Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs Fortinet FortiAP comparison

Cisco and Fortinet are both solutions in the Wireless LAN category. Cisco is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3, while Fortinet is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.5. Cisco holds a 13.0% mindshare in Wireless LAN, compared to Fortinet’s 4.3% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Read 118 Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN reviews

16,460 Views
13,308 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiAP

Read 14 Fortinet FortiAP reviews

2,066 Views
1,806 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Fortinet FortiAP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN and Fortinet FortiAP compete in the wireless LAN market. Cisco Meraki appears to have the upper hand in ease of deployment due to its robust cloud management capabilities, while Fortinet FortiAP is favored for environments requiring strong security integrations.

Features: Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN offers superior cloud management with an easy-to-use dashboard, seamless integration with networking components like switches and routers, and excellent network visibility with centralized management. Additionally, Meraki enables easy network segmentation into SSIDs and provides comprehensive traffic analytics. Fortinet FortiAP is notable for its integration with Fortinet security products, allowing management through a single console. It supports passwordless authentication and offers excellent insights into network usage through FortiGate integration, providing seamless network management.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN could enhance its pricing structure, advanced feature set, and support services, including more comprehensive error logging. Fortinet FortiAP needs to improve its firmware update process, automation features, and outdoor performance, where it can lag behind other solutions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN stands out with its hybrid and public cloud deployment options and robust technical support, though it faces issues with lengthy resolution times and licensing challenges. Fortinet FortiAP, primarily on-premises, benefits from responsive and effective support, ensuring prompt resolution of technical issues.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is considered expensive, with concerns about licensing and subscription models, but its easy management and high performance justify the cost for some users. Fortinet FortiAP offers a more cost-effective solution, providing decent ROI and making it attractive to budget-conscious organizations.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. Fortinet FortiAP Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. Fortinet FortiAP

March 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

Fortinet FortiAP

Ranking in Wireless LAN

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Wireless LAN category, the mindshare of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is 13.0%, up from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiAP is 4.3%, up from 0.3% 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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Yati Gharat

Chief Technology Officer at Litmus

Integrates well with Fortinet products, but there are signal issues in the outdoor environment

FortiAP is very good in an indoor environment, but we are struggling with the outdoor environment. That is where we are having certain issues. We are not 100% happy with it. With the indoor environment, we are okay, but we are facing some issues when certain voice-related calls go from wireless points. There are certain drops, and we have faced these issues on an ongoing basis. We also have other vendors such as Aruba and Meraki, and we do not face any issues when there is a Teams or Zoom meeting going on. It could be that FortiAP is okay, but that particular device or appliance is not capable of handling that much load of voice and video. This might be the issue. RF Spectrum Analysis helps to understand what is the coverage and hotspots related to a particular access point, but then when we bought it, we did heat mapping through different vendors. If there are any rogue APs, we can identify them with RF Spectrum Analysis. We can see what the coverage area is, but there are some issues with that. Some of the offices have thick glasses, or the cabins are different, so in the RF coverage, what is shown is not what we get on the practical grounds. There are some issues with signal performance. It has the basic functionality that is mostly used, but there are certain devices that are not able to interconnect. When there is any issue or problem, if the administrator can get some information about that, that will be good. With Meraki and Aruba, we get certain beautiful things. If those can be integrated into this solution, it will be more beneficial, but we understand that being a security company, Fortinet's focus is on security.

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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

"Cloud management, wireless infrastructure, and implementation are all valuable features."

"The most valuable features are the multiple types of user groupings and access management."

"Provided reliability and a good price."

"The product has been very stable over the years."

"The product offers HA solutions and redundancy features to ensure reliable operations."

"The monitoring device enables you to see the network health."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is that it is fast and does the job."

"What I like best about Meraki is that I can change it from anywhere."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN pros

"The pricing is reasonable for what it offers."

"If we have FortiClient installed on multiple devices, it is seamless to connect with FortiAP. It supports passwordless authentication as well. That is a great thing about it."

"The solution supports recent security components like encryption or hashing algorithms. We can control the APs from FortiGate Firewalls and integrate those APs into FortiGate. You don't have to purchase a separate controller for it."

"FortiAP's integration using SSID configuration for the input/output makes deploying permission rules easier."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy, especially with FortiGate or your FortiManager in place."

"I would give FortiAP a rating of ten out of ten so far."

"The product's deployment phase is very easy since its documentation part is available in the public domain."

"The setup was straightforward."

More Fortinet FortiAP pros

Cons

"When we are using SSID roaming, it is not flexible in terms of which AP it connects to."

"The only thing that always causes problems with Meraki is the license. It's a bit of a bugbear with Meraki, and it remains today. So it's an unusual concept compared to the other products in the marketplace, but then it does cause a bit of a nuisance from time to time."

"The initial setup of the solution can be improved and made easier."

