We performed a comparison between Cisco Wireless and Fortinet FortiWLM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Wireless LAN solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The AI capabilities of Mist Wireless are superior to other OEMs."
"You can easily monitor, manage, and cover all your IT equipment."
"The artificial intelligence feature is very good."
"Overall, we've been very pleased with the performance."
"The most valuable feature of Juniper Mist is the Virtual Network Assistant, powered by artificial intelligence."
"With Mist, every Wednesday they roll out new features."
"The most useful feature of Juniper Wireless AP is the reporting Marvis."
"It provides private network access, helping us protect our company’s devices."
"Its stability is most valuable."
"The main features are that it's secure and it's easy to distribute the SSID and control it. I also like the controller."
"It is a very stable solution."
"Overall, Cisco was stable and worked well for all our needs until we started having more and more students and teachers using YouTube and Zoom — what with classes being isolated and everything — which put a lot of strain on our Wi-Fi network."
"The capacity, security, downloading, and exporting data are all very good. It's user-friendly, but if I look at Meraki versus normal Cisco equipment, then I think that Meraki will be much more user-friendly."
"It is tough, has a nice speed, and is quite reliable."
"It integrates with Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA)."
"It is a reliable and robust solution. Access and Mobility Groups are useful. We don't use anything very fancy."
"The security is a valuable feature."
"With Fortinet, there is a feature called Network-In-Control. It's the AP controller that decides what the clients are going to connect to... Even though your phone sees, let's say, two APs, since the wireless controller has visibility into and access across all the APs, it knows the best AP for the client to connect to. This way, the controller makes sure that none of the APs is over-crowded, and the spectrum is used properly."
"The product is a stable solution."
"Security is the feature we like most from Fortinet. In general, their security architecture is really great, because it involves everything: firewalls, wireless LANs, the user. Everything is really secure."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the management."
"We're using SD-WAN at all of our locations now, which helps increase and aggregate and lower response time and improve application performance."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to connect and broadcast to different networks without using a VLAN or a layer two switch, which allows you to easily create guest networks."
"Seamless roaming by leveraging Virtual Cell is a major advantage which reduces roam times and issues related to roaming. Code stability has been excellent and the hardware quality is second to none."
"The pricing should be made cheaper."
"The price could be better."
"Juniper Wireless AP can improve by continually improving its reporting and integration with other systems."
"The pricing is very high in the Indian market."
"The product should include adaptive Wi-Fi to show a more accurate location."
"I need a bit more time with it before criticizing the features."
"The solution is expensive."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support and installation."
"We've recently had hardware issues which have caused us some problems."
"The installation is very tiring and painful, the process could be easier."
"The interface could be better."
"The solution could improve by having an advanced model with a controller. Additionally, the solution could be more secure."
"The solution could improve by having more advanced features, such as AI that is able to do diagnosis on the network or detect incorrect configurations and is able to tell you what is the recommended practice. Additionally, it would be a benefit to have smart antennas that are able to track your movement, Wi-Fi 6 support, better transfer rates, low latency, stronger signals that can penetrate thick walls, and zero packet losses."
"If needs to provide more visibility. It can detect and do it, but as technicians we don't have a lot of visibility into seeing exactly what's happening. It doesn't give us a lot of log information for us to troubleshoot. They probably have additional software you need to purchase to get that kind of information. But I think not all companies can afford additional software to see those kinds of details. So if the wireless controller already had, built-in, those types of things for the technician or wireless engineer, it would be more attractive for the end-user."
"The media stream and Mojo settings are not sufficiently supported."
"The flexibility on the controllers isn't that great."
"The initial setup is complex and has room for improvement."
"I have used Cisco previously and I don't see any specific differences from Fortinet FortiWLM or other vendors."
"The solution should improve user capacity."
"Documentation could be improved."
"The interface could certainly do with some improvement. We have other customers with WiFi networks, and they always use Ubiquiti. With Ubiquiti, it's a much better user interface, and it is much easier to configure."
"When using the FortiGate as the wireless controller, you cannot have automatic user registration, which is something that they should offer."
"Areas for improvement would be the compatibility with Apple products and cross-platform integration."
"Technical support is very poor. We are not satisfied with the technical support because there is not any direct person from Fortinet for any troubleshooting, which we expected."
