Aruba Instant Reviews

It's a networking product for switching and Wi-Fi.

Aruba Instant doesn't have many security features. It's very basic and doesn't enhance network security significantly. However, you have basic functionalities like checking your network, seeing who's connected, removing or blacklisting devices, and changing passwords from the central console. 

These are only basic security features, not enterprise-level solutions. 

Aruba Instant is already good in its segment, with available features. If anyone wants to move towards enterprise solutions, Aruba has other products available. This is a different segment with good features. 

It's a solution for small and medium businesses that offers centralized control and basic features like whitelisting, device visibility, VLAN creation, and loop avoidance. 

It's not a feature-rich, enterprise-class product but provides essential functionalities for customers moving from unmanaged to managed networks, with full visibility on a central console and a user-friendly interface.

It's not suited for larger companies.

The product is a little expensive.

My experience in networking is more than 16 years, and with Aruba Instant, I have almost seven years.

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

Aruba Instant is not for larger enterprises, but it's for small organizations, houses, villas, big offices, and small hotels.

It is a scalable solution. Moreover, Aruba has multiple products in this segment, so customers can choose the right product, and all are managed within the same Aruba Instant platform.

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. 

For small and medium businesses, home, and small hotels, it's ten. But not for enterprises.

The deployment process is very easy. If everything is ready, configuring five or ten switches takes hardly one or two hours maximum.

Deployment model:

Aruba Instant is a cloud-based solution for small and medium businesses with limited features and centralized management of switching and Wi-Fi solutions. The physical devices are on-premises, while management is done from the cloud.

It's an HPE-owned cloud built for management. We get it for free and don't know where it's hosted.

With a single access point, you get visibility and everything. The ease of manageability and operation helps minimize manpower and saves time. 

It's also physically a very good product, with good signal strength for coverage. It can handle more than 100 to 200 devices easily, even in a smart home with many connected devices. These are all the ways it helps and gives an edge over competitors.

The product is a little expensive. If someone wants extra features, they will choose the enterprise products instead of Aruba Instant.

The extra features aren't useful for small and medium businesses or homes, so nobody will pay for them.

I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap. 

It provides centralized network control, but other products do the same. There are no unique features.

Currently, we only promote Aruba, but some small and medium businesses also use NETGEAR products. We don't sell NETGEAR; we only focus on Aruba.

I would recommend using it! Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

I'm the director of information technology at a school and we use this solution for our Wifi. We are customers of Aruba.

The easy setup means that the initial deployment becomes the master access point and everything else follows automatically. As you plug your wifi access points in, and it picks up the network, it will look for the master wifi access point that will work as the controller. It's great. 

Although you don't have to purchase a subscription for the Aruba cloud controller, it's a lot better to have all of your access points in the cloud, so you can manage them without accessing the master access point itself. Integration between the two is pricey and that would be my one complaint about this product. 

I've been using this solution for five years. 

We haven't had any issues with stability. If you configure it to auto update, there won't be any problems. I haven't had any issues with the access points.

The solution is scalable. 

As long as you have your serial number, the technical support is good. They'll work with you to configure and help you through any issues. They'll look at the backend and tell you what's going on with it as well. You don't have to have a lot of knowledge about the system to use it.

We switched to Aruba Instant around 2015 when HPE purchased Aruba and they discontinued Pro Curve.

If there are no special requirements and you're using it out of the box, it's very easy to deploy and maintain. 

It's important to know your physical environment so that when ordering particular access points, you're getting what works for your environment, whether the location is a modern building or something older. 

I rate this solution 10 out of 10. 

We are a system integrator. Aruba is a very reliable solution, and I've been working with Aruba products for more than five years. It started with Aruba wireless solutions, like the 135 series, 203H Series, 203R Series, 300 series, and now Aruba 8. 

The coverage is excellent, and it's very well developed with high customer satisfaction.

The product is quite reliable. The hardware is solid, and the RF coverage is superb.

First and foremost, the coverage is very good. Even with numerous clients connected, the average coverage remains strong. Typically, we observe two to three bars, and on occasion, we've even seen six bars of signal strength. It's a remarkably balanced system that consistently delivers reliable performance.

Aruba's mobility features, which facilitate seamless switching between wireless access points, are also quite impressive. Users don't even notice the transition, ensuring a smooth and uninterrupted experience.

Additionally, features like Aruba Am technology, MAC address control, and guest access port enhance security are good. 

I have been working on a feature for Aruba Instant called Mobile Access for the Edge Tenant. This feature would allow us to manage and control access points from the cloud. We could provision APs, make configuration changes, and monitor their performance.

I have been using this solution since 2017. I currently use version 8.

I've worked on many projects with Aruba Instant. We've deployed the virtual drill of Aruba AP-505 and AP-514 in several projects.

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. We have small as well as enterprise. Small and medium. Most of the time, it is small and medium.

I've installed over a thousand access points and the support has been reliable. 

