I use the solution in my company's manufacturing area.
Account Manager at Flexi Team Computer Services Sdn Bhd
Useful to manage areas like routing and VLANs
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of the solution are in the areas like routing and VLAN."
- "Aruba Instant does not currently offer a multi-gig switch or product, making it an area that requires improvement. Aruba Instant's competitors have multi-gig switches or products."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of the solution are in the areas like routing and VLAN.
What needs improvement?
Aruba Instant does not currently offer a multi-gig switch or product, making it an area that requires improvement. Aruba Instant's competitors have multi-gig switches or products.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Aruba Instant for more than ten years. My company is a reseller of Aruba, Cisco, Ruckus, and NETGEAR.
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What other advice do I have?
I recommend the product for SMBs.
The tool's ZTP feature has had little impact on our company's customers' operations. My company hasn't used the tool's ZTP feature.
I am satisfied with the product in general.
I recommend the tool to others.
I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Last updated: Jul 15, 2024
Flag as inappropriateCloud-managed solution that's good for small businesses
Pros and Cons
- "Aruba Instant's best feature is the ability to manage it in the cloud."
- "Aruba Instant's visibility, firewalling, L3 functionality, and DHCP services could all be improved."
What is our primary use case?
I primarily use Aruba Instant to deploy the wireless end in smaller offices.
What is most valuable?
Aruba Instant's best feature is the ability to manage it in the cloud.
What needs improvement?
Aruba Instant's visibility, firewalling, L3 functionality, and DHCP services could all be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Aruba Instant for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Because Aruba Instant is cloud-only, it doesn't work if the internet goes down. When this happens, the device reboots and loses the local configuration, which means the LAN goes down.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Aruba Instant has limited scalability, with a recommended maximum of 100 users.
How are customer service and support?
Aruba's support is good, and we've had no issues with it.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward and easy to manage, even through mobile.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Aruba Instant is a free subscription with a limited lifetime warranty.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Aruba Instant for small businesses but not for enterprise. I would give it a rating of eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Buyer's Guide
Aruba Instant
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Aruba Instant. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Networks and Security Engineer at MUNISYS
An affordable solution with good security
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Aruba Instant is security."
- "Aruba Instant should not have a limit on users for future releases."
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Aruba Instant is security.
What needs improvement?
Aruba Instant should not have a limit on users for future releases.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the solution for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
My company has 15 users for the product. I rate the tool's scalability a ten out of ten.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We chose Aruba Instant because of its price and service.
How was the initial setup?
Aruba Instant's deployment is easy and takes eight hours to complete.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Aruba Instant is affordable.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the product an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Senior Sales at Biplan Global Co., Ltd
An easy-to-manage solution that should improve customer support
Pros and Cons
- "Aruba Instant is easy to manage."
- "The tool's customer service should improve."
What is most valuable?
Aruba Instant is easy to manage.
What needs improvement?
The tool's customer service should improve.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the product for a few months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is scalable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The tool is stable.
How are customer service and support?
The support is fine.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
Aruba Instant is easy to deploy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution's pricing is reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Aruba Instant an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Sr. Manager-Sales at Infracomm Solutions Limited
Useful management, high performance, and helpful support
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of Aruba Instant are management and performance."
- "Aruba Instant can improve by increasing the gigabit range of the switch or by adding additional management features and tools. It can be helpful."
What is our primary use case?
We use a mixture of deployment models. Sometimes it's hybrid, on-premise, or on the cloud.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Aruba Instant are management and performance.
What needs improvement?
Aruba Instant can improve by increasing the gigabit range of the switch or by adding additional management features and tools. It can be helpful.
In a future release, there could be some improvements in the dashboards. At this time dashboards are only available with a wizard.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Aruba Instant within the last 12 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have found Aruba Instant to be stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Aruba Instant is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is perfectly fine because we have an in-house team that is comfortable with Aruba Instant. As for Aruba Instant technical support, it is perfect.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have previously used other solutions, such as SEIM and Cisco. I have found the features in Aruba Instant to be better than in SEIM or Cisco.
How was the initial setup?
Aruba Instant installation was simple.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Some aspect of the price of Aruba Instant is very economical because if the customer is requiring more features the customer needs to pay a higher amount.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Aruba Instant a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
IT Consultant at Lotus Technology
Good features menus and easy access with a simple cloud configuration
Pros and Cons
- "The access it grants to wifi is the solution's most valuable feature."
- "The reach of the solution could be improved. It could be a bit stronger."
What is our primary use case?
We've used the solution for a project with a small hotel. We primarily used the solution for five access points. We use it for wifi access around the rooms.
What is most valuable?
The access it grants to wifi is the solution's most valuable feature.
The features menus are good.
The cloud configurations are very easy. We can put it on mobile, etc. if we need to.
What needs improvement?
The reach of the solution could be improved. It could be a bit stronger.
I don't know if it would be possible, but it would be helpful if there was a social login for the layer. This would help smaller clients that I work with.
There are also some features missing in the layer - like authentification and logon capabilities.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for two months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the solution is quite good. We haven't come across any bugs or glitches while using it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the solution has been sufficient for our needs so far.
How are customer service and technical support?
We've never contacted technical support so I can't speak to any experience with them. Generally, when we have questions, we look online for resources to help us if we need any knowledge or help with troubleshooting.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We've previously used Ruckus. With Ruckus, there's a controller. It's also expensive. For a mid-scale setup, you can't really compare Ruckus to Aruba.