"We face a bottleneck on the gateway while using the solution for large enterprises."

"Our only concern at this stage is how it's licensed."

"The ease of use is average. It could be more user-friendly."

"Documentation could be improved, but everything else has been spot-on."

"It lags a bit in providing reports for Wi-Fi performance."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN cons

"FortiAP is very good in an indoor environment, but we are struggling with the outdoor environment."

"There could be constraints where a product can't be scaled further without purchasing a new model."

"The support offered by the solution has certain shortcomings, making it in areas where improvements are required."

"Technical support is a pain. Fortinet has to get its act together. If you don't pay for premium service, you will have issues."

"FortiAP could be a little cheaper."

"There is room for improvement in the product by expanding the number of SSIDs that can be broadcast."

"I would like to have automation capabilities that would help us reduce the configuration steps."

"The security integration between the network and firewall has room for improvement."

More Fortinet FortiAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The price of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is per unit and it has annual maintenance costs."

"The price of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN could be improved, it is too expensive. We pay for the solution on an annual basis."

"This solution is quite costly and there are costs in addition to the licensing fees."

"Meraki is a very good solution, but the price is quite high for small markets."

"The cost of both the hardware and licensing is high, and it is more than what I would prefer to spend currently."

"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."

"My client has made comments on the price, indicating it is expensive, however you do receive a lot for the money that you did spend on the solution. The price of the annual renewal of the licensing of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is a little high. We wish the price would drop."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN pricing and cost advice

"Fortinet FortiAP offers a more cost-effective solution compared to Palo Alto and Check Point."

"If I compare it with the other enterprise products, the price is good."

"The devices under Fortinet are not expensive. The solution's licensing part is expensive."

"The product is available at a very comfortable price for my company compared to the other products available in the market. The prices of products from Meraki and Aruba are high compared to those of Fortinet."

"FortiAP is more expensive than some other options."

"We purchased perpetual licensing, and additional costs may vary depending on the services acquired from Fortinet."

"On a scale of one to ten with ten being the most expensive, I would rate FortiAP a six."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about FortiAP?

If we have FortiClient installed on multiple devices, it is seamless to connect with FortiAP. It supports passwordless authentication as well. That is a great thing about it.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiAP?

The pricing is a little bit high, and I would rate it a ten on the scale where ten is the highest price. They are a bit more expensive compared to other solutions, however, it is worth it if you ca...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FortiAP?

There is nothing that particularly comes to mind for improvement. The management is controlled by Fortinet firewalls, so specific improvement needs do not jump to mind.

See all answers

Comparisons

Aruba Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 32% of the time

Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 16% of the time

Ruckus Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 11% of the time

Ubiquiti Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 7% of the time

ExtremeCloud IQ vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 2% of the time

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Competitors

Ruckus Wireless vs Fortinet FortiAP

Compared 23% of the time

Aruba Access Points vs Fortinet FortiAP

Compared 20% of the time

Ubiquiti WLAN vs Fortinet FortiAP

Compared 19% of the time

Cisco Wireless vs Fortinet FortiAP

Compared 12% of the time

Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points vs Fortinet FortiAP

Compared 6% of the time

More Fortinet FortiAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

March 2025

Download Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiAP

March 2025

Download Fortinet FortiAP product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

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.

Cisco

Fortinet FortiAP provides wireless network access for industries such as banking, healthcare, and logistics. It enhances connectivity with FortiGate and FortiSwitch, ensuring secure data exchange in settings like offices and malls.

Fortinet FortiAP is integral for managing connected devices across sectors. It integrates seamlessly with Fortinet products, enhancing security and connectivity. Users benefit from a unified console that simplifies configuration and monitoring without additional controllers. The support for passwordless authentication and cloud visibility adds value, while its use in environments like shopping centers and offices facilitates secure data sharing and access.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiAP?

Integration with FortiGate and FortiAnalyzer: Simplifies network management and monitoring.
Passwordless Authentication: Enhances security and accessibility.
Cloud Dashboard: Provides comprehensive visibility over network activities.
Direct Control from FortiGate: Eliminates the need for separate controllers.
SSID Customization: Supports tailoring of wireless access.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiAP?

Efficient Network Management: Centralized control and configuration simplify operations.
Comprehensive Reporting: Transparent insights for improved decision-making.
Secure Access: Protects data through advanced security measures.
Seamless Connectivity: Improves user experience with simplified networking.

In industries like banking and healthcare, Fortinet FortiAP is deployed to enhance network security and provide reliable access. Retailers leverage its capabilities in shopping centers, while warehouses benefit from its reliable connectivity to support seamless operations. Managed service providers use it to deliver tailored solutions, ensuring effective network segmentation and coverage.

Fortinet

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. Fortinet FortiAP

March 2025

Free Report: Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. Fortinet FortiAP

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