Positive

I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy. We are mostly on-premises; slowly, we are migrating to the cloud. 90% of us are on-premises, but 10% are gradually introducing the cloud.

Most of the client setup is at the private center data center. And public clouds like AWS and Microsoft Cloud.

The deployment took a few hours.

Our customers see an ROI. 

It's not too expensive. It is somewhere between the middle, the expensive, and the cheap.

The pricing is reasonable.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution for surfing and browsing. Students would use it for social media. Professionals might use it for video calling or video conferencing as well. These would be the cases.

I really like the Instant On app. It keeps giving me feedback on whether one point is connected or not. I don't know which category this would fall under, yet that's what I really care about. I want to know which access point is currently on, whether it's connected or not, and if it serves the users that are connected to it.

That would be the main thing I would care about in an app since, with other configurations, you can figure out everything on your own. You just need to stay alert, and constantly knowing if that node is on is very useful. 

I like the notifications. I really like that it gives me those reports in terms of whether those access points are on or off. 

Overall, the product is good. It is scalable and reliable. 

The restart time should be improved. Whenever one access point has to restart, it takes about 15 minutes to get back in business, and that's a long time. Whether it's some kind of a malfunction or a software update, it takes really long for it to get back up. That would be my main issue.

When you look at networks, it's not really all about the access point. It's also about the other products you need to connect to, and when it comes to the kind of devices and products here available in my market, they're usually slow to get here. For example, if you talk about Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6 has been deployed in Europe and the US for about a year or two years now. The only AP I have that supports Wi-Fi 6 is the AP22. However, I'm not sure about other products that can utilize the Wi-Fi 6 anyway. If you talk about laptops, I'm not sure if they all support Wi-Fi 6 or if they are available here in my country. You usually get those improvements by default if they are going to launch a new product. I hope this happens with Aruba.

I've been using the solution for a year and a half now. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze.

The solution can easily scale. 

You can even make points talk to each other using the cable or a wireless signal. It's really nice.

We have 200 to 300 people using the solution right now. 

I haven't tried any technical support. 

I haven't tried many access points. However, I've worked with Fortinet and FortiApp, and of course, I've worked with Aruba and when it comes to restarting an access point, the time to get back up and online and connected and all that is much shorter on Fortinet. 

The Aruba implementation was really easy. All you need to do is create an account and then tell it whether you want it to be an extension of your current network or to assign different IP ranges. Then, you set up the networks, and that's it. It was up and running in 15 minutes or less.

The only issue is when you add your access points, it takes about seven to ten minutes to be discoverable by the app. That's about it. That's about the worst thing when it comes to timing - to discover that there's a new access point connected. That said, once it's connected, it's up and running in no time.

We do not need many admins for maintenance. We just need one. It's basically my assistant and me, and we're funded. I've had no issues with it whatsoever. 

Unless it's a hardware problem - and I have not experienced that yet, and I hopefully won't. You might need to contact the manufacturer themselves to do the work to get it fixed. However, I haven't experienced anything like that yet.

I'm located in Palestine. I bought it from another person who got it from the main distributor and got it to me. This is how it works. While it depends on the model, compared to other products, it's fairly priced.

I'm not sure about pricing worldwide since it could be different. However, it's one of the cheapest solutions here or the more affordable solution. Fortinet is much more expensive, and Unify is even more expensive. If you look at the package as a whole, you're much better off with Aruba. As a business, you always need discounts and cheaper products. If it got even lower, they would get more market share.

We pay about $300 per access point. Fortinet is about $500. It's a one-time fee. 

I'm a customer and end-user. 

I do have a firewall. However, I manage all the Aruba devices through the cloud, the Instant On Portal, and the Instant On app.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten based on the slower restart time. 

Most people, when they're connected to it, they're satisfied. I have more than 40 or 50 clients connected to each access point, and they're usually satisfied with the service. The coverage could be a bit improved, and we need more control over the radios. It's done automatically via the AP, and sometimes you might want to control that yourself - yet there's no option to do that, or, at least, I have not figured that out yet.

The solution is used for guest user login for wireless, secure connectivity for internal and guest users, and user experience.

Aruba Instant is a cloud-managed solution that can be managed from the cloud.

The solution’s pricing could be improved. Embedding a heatmap tool within the product would make it easier to conduct a wireless survey. If you are pitching the product against other solutions, it would be best to conduct a prior wireless survey before positioning the product.

I have been using Aruba Instant for five to six years.

Aruba Instant is a stable solution.

You can scale the solution based on your requirements.

To deploy the solution, you first need to set up and register the access points on the cloud. Then, you configure everything and push it to the endpoint devices. It takes around six months to deploy the solution.

The solution provides a good return on investment in terms of user experience.

There are limitations to the solution's security, and you need additional security like firewall and endpoint security. The solution improves the reliability, uptime, user experience, and seamless connectivity with the access points.

