Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs ExtremeWireless comparison

Cisco and Extreme are both solutions in the Wireless LAN category. Cisco is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3, while Extreme is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.3. Cisco holds a 13.1% mindshare in Wireless LAN, compared to Extreme’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Extreme users who would recommend it.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Read 118 Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN reviews

18,236 Views
14,660 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

ExtremeWireless

Read 27 ExtremeWireless reviews

2,012 Views
1,774 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

ExtremeWireless

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

ExtremeWireless and Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN compete in the wireless LAN market. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN stands out due to its advanced features like integrated security and cloud management, while ExtremeWireless is favored for its competitive pricing and strong customer support.

Features: ExtremeWireless offers robust connectivity, customizable configurations, and flexibility, making it appealing for enterprises seeking adaptive solutions. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN features integrated network security, centralized cloud-based management, and high in-depth visibility of network activities, providing a comprehensive solution.

Room for Improvement: ExtremeWireless could benefit from faster deployment options, enhanced integration with cloud-based systems, and broader support for diverse environments. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN might improve by reducing the initial cost, offering more personalization in support services, and expanding customization capabilities for advanced users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN offers streamlined deployment with centralized cloud management, simplifying oversight. ExtremeWireless needs manual configuration, which can extend setup time, but compensates with more personalized and responsive customer support.

Pricing and ROI: ExtremeWireless is known for competitive pricing and a favorable return on investment, appealing to budget-conscious enterprises. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN has higher initial costs, but robust features and efficient management tools provide significant long-term value, justifying the investment despite a larger upfront cost.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. ExtremeWireless Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. ExtremeWireless

January 2025

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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

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Ranking in Wireless LAN

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.1

Number of Reviews

118

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

ExtremeWireless

Ranking in Wireless LAN

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Wireless LAN category, the mindshare of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is 13.1%, up from 12.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ExtremeWireless is 1.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Wireless LAN

Featured Reviews

Mageshwaran S

Solution Architect at Bharti Airtel ·

Enables organizations to control many sites globally with a lean IT team and provides visibility into the user activities

The solution can handle only medium and small businesses. We face a bottleneck on the gateway while using the solution for large enterprises. The solution must be able to expand to larger enterprises. Currently, the MX device can support only up to 10,000 users. It would be good if it can go beyond 1 lakh users. Catalyst 9300 is coming on the Meraki Dashboard. The vendor must also bring in the 9400 and 9600 Catalyst series. It will be very helpful. We will not have any choke on the gateway. There is no active-active concept. It will be very helpful if the solution provides active-active. Now, we are doing an active-passive setup, which is a warm spare. If it is an active-active setup, the gateway bottleneck issue can be resolved. I would be able to segment the Wireless LAN IPs. It will help support 20,000 devices at a go. Meraki does not have a single dashboard. I need to port an on-premise controller. There is a bottleneck while scaling the product. I need to consider a lot of things.

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Seungho Yang

Network Engineer at KOREAN AIR

Enhanced employee access with effective wireless monitoring and seamless roaming

Our use case for ExtremeWireless is to allow our employees to access the company systems The monitoring systems in ExtremeWireless have been very effective, and they are cheaper than other products. It provides better monitoring logs and detailed logs compared to Cisco Wireless. The most…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface is excellent. We've been really happy with it."

"The ability to manage it remotely is the most valuable. If it has an internet connection, you can get to it. It is a great product for remote clinics. We kind of thought about doing this kind of standalone technology. Meraki is easy to manage. From a management perspective, it is the easiest to use, especially in the cloud. I like Meraki. I even have it in my home."

"The product is super stable. I would rate the stability a ten."

"The most valuable features in Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN are that we were able to see all the registered users for each particular WAP, which is a big help. The roaming allows us to have continuous wireless throughout the building. The signal can carry over from one WAP to another. Which is probably the most important feature."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the application visibility, which is one of the main features."

"Its management is most valuable. It is the major feature of Meraki."

"The solution provides good coverage and identity management. Additionally, the user interface is straightforward."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of deployment."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN pros

"Based on my experience, I would recommend ExtremeWireless to others."

"The cloud-based solution allows for easy management and monitoring of traffic and congestion."

"The solution is easy to use and manage. Overall it is very simple to understand and users do not know it is a cloud solution."

"ExtremeWireless offers profiles, policies, and tags."

"The wireless security solution is the most valuable feature of ExtremeWireless."

"The platform's most valuable feature is the ability of its access points to adapt and self-heal."

"The most valuable feature is stability."

"It provides seamless connectivity if you move around."

More ExtremeWireless pros

Cons

"The most important improvement needed is to eliminate the limitation of uplinks."

"The solution's mobile application and management of dashboards are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."

"Recently I have seen that the Meraki access point, maybe due to congestion, just kicks off my customers, mostly when they are in Zoom meetings or Teams meetings and they have to reconnect."

"Its licensing can be better."

"We would like to see Wi-Fi 6 support for devices sold in the Middle East."

"Concern when there are a number of concurrent users."

