model from your calculated throughput to keep inspection performance under load. Our engineers can review your traffic profile and give a specific recommendation.

Yes. Firewalls.com accepts purchase orders and Net 30 terms for corporate, education, and government customers, and we support tax-exempt purchasing. As a WatchGuard One Gold partner with current engineer certifications, we can put together a quote that packages hardware, multi-year licensing, and optional configuration or managed services into a single order built for procurement-friendly billing.