Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs Ubiquiti Wireless comparison

The compared Cisco and Ubiquiti Networks solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco is ranked #4 in Wireless LAN , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 13.0% mindshare in the category. Ubiquiti Networks is ranked #1 in Wireless WAN , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 40.7% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Ubiquiti Networks 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

Ubiquiti Wireless

Read 74 Ubiquiti Wireless reviews

8,067 Views
3,337 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Ubiquiti Wireless

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN and Ubiquiti Wireless compete in the wireless networking solution category. Cisco Meraki seems to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive cloud management capabilities, high-end security features, and wide integration with Cisco products.

Features: Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is favored for centralized cloud management, offering comprehensive visibility and easy configuration. It supports remote management and integrates well with Cisco products. The ease of deployment, detailed analytics, and advanced security features stand out. Ubiquiti Wireless is known for its affordability and straightforward setup, providing reliable networking for small to medium enterprises. Though lacking some sophisticated features, it offers flexibility and user-friendly tools.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Meraki could benefit from enhancing its advanced security features and simplifying licensing policies. Simplifying template management and reducing costs would improve its appeal. Ubiquiti Wireless needs to enhance its enterprise scalability, security functions, and tech support. Improving outdoor device durability and advanced feature support, like automatic channel assignment, would be valuable.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Meraki benefits from versatile cloud-based deployment options and strong technical support, available nearly round-the-clock. Users seek a more extensive knowledge base. Ubiquiti's appeal lies in its competitive pricing and ease of initial deployment, primarily supporting on-premises setups with effective, albeit basic, customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Meraki is costly with ongoing subscription fees, yet it delivers features that justify the price for larger enterprises, with longer-term licenses offering better value. Ubiquiti is highly affordable with one-time purchase costs and no yearly fees, delivering sufficient ROI for smaller businesses. Its competitive pricing is appreciated against rivals like Cisco.

To learn more, read our detailed Wireless LAN Report (Updated: March 2025).

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Wireless LAN

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

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.1

Number of Reviews

118

Ranking in other categories

Wireless LAN (4th)

Ubiquiti Wireless

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Wireless WAN (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Networking solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is designed for Wireless LAN and holds a mindshare of 13.0%, up 12.3% compared to last year.
Ubiquiti Wireless, on the other hand, focuses on Wireless WAN, holds 40.7% mindshare, up 39.9% since last year.

Wireless LAN

Wireless WAN

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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Sachin Vinay

Assistant Manager-Networks at Amrita

Simple to set up and good outdoor accessibility but does not penetrate rooms well indoors

Ubiquiti requires more improvement in wireless penetration. It has significantly less penetration in indoor devices. When it comes to indoor devices, Ubiquiti Wireless does not have penetration power, so when we deploy it in closed rooms, it fails to connect. This is one drawback that has to improve. When indoor access points failed to penetrate into rooms, we had to deploy single access points in each room, which seemed to be really costly. Still, when compared to Fortinet, it has an outdoor access point model also. The outdoor access point is relatively stable in comparison. The solution needs to offer more scalability. It does not have traffic shaping or traffic policies in its wireless requirements. We have to completely depend on an additional firewall for traffic shaping and policies.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to use."

"For Meraki, the ease of deployment and management is most valuable."

"I really don't have any problems with the stability of the product."

"Great architecturally based dashboard and the solution is accessible from anywhere."

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

"I really love their cloud-based dashboard which allows me to see all my locations from one location."

"We're able to automate as well as manually control as necessary."

"Its flexibility, ease of management via the portal, and the variety of access points are the most valuable features."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN pros

"Ubiquiti is easier to install than Mikrotik."

"Having dual-band is important. Having compatibility with very old equipment on certain frequencies, for example on 2.4 and 5.8."

"Ubiquiti Wireless is very scalable. I don't know that there's a limit to the scalability. We just add more data switches to power more access points. We haven't come across a situation where it can't handle the Ubiquiti equipment."

"Their hardware is very good."

"I like that it's very easy and very stable. It's easy to install as well."

"It allows us to offer policy control."

"Easy to set up and maintain and simple to configure."

"It's very easy to use. The hardware is very easy to use, compared to Microsoft. Microsoft is more complicated. It has software that is okay if you are familiar with it. In my opinion, Ubiquiti hardware is more heavy duty then Microsoft."

More Ubiquiti Wireless pros

Cons

"The only concern is when the license has expired and it will no longer function, the entire network goes down, without any notification, or warning."

"I would like to see them improve their support where an assigned engineer can take the case all the way to closure. Usually, you get a different engineer calling regarding the same ticket."

"If there are advanced features that you can have enabled, they should allow users access to that in an easier manner."

"I would like to see integration with sensors."

"The pricing structure could be improved."

"Some of their first level support staff does not seem to be well-versed in the solution, so support for Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN needs improvement."

"We're are not fully utilizing the features of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN to know a more in-depth analysis of what areas need to be improved. However, the security could improve. It would be a benefit to be able to lock out particular clients that are trying to connect from outside the building."

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

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN cons

"The technical support is less than stellar."

"After upgrades to the interface, some features disappear."

"They should have more VLAN features and a designing tool like a link planer."

"The production is not very stable in our experience."

"Ubiquiti Wireless could improve by being more user-friendly and easy to use."

"The solution needs to improve its features and offer more to the customer."

"We tried to create an access point with built-in voice and sound that we could use in schools, for example. We tried to create something that could play sounds or messages out of the access points. We wanted to, for example, use it as a school bell instead of using other equipment. It didn't work very well. It turns out when you connect to the Ubiquiti Wireless access point, it's not possible to send simple messages (like what is going on in the canteen, or some news update for the school, etc.). We had to use the on-premises version, as the cloud version wouldn't allow for this."