"Meraki leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to the technical capabilities in terms of throughput, spectrum, management, higher-level functions, etc"

"Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN could improve by having more granularity in terms of the data displayed. However, I understand that with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, you need to have a compromise point to what are the functions that you're going to provide to the users versus ease of use. More granularity in terms of the data and the things that you can do to the devices would be helpful. For example, when we wanted to make a change, restriction, or segregation within Palo Alto, we can go to the level of detail that we want. The amount of detail provided is amazing, it is very granular. However, it comes with much more difficulty, it requires a technical understanding of the environment compared to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN cons

"They should develop more troubleshooting tools for system management. Additional troubleshooting tools should be created by the engineers."

"The current product line is very high-level and is well suited for enterprise-level organizations, but they need a more cost-effective solution for smaller businesses."

"ExtremeWireless should fix some general bugs and make the user interface more user-friendly."

"It is a subscription model, so it is maybe a bit pricey."

"The solution must include integrated IoT solutions on their wireless APs."

"The APs have quite a low signal compared to other brands."

"The troubleshooting feature for the cloud version is challenging."

"The reports could prove in ExtremeWireless. However, we are in the early stages of use and we might be able to configure them better."

More ExtremeWireless cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When compared to other vendors, Cisco's pricing is higher."

"The box itself is very cheap. The question here is about the subscription because this is what you will pay every year. In the initial year, for purchasing, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN gives you an attractive price. While during renewal, we are not given much discount."

"The platform is highly priced."

"The price is on the high side when compared to Aruba."

"Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is not a reasonably priced product for home use. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is a reasonably priced product for enterprise-sized businesses."

"If you are wondering if Meraki can work for you, contact one of their representatives because they will do onsite trials where you can set up their system. If it does not work, you can send it back to them for no charge."

"As is always the case, the price could be better, although I do not recall exactly how much this comes out to."

"We pay licensing fees."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN pricing and cost advice

"Extreme isn't the most expensive, but it's not a low-cost solution, and because there are no big volumes, you don't receive significant discounts, making the final price higher."

"I rate the price of Extreme Wireless a three out of five."

"ExtremeWireless isn't budget-friendly. The hardware costs around 20,000 Indian rupees. We're still using an older controller, so it doesn't require a license, unlike the newest versions of the ExtremeWireless controller."

"There are both paid and free licenses of the cloud environment, with only basic functionality in the free version."

"ExtremeWireless is subscription-based for both cloud and on-prem solutions, and it's quite expensive."

"The solution is priced well and we currently are only paying for a license for maintenance."

"I rate the product's pricing a three or four out of ten."

"The purchase of 350 access points cost approximately $250,000 USD."

More ExtremeWireless pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

11%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What are pros and cons of Aruba 515 Series AP vs. Cisco Meraki or Extreme Networks?

Depends. I have personally used both Cisco and Aruba so I am familiar with them. Extreme I am not, so unless they have some feature that I need or want, I wouldn't consider them. Do you have expe...

See all answers

Which is better - Cisco Wireless or Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN?

Cisco Wireless is very robust, very rugged, and can handle indoor and outdoor coverage extremely well. We found it to be very reliable and to consistently run very efficiently. Cisco Wireless helpe...

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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...

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What do you like most about ExtremeWireless?

The initial setup process is simple.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ExtremeWireless?

The performance of the access points could be improved. ExtremeWireless coverage and signal stability could be enhanced to match the level of Ruckus Wireless and other vendors.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ExtremeWireless?

The primary use case is for cloud-based access management, as ExtremeWireless is pioneering in this area. Additionally, they have a robust security engine called Air Defense, which provides profess...

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Comparisons

Aruba Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 32% of the time

Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 18% of the time

Ruckus Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 10% of the time

Ubiquiti Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 7% of the time

Ekahau Site Survey vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 1% of the time

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Competitors

Ruckus Wireless vs ExtremeWireless

Compared 37% of the time

Aruba Wireless vs ExtremeWireless

Compared 22% of the time

Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points vs ExtremeWireless

Compared 8% of the time

ExtremeCloud IQ vs ExtremeWireless

Compared 5% of the time

Huawei Wireless vs ExtremeWireless

Compared 3% of the time

More ExtremeWireless Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

January 2025

Download Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN product report

Buyer's Guide

ExtremeWireless

January 2025

Download ExtremeWireless product report

Also Known As

MR18, MR26, MR32, MR34, MR66, MR72, Meraki Wireless LAN, Meraki WLAN

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Cisco

Extreme

Overview

Cisco Meraki access points are built from the highest grade components and carefully optimized for a seamless user experience. The outcome: faster connections, greater user capacity, more coverage, and fewer support calls. The Cisco Meraki dashboard gives visibility into the network users, their devices, and their applications. Armed with rich analytics, administrators can quickly create access control and application usage policies, optimizing both the end-user experience and network security.

Extreme ExtremeWireless Access Points deliver wired-like performance, at scale for high-density in every environment. Smart Access Points are equally adept for both distributed and centralized deployment models. ExtremeWireless Controllers provide advanced functionality to allow organizations to define how wireless voice/video/data traffic is processed without architectural constraints and in accordance with business needs.

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Banco de Guayaquil, Baylor Scott & White Health, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Calligaris, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Del Papa Distributing, Department of Justice, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Hertz, K&L Gates , LightEdge, Lone Star College System, Management Science Associates, Mindtree, NBC Olympics, Quest, Sony Corporation, The Department of Education in Western Australia, Valley Proteins

St. Xavier High School, Americatel, Diamond Light Source

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. ExtremeWireless

January 2025

Free Report: Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. ExtremeWireless

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