We use Meraki Dashboard for office network management. The solution is full SaaS services deployed on the Cisco Meraki cloud.
IT Manager at Cider Security
Stabile, intuitive, and easy deploy
Pros and Cons
- "The hardware of Meraki is very good quality."
- "The cost of the solution is high and can be improved."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The dashboard is a valuable feature because it is fully SaaS. This means we can access it from anywhere and we don't have to worry about the infrastructure. This is something that is already available in Cisco regularly, in the old version of Cisco, and something that Meraki sold. The hardware of Meraki is very good quality. Cisco is implementing new features into the dashboard from time to time. The best quality of the Meraki Dashboard is its high level of service.
What needs improvement?
The cost of the solution is high and can be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for five years.
Buyer's Guide
Meraki Dashboard
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Meraki Dashboard. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I give the stability of the solution a nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The support is quick, responsive, and user-friendly. It's been a pleasure working with Cisco Meraki Support. They always provide a response and answers. Even when we need to replace devices, they do it quickly.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward for someone with experience.
Depending on the architecture of the network the deployment can take from one hour to one working day.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Meraki Dashboard isn't a cheap product, but the quality is worth the price. I can't say if it's expensive or not, because everyone understands that quality costs.
What other advice do I have?
I give the solution a nine out of ten.
We currently have two people using the solution.
Just as Mercedes is known for its high-quality cars, Cisco is known for its high-quality networking hardware. If we're looking for a reliable network, we can't go wrong with Cisco equipment. Hardware and software come from different sources, but together they create a winning solution. Cisco provides the hardware and Meraki provides the software. I believe that there are cheaper products available, but the quality is not the same. In the five years I have been using Meraki I have not checked the competitors. I am not familiar with the pricing for alternative solutions, so I can't compare where Meraki Dashboard fits in terms of cost.
I recommend the solution to others. Meraki Dashboard is a quality solution, intuitive, easy to implement, and has great support.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
VP of Information Technology at a security firm with 10,001+ employees
Helpful centralized management and responsive support
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Meraki Dashboard is we can manage our switches and access point in one place."
- "The tool is useful for managing devices and monitoring their current state, but it falls short in troubleshooting network issues, particularly with access points. It does not provide a complete understanding of the root causes of the issues. As a result, network engineers have had to use additional tools to complement it and conduct assessments. The only way to improve the tool would be to enhance its capability to identify and resolve network issues effectively."
What is our primary use case?
I am using Meraki Dashboard for Meraki equipment for all of our corporate offices worldwide.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Meraki Dashboard is we can manage our switches and access point in one place.
What needs improvement?
The tool is useful for managing devices and monitoring their current state, but it falls short in troubleshooting network issues, particularly with access points. It does not provide a complete understanding of the root causes of the issues. As a result, network engineers have had to use additional tools to complement it and conduct assessments. The only way to improve the tool would be to enhance its capability to identify and resolve network issues effectively.
A feature that can conduct band analysis and provide information about deadlines and related details would be beneficial.
Repeatedly rebooting devices due to errors can disrupt operations, so it's not recommended. However, there are times when it's necessary to reboot access points or switches. The process of scheduling a reboot can be cumbersome, as it involves using the API and building a pipeline script through the console. This adds another layer of complexity to managing and supporting the system.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Meraki Dashboard within the past 12 months.
How are customer service and support?
The support from Meraki Dashboard is highly responsive.
I rate the support from Meraki Dashboard a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing of the tool is relatively high compared to other solutions. It comes with a premium that exceeds that of its competitors by approximately 25 percent.
By cross-training our systems administration team to support both, we have been able to reduce our overall organizational footprint and rely on network engineers only when needed. This flexibility has some advantages that can be scaled up across the organization, but it's worth noting that the cost of the tool is higher than other solutions, particularly when only a simple access point or switch is needed.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Meraki Dashboard an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Meraki Dashboard
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Meraki Dashboard. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Presales System Engineer at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
A cloud solution for monitoring and managing from one dashboard
What is our primary use case?
Cisco has a cloud partnership, which you can use to provide use cases for the customer.
What is most valuable?
All products can be monitored and managed from the same dashboard.
What needs improvement?
There could be an on-premise server for the dashboard.
Meraki can download the full server from the cloud to on-prem for the client. It will be beneficial to get new insight and new options. It will be an innovation for Meraki. Other cloud providers provide this feature.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Meraki Dashboard for over five years in presales and one year in a technical role.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We didn't face any issues with the solution's stability.
I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is mainly for medium businesses but can work on small and enterprise businesses.
