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Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs Ubiquiti WLAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 8, 2024

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
Ubiquiti WLAN
Ranking in Wireless LAN
7th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Wireless LAN category, the mindshare of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is 13.1%, up from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Ubiquiti WLAN is 5.0%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Wireless LAN
 

Featured Reviews

Mageshwaran S - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Geoff Rubin - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for network management and far more competitive than the other leading American brands
As an importer and distributor, we don't spend any time installing Ubiquiti WLAN products ourselves. We only resell the products to installers and don't do any installations directly. From my knowledge, though, the installation process is extremely straightforward. We get very few technical questions from our customers who do the installations. Based on our experience as distributors, I can say that virtually every installation we deal with now is centered around the UniFi Gateway. Although we don't handle installations directly, more companies rely on Ubiquiti gateways instead of standard options like FortiGate switches as routers. With the new UDM Pro Max product, Ubiquiti WLAN has covered the whole spectrum from home installations to the largest possible enterprise installations.

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 trustworthy. I find it easy and secure."
"The fact that Cisco Meraki is cloud based and is reasonably priced has been most valuable."
"Its flexibility, ease of management via the portal, and the variety of access points are the most valuable features."
"This product offers cloud-based configuration, so you can set it up from anywhere."
"If you're trying to identify one of the switches or pinpoint a computer or pinpoint something, you could find it just like that and change the IP address. It's easiest to do it that way."
"It improved the installation time."
"We use the solution's bandwidth shaping, URL filtering, and group policy configuration features."
"We rarely encounter any issues. The solutions have been very stable."
"Ubiquiti WLAN is stable."
"Ubiquiti WLAN's most valuable features are that it works well in a hybrid environment and isn't heavy on resources."
"Ubiquiti Wireless LAN is reliable and offers a good quality product."
"Ubiquiti WLAN has been stable and is easy to install."
"Ubiquiti WLAN's best feature is the free controller system software."
"The solution is very easy to install."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Ubiquiti WLAN has good availability, and it is much cheaper."
 

Cons

"Meraki should share their viability roadmap. It is really hard to know which functionality will appear or when they will be available. It is also hard to know which features are available now but are not visible on the dashboard."
"The wireless infrastructure scalability has room for improvement."
"It would be better if they enable full integration with Cisco's cloud-based network in the next release."
"In the future, I would like to see IP telephony in Saudi Arabia."
"Overall the solution needs to have more time to mature."
"We'd like to have better mapping to showcase low-coverage areas."
"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."
"We would like to see Wi-Fi 6 support for devices sold in the Middle East."
"Ubiquiti lacks troubleshooting tools. For example, there aren't tools that your clients can use to gather input on the AP itself. There's no visibility in the application layer or reporting. It doesn't have a lot of management features."
"Largely we're happy with the product, however, the firmware deployments could maybe be managed a little bit differently."
"The solution should support a larger bandwidth or distance between the access points and the main stations."
"It is not a stable solution."
"Support from Ubiquiti is hard to obtain. However, there is a good forum where a lot of information can be found."
"Ubiquiti WLAN is not a cheap solution."
"They could enhance their products by integrating cloud access into each device."
"The downside is the interface changes, where they are constantly doing firmware updates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As is always the case, the price could be better, although I do not recall exactly how much this comes out to."
"It's a pretty good value, but not great. Pricing is on a yearly basis for the Meraki solution."
"At this price point, I would not mind seeing a four-way channel, instead of a 3x3 or a 4x4, like they do in the Cisco Aironet system with their other brand. For the same price point in this other Cisco brand, it is a lot cheaper, and you can get a slightly better throughput than you can with these."
"The cost of both the hardware and licensing is high, and it is more than what I would prefer to spend currently."
"The cost is not so much for Wireless LAN, but when you have to get the security license, it costs a lot."
"Having a good price is important when we are providing quotations for projects."
"Higher subscription fee may be necessary if extra features are required."
"The pricing is based on a subscription and is a bit high at the moment."
"Ubiquiti WLAN is a low-priced product."
"The software to control it is free. The license is when we buy the Cloud Key."
"The pricing is very reasonable."
"I rate the pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"When comparing the price of Ubiquiti WLAN to Aruba the price is reasonable."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap, I rate Ubiquiti WLAN's pricing a five to six out of ten."
"It’s an expensive product but has all the essential qualities and functionality."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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...
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...
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...
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...
Which is better - Ubiquiti WLAN or Aruba Instant?
We researched Ubiquiti and Aruba when looking for a WLAN solution. Ubiquiti offers good WLAN access both indoors and outdoors. It provides an enterprise-level WIFI while remaining cost-effective. U...
What do you like most about Ubiquiti WLAN?
Anyone can buy the product off the shelf and configure it.
 

Also Known As

MR18, MR26, MR32, MR34, MR66, MR72, Meraki Wireless LAN, Meraki WLAN
No data available
 

Overview

 

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, One Republic Tour, British Armed Forces, Arcadia School District, Bartlett School District, Universidad del Azuay, Estelar Hotels, Intercontinental Bali, Moscow - Enforta, Miami - Sling Broadband, Manhattan - MST, Ecuador - Aire.EC
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. Ubiquiti WLAN and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.