Users can log in and connect to the tool from anywhere. The solution provides seamless connectivity, user experience, performance, and reliability.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for connecting to our WiFi network. We use it to communicate with our internal network. It connects everything - telephones, tablets, et cetera. It's our company network.

This is a very solid product. It is very powerful.

The product offers a single management point.

Its features are excellent. 

The solution helps us to communicate internally effectively.

The administration functionality is very easy. It's very easy to configure. Plus, it has a lot of functionality in general.

The security is very good.

We have found the solution to be very user-friendly, especially compared to other products. 

It is easy to integrate with your network.

You can look into your network and see its health and usage very easily.

Troubleshooting problems is very simple.

The product is very simple to set up.

It can scale well.

The solution is stable and reliable. 

In general, they've done a very good job with the solution. 

However, we would like to see more done in the reporting. They should enhance reporting and add more features. 

We're always looking for more features and functionality. They should continue to do regular updates and continue to add to its capabilities, specifically around cloud functionality. It would help us be ready for what's next in the industry.

Technical support response times can be better.

I've been using the solution for six or seven years. 

The solution is very stable and reliable. I'd rate it nine out of ten. If you do the right setup and there are no misconfigurations, it will run for years without any problem. 

The solution can scale. I'd rate it nine out of ten for its ability to expand. 

We have around 12,000 or more end-users. We're a big company.

We've dealt with technical support and they are fine. However, response times could be faster. 

Neutral

I've had experience with Cisco. However, Aruba is more manageable. It also offers faster support.

The product is very simple to set up. It s not complex at all. If you have some prior knowledge, it is very simple to implement. 

There is very little maintenance. Often, no one needs to do anything, and it is stable for years. If you do the right setup, you don't need to worry about it. 

We have consultants that assist with the implementation process. 

The price is okay. However, it depends on the project. If you have a big project, you can get a good price. Also, you have lifetime support from Aruba, which is great. That can save a lot of money over time. 

I'm a partner with Aruba.

The solution offers a lifetime warranty.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It is an exceptional solution. 

It is a solid, easy-to-use product with very good features. You can size it to fit your needs regardless of the size of the company. On top of that, it is simple to troubleshoot and is very fast to deploy. If you have an SLA with a two-hour support time, you will get faster support. It's good to consider SLAs at the outset.

It's just the perks that we get with everything in terms of the equipment, such as client tracking and GPS coverage. There's a whole lot of perks to Aruba.

We have seen one hundred percent improvement in terms of network management. Network management is so easy.

Aruba Instant AI, for one. It's like skipping your level-one technicians and going straight to two or three. It tells you what's wrong and helps you fix it. That's just one of the benefits. 

It's all embedded in the controller itself.

The security features cover everything and more. It definitely meets our requirements.

For some people, price is a concern.

I use both Aruba Instant and Instant On, I have been using it for a year. 

It's stable. Only planned downtimes, months ahead, and it's timed so it doesn't even affect people. They don't even know.

Whenever you need it, they pick up the phone. They help you then and there. If there's a project that you're stuck with, they literally walk you through everything. I've never had better service.

Positive

Once you have a fundamental understanding of WLAN, it's easy. It's just the control and everything. Depending on the type of person you are, it's just learning it.

It all depends on the person. It took me a week; it took others two months. At the end of the day, it just depends on how much you're willing to sacrifice and learn.

So it depends on the case.

Besides syntax, which is a global thing across all brands. But there's no need to even use it because it gives you everything you need already, which fixes nine out of ten problems.

It's a tool that does what it needs to do, and it benefits the company. It keeps costs down because you don't need to worry about having level-one support; you can skip straight to level two and level three. I think that's a real cost factor for companies.

At the end of the day, that is obviously a big thing in the industry where, for some people, price is a concern. That's where you have Aruba Instant On, but there are different factors to consider with certain things. 

So, it is a little bit more on the pricey side. But in terms of what you're getting, I personally would rather pay that little bit more and get what I need because I know what I'm getting, as opposed to going for something cheaper that's not as manageable and doesn't give as much. So I'm one hundred percent satisfied with this tool.

It's practical. It does what it needs to do. At the end of the day, it's a tool. It serves its purpose. I literally could not ask for better. Compared to Unifi and Ruckus, it's in a whole different world.

I would recommend it to other people because I know the benefits. It depends on what suits their needs, whether it's in the enterprise range or a normal home range. The benefits you're getting from both of them, it does vary slightly, but it is worth it. I would recommend it. I would justify the costs more.

Overall, I would rate it a ten out of ten.

I use the solution for managing switches remotely.

It is a good solution. It is straightforward.

The security features must be improved.

I have been using the solution for six years.

I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a nine out of ten. We have more than 2000 users.

I am satisfied with the technical support.

Positive

I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. The deployment is easy. It takes a few minutes to deploy the tool.

The product is reasonably priced.

We can configure the solution using our phone even if we don't have a laptop. It is very easy. We can manage it from wherever we want. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.