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Cambium Networks Wireless WAN vs Ruckus Wireless comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cambium Networks Wireless WAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Wireless WAN (3rd)
Ruckus Wireless
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
Wireless LAN (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Networking solutions, they serve different purposes. Cambium Networks Wireless WAN is designed for Wireless WAN and holds a mindshare of 12.6%, down 15.4% compared to last year.
Ruckus Wireless, on the other hand, focuses on Wireless LAN, holds 14.3% mindshare, up 12.4% since last year.
Wireless WAN
Wireless LAN
 

Featured Reviews

Arup Kumar Koley - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable performance and long-distance coverage enhance connectivity
We have been associated with Cambium since its days as a Motorola product, for more than 20 years. The solution offers excellent product performance, long-distance coverage, and link reliability. No nearby product is available for distance and performance that can compete with Cambium. The uptime and reliability of the product are also excellent.
Xander Janse Van Rensburg - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable and high-performance wireless networking with exceptional stability, scalability, and robust feature set
One of the most valuable features I appreciate is auto channelization, facilitated by a proprietary product called ChannelFly. This feature enables APs in a specific zone to automatically adjust their channels, optimizing performance. Additionally, Ruckus Wireless stands out for its ability to reuse certain beams, resulting in smaller data spots. In my experience with various products, Ruckus Wireless consistently delivers unparalleled throughput, coverage, and reliability in wireless networking across different environments. As a noteworthy point, the newly launched WiFi 7 standard is measured against Ruckus's WiFi 7 AP, establishing it as the global benchmark. When it comes to WiFi, Ruckus sets the standard, outperforming competitors with its superior performance and capabilities.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The feature that I really liked is the mesh feature. Currently, we are in quarantine, and the request of home users is that they need to cover the whole house or the whole indoor house. Mesh solution works really nice in Cambium environment. Being able to set up access points in advance is a good feature. It lets you set up the whole environment in your lab or any other place before deploying the access points."
"The solution's coverage range is good, it is easy to use, and deployment is very easy and user-friendly."
"It is easy to deploy, and it is not that complicated. There are a lot of systems that are very complicated, and they require a special kind of training. Their response is also very slow, especially with the Chinese vendors, but with Cambium, we have not faced any issues. Everything is going well in terms of cooperation from Cambium. We are happy with them, their services, their cooperation, and their quick response. They are just amazing."
"It is highly scalable. I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"The product's scalability features are good."
"It excels in challenging environments and adverse weather conditions, maintaining high performance without any impact on the link quality."
"The most valuable features of Cambium Networks Wireless WAN are cloud management and links."
"What I find valuable is the fact that you don't need to purchase any license. Basically you just get the hardware for the access points, configure an IP and connect it with a switch."
"The most valuable feature of Ruckus Wireless is the Beamforming feature."
"Dead zones were immediately eliminated when we deployed these WAPs in all of our locations, plus Ruckus’ analytics on the ZoneDirectors allow us to quickly identify clients that are taking too much bandwidth."
"Very reliable."
"​Tremendous throughput and easy installation, configuration, and monitoring."
"Our IT staff can quickly issue guest passes for vendors and the instructions are very straightforward, requiring very little effort to get connected."
"We rarely had access points fail in the field. They were rock solid, durable, and had the best signal penetration from any we tested.​"
"It's stable."
"Ruckus Wireless provides good coverage."
 