How was the initial setup?
The solution is easy to install. Our team didn't run into any issues when we were setting up the solution for our client.
What about the implementation team?
Our team installed the solution for our hotel client.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing cost is somewhere around $20,000.
What other advice do I have?
I'm a reseller of the solution.
I'd advise others considering the solution to look at the scale of the project. If it's a rather small-scale project and the client doesn't need advanced features like a controller, Aruba is very good.
If I have small projects, I find I focus on Aruba. It's better. However, if the project is more complex or complicated or has location challenges, Ruckus is better.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I'm not an engineer, and I didn't install the device personally, so I don't know too much about the technical side of the solution. If I did, maybe I would give it full marks.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Network Administrator Telecom at a maritime company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Offers a lot of flexibility, almost everything can be configured
Pros and Cons
- "The products offer a lot of flexibility. Almost everything can be configured. It works very well for providing remote services."
- "The management component is difficult to understand and not very user-friendly which increases deployment time."
What is our primary use case?
We use Aruba Instant Access Points — one of the components of Instant Manager — to deploy wireless services to the ships that are running on the coast of Antwerp. This would be tug boats and other vessels in shipping that need communications capabilities.
What is most valuable?
I think Aruba Instant Management is really pretty flexible because of the versatility of the configuration and it just works very well for our purposes.
What needs improvement?
The management interface in Aruba Instant Management is Aruba AirWave. In my opinion, it is not very user-friendly. This is not a criticism of the Aruba Products overall. In fact they work very well. I am referring specifically to Aruba Airwave — just that one component within the solution. If Aruba would do something with this to make this interface better, the product would be much improved.
Other than that I have no idea what the product would need. I have everything that I need functionally, so I can not think of a missing feature.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the product for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is very stable. We have no problems with that area of usage.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I believe Instant Management is easy to scale. However, we do not use it on large scale environments so I cannot give you a very accurate opinion of that aspect of its use. We use it in very small setups. I do not have first-hand experience with how it works if you extend to a larger scale.
As far as how extensively Aruba Instant is being used, we could be using it daily. It is operational 24-hours a day — that is for sure. It is stable and it works fine. But in management, we sometimes use it only once a week.
We have three users in management to take care of the system if it needs attention. But that is management only. There are more users who are actually on the wireless, of course.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have not had the need to contact Aruba technical support but that could be a good sign.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Aruba is the first product that had the capabilities that we were interested in so we did not use another product previous to this one for this purpose.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty complex. We were able to set it up by ourselves without the help of consultants or vendors but it took some time to get it done. I think the first set up took about two days which is longer than we had hoped.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to people considering this solution is that Aruba Instant Management is a very good group of products and it is very stable. Be aware that there is quite a learning curve for the AirWave management platform.
On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Aruba Instant Management as an eight-out-of-ten. It is not a nine or a ten because of the problem with the user-friendliness of the AirWave management platform. The products offer a lot of flexibility. Almost everything can be configured. There is only a problem with the one component that causes it to be difficult to understand and difficult to set up and get working for the first time. It detracts from the usability of the product and how quickly it can be deployed.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Apple Technician at Solution Centre
I have been having issues creating a guest portal, using Facebook authentication , it work for a bit and stops
Pros and Cons
- "The features I have found most valuable is that the solution creates a guest portal for guest networks, and setting up SSID authentication to the regular server."
- "The captive portal through Facebook doesn't work."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case of this solution is to control our networks.
How has it helped my organization?
We've been using Aruba since 2014 from my office but in our country we've now deployed a couple of sites. We're actually now working on a project to deploy one of the biggest hotels in Zimbabwe.
What is most valuable?
The features I have found most valuable is that the solution creates a guest portal for guest networks, and setting up SSID authentication to the regular server. I also like the settings and the roles on the profiles, like where you can block some sites etc.
What needs improvement?
The only issue that I have encountered was the captive portal through Facebook. I found that it wasn't working, so I created a couple of cases through the Aruba portal.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for five years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Aruba Instant is stable and it's easy to manage.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. I've deployed it in different multiple environments. My office has less than 50 users. I've recently deployed it at a school, which has about 300 users. So we have quite a few sites. We do have plans to increase our usage at our hotel site, where we are working on a mobility master.
How are customer service and technical support?
We do have some challenges here and there, and then we have to seek support from Aruba. They are good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No, we haven't used a different solution before.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward but when I did the authentication, the capture portal wasn't coming up. Deployment took me about a day. I did everything myself, which was an advantage at the office.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We only pay for the support and the contract licenses from Aruba Instant.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did compare it to other solutions because our computers are Ruckus. We have compared Ruckus and Cisco, which became weak. Cisco, from my former research, is good in switching and dropping, but in terms of Wi-Fi, Aruba Instant is the best portal.
What other advice do I have?
Aruba is a great product. I've used it for a couple of years and it's been working well. I haven't used Ruckus but from what I've seen, licenses for Ruckus should be renewed annually. You have to purchase the license to use the product. But with Aruba, you buy the product through the distributor, so it's yours and you don't have to buy any additional licenses. The only licenses that you buy are for AirWave, which is the monitoring software, or ClearPass, which is for guest access or onboarding.
I rate this solution a nine out of ten. I would like to see an improvement with the captive portal connecting to Facebook, but the rest of the program works perfectly well. A guest portal will also be great. Some schools have a system that we're trying to integrate with Aruba, it's called 24online and it is where you create voucher systems.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
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Updated: January 2025
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