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Cisco Wireless is ranked 2nd in Wireless LAN with 147 reviews while Fortinet FortiWLM is ranked 16th in Wireless LAN with 22 reviews. Cisco Wireless is rated 8.2, while Fortinet FortiWLM is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Wireless writes "Allows us to deploy a wide range of wireless products with stable WiFi". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiWLM writes "Impressive manufacturing quality, highly durable, and very easy to deploy". Cisco Wireless is most compared with Aruba Wireless, Ruckus Wireless, Ubiquiti WLAN, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN and Omada Access Points, whereas Fortinet FortiWLM is most compared with Aruba Wireless, Ruckus Wireless, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, Ubiquiti Wireless and Omada Access Points. See our Cisco Wireless vs. Fortinet FortiWLM report.
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All are good selections, and this question is difficult to answer without knowing your throughput requirements, as each vendor has multiple models within there series.
Personally I recommend looking at Arista Networks’ cognitive Wifi, where controllers are a thing of the past.
Ruckus virtual smart zone will be your best bet allowing up to 300k connected devices and 30k access points. furthermore, Ruckus has time and again proven best in speed, throughput in high density environments by independent studies. I have over a decade of working with this product and none of the other competitors can beat the layer 1 connectivity of Ruckus WiFi
Hi,
Every one of the mentioned solutions is good but you need to check the needs which are security since the firms you are working with need protection and tracking of data. For this reason, I recommend:
- if you have FortiGate installed then go for Fortinet Wireless since they can be integrated with the Fortigate without buying a controller and they work perfectly together and you will get the advantage of applying rules to the client himself whether mobile or computer, easily managed & monitored, more visibility over your network and incident notifications.
If the above doesn't apply then you can go with the best one that fits your budget and security needs which for me doesn't fall on the mentioned solution but to go with ARUBA Instant Access Wireless Solution and the reasons are as such:
- Cisco is too much expensive and you got to pay smart support with some complexity in configuration and you need to buy a controller
- Ruckus is good but when you want to have the security you need to buy a controller with licenses and it won't give you the security needed since it is just a wireless solution
- Huawei is not a stable company since it had many ups and downs and they can reach with you to have all the solutions nearly free so that you install their brand.
Whereas Aruba you don't need a controller in the Instant access points and you will get the minimum security with radius integration and what is important a lifetime warranty on the access points.
In addition, if the number of access points increased and you want more detailed management and more advanced configurations, you can buy a controller either on-premises or on-cloud with Aruba.
The above information is based on my experience with all the solutions and their POC.
If you need any more details and consultancy, kindly feel free to contact me.
Regards.
Hi Imad,
Thanks for your input. Do you have any POC data for Cisco and Aruba?
Thanks in advance
Boa tarde
As soluções cada solução que você indicou tem pormenores que podem impactar tanto no funcionamento quanto em caso de disaster recovery.
Fortinet: Possui bons access points, aliado às funcionalidades de segurança do próprio UTM, porém será mais um serviço para o appliance gerenciar, e dependendo do que está rodando nele, corre-se o risco de degradar a performance da funcionalidade principal "segurança", por que tambem está gerenciando uma rede wireless, além do fato se houver alguma pane no appliance Fortinet, tanto os itens de segurança quanto a rede wireless irão ficar indisponível. Dê a Cézar o que é de Cézar, deixe a fortinet focada em segurança, que é o que ela faz de melhor.
Ruckus: Excelentes Access points, confiáveis e com alta performance, possui no mínimo 4 opções de gerência, sendo, controlerless Unleashed, appliance virtual, appliance hardware e cloud, ambas as opções não trará prejuizo à performance da rede wireless, porque não há tunelamento de dados para elas, além de possuir várias funções de segurança inerentes à rede wireless. licenças são perpétuas.
Cisco: Excelente access points, porém solução muito cara para aquisição e renovação.
Huawei: Pelo que conheço, tem bons access points, e controladoras virtuais e appliance físico, mas conheço poucas redes com esta solução.
É lógico que uma tem um recurso extra a mais do que a outra, mas considero mera perfumaria, pois o básico para uma rede wireless segura todas atendem.
Eu já atendi a mais de 40 universidades federais no Brasil, todas com Ruckus, e não há reclamação da solução.
Como recomendação pessoal, vá de Ruckus.
Hi,
It is all dependent on the size of the controllers in question. Though I would suggest getting a cloud base technology so you are limited by any controller and have much better redundancy. Take a look at Arista Cognitive Wireless