Cons

"The Wifi coverage and throughput performance of Cambium could improve."
"Cambium Networks Wireless WAN is stable but sometimes the 2.4 gigahertz network is sometimes not as stable as the 5 gigahertz. The 5 gigahertz works smoothly with everything, but 2.4 has some problems. If we change the configuration I am not sure if it would fix the problem."
"They could enhance the product's security features, particularly in analyzing and protecting against potential threats."
"More high bandwidth is required. A more high throughput radio is necessary."
"More high bandwidth is required."
"Sometimes there are some latencies in devices. Otherwise, it is, for some time, not as stable."
"The solution's documentation should be made better and easily accessible to users."
"The installation is difficult."
"The Ruckus platform in general could be improved — it could be more user-friendly."
"They need to be able to allow us to keep some of the older products on our cloud controllers or any of their controllers longer and just start supporting the new controllers. They force you into an upgrade unnecessarily."
"It could be cheaper."
"Their support has been lacking a little bit and needs to be improved. I have had a ticket open for a month, and it is really hard to get a resolution out of them. They haven't really come out with anything that is much of an improvement in a long time. It has mostly just been fixes and things like that. We used to have a ZoneDirector or a physical controller for the wireless network, and that was kind of end of life. It was very old, and at the time, we were expanding the wireless network, and we didn't want to rely on one piece of hardware that was pretty old. So, we went to SmartZone Cluster, which has two VMs in a cluster. Unfortunately, we lost the feature ability for guest networks and other things that we were using before, and Ruckus just kind of told us that they weren't supporting that feature in the newer product, which is not really great. I was told initially that SmartZone was an upgrade to ZoneDirector. It is the logical thing to think that it is going to have all the same features, but it didn't. The issue that we have right now is onboarding BYOD devices. It is not really great for us, and we're looking for a new product to make that easier. We did have Cloudpath, which was a product that Ruckus purchased from another company that was an onboarding solution, but it just didn't really work very well for us. So, we discontinued using it, and it actually created more confusion for people. They should make BYOD or guest network portals a lot easier and better. In some areas, we have been having issues because there are just so many WAPs that are so close that we had to manually turn down the radio of power because the automatic feature of the AP wasn't really doing it right. It should also have a little bit better RF analysis capability to be able to see on the controller side. The front end for our staff, students, and guests has also not been quite as good as we had hoped."
"One complaint that we have is the lack of cloud-based management."
"I suggest more controlling features on the controller. The menu of the performance must be improved, as well."
"The solution currently lacks the integration of security services."
"What would be interesting to see is if they had more of an ability for their customers to capture revenue. They should offer some sort of gateway functionality that you could tie through radius authentication, so you can bill the customers. That way, when you go in, you could just have a device and set up a hotspot, and it's a totally billable tool at that point."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is in the middle range."
"I rate the product’s pricing a two out of ten."
"The licensing part of the solution is not very expensive."
"The price of this solution is expensive in Bangladesh. The cost is approximately 56,000 BDT for the XV2 which is expensive. They should reduce their price."
"I rate the product price one on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price. There are no costs in addition to the product's standard licensing fees."
"I rate Cambium Networks Wireless as 6 out of 10 since it is cheaper than its competitors like Ruckus, Cisco or Huawei."
"There are not any licenses needed to use Cambium."
"The solution's licensing cost depends on the number of nodes."
"It's definitely a good value. It's more expensive than some of the other offerings out there, but when you compare it to other enterprise-class gear, it's very well priced. And the beauty of it is, because it has better range because of their patented BeamFlex - which is the way they can send and receive and listen to signals - you can actually use fewer access points. That means that it's a cheaper overall project."
"I would rate their pricing 3 out of 5. There is no annual licensing cost."
"This is a very expensive solution."
"Its price is reasonable for me."
"Licensing is subscription-based."
"It is a pricey solution."
"Ruckus is more expensive than Meraki, but the performance moves in parallel with the cost."
"Ubiquiti and Aruba Instant On are good for small businesses in terms of cost than Ruckus Wireless."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Cambium or Ubiquiti Wireless?
For me, Ubiquiti was easy to install, configure, set up, and maintain, while also providing solid coverage and better handoffs between APs. This is especially relevant if you are using Apple produc...
What do you like most about Cambium?
The most valuable features for network performance in the solution are reliability and centralized management through a single controller.
Aruba Wireless or Ruckus Wireless?
At my organization, we researched Ruckus Wireless among other solutions but ultimately chose Aruba wireless. What did we like about Ruckus? First, it was very easy to use, and anybody with minimal...
Which is better - Ruckus Wireless or Cisco Wireless?
Ruckus Wireless offers users the benefit of being both easy to set up and get running as well as being very user friendly. This user-friendly quality also renders it easy to learn how to use and ma...
How does Ruckus Wireless compare to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN?
Cisco’s Meraki Virtual MX is a virtual instance of the Meraki SD-WAN appliance. We liked the Meraki. The Wifi APs are a great feature. The dashboard is a simple interface and easy to learn. It feat...
 

Also Known As

Cambium PMP Series, Cambium ePMP Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wireless Etc, Agricultural Technology Company in Brazil, Redfox, SKYNET, HOUSTON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, APPLEBEE’S
American University of Sharjah, Baruch College, Centro Escolar Liceo Santo Tomšs, Chevalier College, Chico Unified School District, Colegio de Fomento El Prado, Columbia Public Schools, Delta School District, Dordt College, Douglas County School District, Drew University, Armonea, Central Utah Clinic, Grove Hill Medical Center, Inner South Community Health Service, Midwest Surgical, Satilla Regional Medical Center, Lyndoch Living, Polonus, Roaring Fork School District, Sonora State, Vivid, Sydney, Players Club, Sandals, Scandic Hotels, Sheraton LAX, Sunbird
Find out what your peers are saying about Ubiquiti Networks, Ruckus, Cambium Networks and others in Wireless WAN. Updated: April 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.