We compared Auvik and Meraki Dashboard across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Auvik excels in SNMP and WMI communication, syslog centralization, and live topology mapping. The solution offers NetFlow monitoring as well as backup and configuration management. Meraki Dashboard users like its centralized console, cable testing, firmware updates, and group policy features. The solution is also praised as user-friendly, stable, and scalable.
Room for Improvement: Auvik users would like more flexibility to customize reporting and dashboards. Reviews also suggested improvements in probe deployment and integration with third-party products. Users say Meraki Dashboard could improve its client VPN, hardware discovery, and integration with external solutions, Some users mentioned a need for more comprehensive documentation and granular control.
Service and Support: Auvik's customer service is highly rated. Users said it’s convenient to contact support through the platform, and responses are fast. Some noted that problems are typically resolved in a single phone call without the need to escalate. Meraki Dashboard's customer service receives mixed feedback. Some users spoke fondly of the technical support they received, while others expressed frustration over long wait times and had a hard time finding the right person to help them.
Ease of Deployment: Auvik's setup is simple, fast, and customizable, with clear instructions. Users said Meraki Dashboard was effortless and intuitive to set up, noting that features like templates and configuration cloning saved time during deployment.
Pricing: Auvik’s pricing structure is considered reasonable and competitive. Licensing is based on the number of billable devices, and users have control over which devices are billed. Opinions on Meraki Dashboard's pricing varied, with some users finding it pricey and others deeming it fair.
ROI: Auvik users said the solution saves time, improves efficiency, and reduces costs through automation and better insights. Meraki Dashboard simplifies IT operations, and some users expect returns within a few years.
Comparison Results: Auvik is a user-friendly option for network monitoring and troubleshooting. The solution stands out for its support and ease of navigation. Users like its topology maps and centralized log information. Some users noted that Auvik’s dashboard could be more customizable and suggested that it could improve probe deployment. Meraki Dashboard is a scalable, user-friendly solution with a smooth, painless setup made easy by built-in templates and features like configuration cloning. However, some users complained that the solution is too expensive and needs better integration with non-Cisco platforms.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"Auvik has decreased our mean time to resolution. It's easier to find the devices on the network and pull out the information. Of course, the SNMP is also good to get the logs. It helps in the network debugging or if we have to find any problems."
"The stand-out feature is the automated config backup on networking devices. This automation is handy in a bind when a machine crashes, and you need to pull the config out of Auvik."
"My favorite feature so far is the alerts section. We've got our main company at the top, and then all of our customers are underneath that. We can either filter by a single customer or one of their sites specifically, or look at it from the top down and see the whole picture. It's an easy way for me to be able to have a high-level overview. I can see the status of all of our sites simultaneously without having to really dig in and get super granular, unless I want to."
"Among the most valuable features are the hardware life cycle and configuration backups, when applicable... When it does show you the hardware life cycle for, say, a Cisco device and the configuration backup, that's the most useful aspect for me as a network engineer."
"The most valuable feature of Auvik is its ability to drill down and identify unusual activity on the network, such as unauthorized devices connecting to our Wi-Fi."
"I don't worry about the scalability of the solution because it is quite a broad, scalable, modern platform."
"The solution allows us to spend less time on setup and maintenance and less time on issue resolution."
"I like the way everything can be integrated. Auvik uses SMNP and various protocols to ensure we can monitor any device on the network."
"Easy to configure with great troubleshooting feature."
"It is very stable and we have been using it for five years."
"We like the visibility this solution gives us of the infrastructure."
"There is no need to swap the hardware at all the locations, and importing the APs into the Dashboard was a simple and quick process."
"The hardware of Meraki is very good quality."
"You don't have to be a network engineer to use it."
"It is very easy to manage. It has good security, and it is working well with our firewall."
"The solution scales well."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"I would like to see Auvik have some more documentation with a typical CM solution like Splunk. I want to see more examples of things like configuring port forwarding for firewalls. In addition to collecting data from different types of appliances, I would like to customize more of the metrics for each appliance."
"I'd like to see some enhancements to Auvik's network map, including the ability to focus on specific areas without viewing the entire map."
"I would like more customizable alerts."
"The logging features could be a little bit better polished, although that aspect is relatively new. It comes in as raw data, with different formats for different vendors. It's not immediately clear to people what's going on with some of that and you have to read through the codes. Some of the higher-end logging solutions, like Splunk, which is very expensive, can parse through it and correlate items better. Improvement to the logging features would be a value-add, but I'm still very happy that it exists."
"The deployment could be better. It's something that we've done recently. Auvik uses something called a collector, and I added a collector to our main site. I only added it to the main site, but when it came to adding additional sites because this was in the testing phase, I had to reconfigure that collector. It wasn't overly clear about how to do that and how to share. They call it sharing a collector. I had to mess around a bit to reconfigure that collector and add some new sites."
"Auvik could include more customization options and the ability to efficiently manage additional features like printer monitoring."
"It requires a lot of hands-on maintenance when it comes to cleanup. That's probably the biggest problem I've had, because I don't have a dedicated resource to manually clean up stale records. I have a customer where it shows 4,000 devices because of the duplication of devices that I have to clean up."
"Although the network topology is excellent, it has a hard time picking up some devices on the network. A device might not be fully supported, or Auvik is unable to pull all the information from it."
"I would like to see an alert event feature to monitor what users are downloading and how to block some applications."
"They could offer API functionality for Meraki Dashboard. It will help us develop software immediately using available solutions."
"The initial setup is complex and can be made more straightforward."
"It's a very complex system. Customers have told me that sometimes there are lots of advanced features that are available and that you can change in the dashboard, but sometimes it's very hard to know what they are."
"For my purposes, I don't need to see any other features added to the Meraki Dashboard. I have no criticisms and I do like the tool. If I had a criticism for it, it would be about the pricing because it could be a little less, but again, for the service that you get, I won't complain about that too much."
"The MDM, however, is bad. We're using another MDM now because Meraki was so bad."
"Meraki Dashboard's pricing could be improved."
"There needs to be more improvement on the device-connected interface."
More Auvik Network Management (ANM) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Auvik Network Management (ANM) is ranked 3rd in Network Monitoring Software with 139 reviews while Meraki Dashboard is ranked 9th in Network Monitoring Software with 51 reviews. Auvik Network Management (ANM) is rated 8.8, while Meraki Dashboard is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Auvik Network Management (ANM) writes "Enables us to get on top of issues before they become an outage". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Meraki Dashboard writes "Incredibly easy to use, great troubleshooting and prevention of malicious events". Auvik Network Management (ANM) is most compared with PRTG Network Monitor, LogicMonitor, SolarWinds NPM, Zabbix and Domotz, whereas Meraki Dashboard is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, SolarWinds NPM, ThousandEyes, Mist AI and Cloud and Fortinet FortiSIEM. See our Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs. Meraki Dashboard report.
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