"The mesh configuration and WiFi 6 coverage should be improved."

More Ubiquiti Wireless cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is negotiable."

"I haven't conducted a price comparison yet, but based on information, it appears to be more affordable than the current environment. Therefore, I consider the price to be reasonable."

"It is super expensive for what you get. You also have to buy a license every year. Otherwise, it stops working."

"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."

"I would say that they have adequate pricing."

"The cost is not so much for Wireless LAN, but when you have to get the security license, it costs a lot."

"We pay a yearly license fee for the solution."

"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN pricing and cost advice

"We don't have any licensing costs in our use-case. It's low cost, perhaps not the leading edge in the industry, but for the type of industry we work in, the cost suits us perfectly. It's aggressive on price so we can make a margin deploying it, and we can make money managing it for our clients."

"From a pricing point of view, Ubiquiti is excellent."

"We don't buy directly. We have our finance department that buys things. My speculation on the price is that because we buy from private companies and because the product is imported, people tend to give us at higher prices. This is due to the fact that it is government procurement. So, sometimes, they are not paid directly, and they have to go through the whole administrative process before they are paid. So, they tend to compensate by increasing the price, but I won't be able to say what is the exact price."

"We mostly use Ubiquiti solutions due to their affordable price."

"The price of this solution is ok."

"We initially spent around 10,000 euros on this solution and have been running it for several years. An access point costs approximately 160 to 180 euros."

"The price of Ubiquiti Wireless is affordable, we pay approximately $100 and $150 per access point."

"The solution has a reasonable price but a very low profit margin."

More Ubiquiti Wireless pricing and cost advice

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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%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

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...

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Is Ubiquiti Wireless better than Ruckus Wireless WAN?

Ubiquiti Wireless is extremely easy to set up and is an excellent option for small businesses, offering enterprise features for a one-time fee and no ongoing licensing fees. Ubiquiti Wireless is ve...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

Ubiquiti Wireless offers a wide range of WLAN products. We tested their devices before ultimately choosing Cisco Meraki. Ubiquiti devices have good outdoor performance and the connection is very st...

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 17% of the time

Ruckus Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 11% of the time

Mist AI and Cloud vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Competitors

Ruckus Wireless WAN vs Ubiquiti Wireless

Compared 43% of the time

Aruba Wireless vs Ubiquiti Wireless

Compared 19% of the time

Cambium Networks Wireless WAN vs Ubiquiti Wireless

Compared 7% of the time

ExtremeCloud IQ vs Ubiquiti Wireless

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiWLM vs Ubiquiti Wireless

Compared 2% of the time

More Ubiquiti Wireless Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

March 2025

Download Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN product report

Buyer's Guide

Ubiquiti Wireless

February 2025

Download Ubiquiti Wireless 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

Ubiquiti Wireless refers to the wireless networking solutions provided by Ubiquiti Networks, a leading technology company specializing in networking and wireless communication products. Ubiquiti Wireless offers a range of innovative and cost-effective wireless networking solutions designed for various applications, including enterprise networks, service providers, small and medium-sized businesses, and home users.

Ubiquiti Wireless products are known for their reliability, performance, and ease of use. They encompass a wide range of devices and technologies, including wireless access points, wireless routers, antennas, bridges, mesh networks, and point-to-point or point-to-multipoint wireless links.

Ubiquiti Wireless Features:

Scalability: Ubiquiti Wireless products are designed to scale easily, allowing organizations to expand their wireless networks as needed without significant infrastructure changes.
Flexibility: Ubiquiti Wireless offers a range of products suitable for various deployment scenarios, including indoor and outdoor environments, long-range connectivity, and mesh networks.
Centralized Management: Ubiquiti provides a centralized management platform called the UniFi Controller, which allows administrators to configure, monitor, and manage their entire wireless network from a single interface.
Seamless Roaming: Ubiquiti Wireless solutions support seamless roaming, allowing wireless devices to maintain connectivity while moving across different access points within a network.
Advanced Security: Ubiquiti incorporates security features such as encryption, authentication, and firewall capabilities to protect wireless networks and data transmissions.
Cost-Effective: Ubiquiti Wireless products are known for their affordability without compromising performance, making them an attractive option for organizations with budget constraints.
Community Support: Ubiquiti has a vibrant community of users and enthusiasts who actively contribute to knowledge sharing, troubleshooting, and expanding the capabilities of Ubiquiti Wireless products.

Ubiquiti Wireless Components:

Ubiquiti Wireless encompasses a range of components that work together to provide reliable and scalable wireless networking solutions. Here are some key components commonly found in Ubiquiti Wireless deployments:

Wireless Access Points (APs) for providing wireless connectivity.
Wireless Routers as central network hubs for managing traffic.
Wireless Bridges for creating wireless connections between networks.
Antennas to enhance wireless range and coverage.
Mesh Networking Devices for seamless coverage across large areas.
Network Switches for wired connectivity within the network.
Management Software like the UniFi Controller for centralized management and monitoring.

Reviews from Real Users

George Ferns, Solution Architect - Networking and IoT at a wholesaler & distributor, states that Ubiquiti Wireless has "Attractive pricing and good for home use and small businesses, but it is not easily scalable and lacks security features".

Walter Shelver, Owner at CableWeb, writes that "The most valuable aspect of Ubiquiti is the ease of setup. It's easy to set up, secure, and use. It works on an adoption basis. I can pull the system up, design a network, and pull 20 different Ubiquiti units into it".

ThomasWilke, CEO at CITOM, says that “You can almost do everything with Cisco products for a much better price with a significantly lower learning curve”.

Ubiquiti Networks

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

NASCAR Grand-AM, Maritime Parc, Outdoor Music Festival, British Armed Forces, Arcadia School District, Moscow - Enforta

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