I rate the solution’s scalability a nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
Meraki Dashboard has excellent technical support in the UK and a lot of sales support. However, the support for the BOC license was not as good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used Fortinet before. Meraki is a management platform focused only on the dashboard. They give 100% effort to support all things. Fortinet is not as powerful as Meraki.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product’s pricing is neither high nor low.
I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
Technical Support Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Very easy to configure and great at troubleshooting
Pros and Cons
- "Easy to configure with great troubleshooting feature."
- "Lacks an alert notification when there are IP or DNS issues."
What is our primary use case?
We are using this solution for configuration of Wi-Fi devices and management. We are customers of Meraki and I'm the technical support manager at our company.
What is most valuable?
The troubleshooting is great and the solution is easy to configure. Resolving issues that are related to DNS or related to devices is simple with everything in the dashboard.
What needs improvement?
I'd like to see an alert notification for the mail box so that an administrator will know when to check it. We sometimes have IP or DNS issues. If a user doesn't come to the office for a couple of days, it can sometimes take 20 minutes for them to connect their laptop when they return.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Dashboard for nearly four years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Whenever we require any information or support, Cisco provides that. Their support is quite good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very simple. We have two engineers who take care of maintenance and we have around 500 users.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is quite expensive and their reasoning is that they offer a better solution.
What other advice do I have?
I rate this solution nine out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Quality Control Engineer at Casaplex LLC
We can remotely monitor clients' networks through Meraki Dashboard, dramatically reducing the on-site visits required
Pros and Cons
- "Scalability is one of Meraki Dashboard's strongest features. We have thousands of users if we're counting the end-users on our clients' network, but we have hundreds of clients."
- "The wait time to speak with a Meraki support engineer is always long, but they get the job done."
What is our primary use case?
We use Meraki Dashboard for troubleshooting and configuring networks, statistics, reporting, and monitoring security threats. Our clients' networks depend on it daily, and it's part of our core business model.
How has it helped my organization?
We can remotely monitor clients' networks through Meraki Dashboard, dramatically reducing the on-site visits required. Meraki Dashboard has cut down on personnel costs because it requires fewer people to support.
It also helps us stay on top of potential problems, which keeps our clients happy. We get critical notifications ahead of time, so we know about the issues before our clients do.
What is most valuable?
The most critical feature of Meraki Dashboard is its scalability.
What needs improvement?
Meraki Dashboard is a mature product, so it doesn't have a lot of bugs or significant issues, but would love to have the ability to save configurations externally instead of storing them in the database.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Meraki Dashboard for over four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Meraki Dashboard is stable. We rarely have significant crashes or downtime. The solution has gone down maybe once in four years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is one of Meraki Dashboard's strongest features. We have thousands of users if we're counting the end-users on our clients' network, but we have hundreds of clients.
How are customer service and support?
The wait time to speak with a Meraki support engineer is always long, but they get the job done. I rate Meraki support eight out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We never based our business on other cloud solutions of that level. We use other products, but I hated the HP solution. There were so many glitches. Unfortunately, we have to deal with it from time to time because of existing clients, but that's not what I would recommend to anybody.
How was the initial setup?
I rate Meraki Dashboard eight out of 10 for ease of deployment. It's straightforward to deploy Meraki Dashboard at a new site because you can use a template, and it's easy for me, in particular, because I have been using the solution for a long time.
With a template, it usually takes no longer than 10 minutes if you have all the network equipment ready to go. A full setup from scratch takes about two days. Usually, a single person can set it up but it depends on the number of clients we have. If we have more clients, we might need additional staff to manage and maintain the solution.
What about the implementation team?
We do the deployment ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate Meraki Dashboard six out of 10 for affordability. The cost depends on the amount of equipment at each site, including switches, access points, firewalls, etc. Meraki's licensing model is per unit per year. At a minimum, it's around $500 for the smallest networks.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Meraki Dashboard nine out of 10. It's one of the best products on the market, but there's always room for improvement. More convenient licensing and faster technical support would probably bring it up to a perfect 10.
If you plan to implement Meraki Dashboard, I recommend first creating a structure that you can replicate. It's much easier to support that way because there's already an internal structure. If you have consistency in naming devices, ports, etc., it will help you search data to identify ports and troubleshoot.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Enterprise Information System Lead at a media company with 51-200 employees
Easy to use and set up with the capability to extend
Pros and Cons
- "We have found the client dashboard to be very simple to use, especially in our Meraki environment."
- "The coverage has been an issue for us."
What is our primary use case?
We are using Meraki in our network environment. It's for monitoring and analysis.
What is most valuable?
The solution is easy to use.
The initial setup is very easy.
We have found the client dashboard to be very simple to use, especially in our Meraki environment.
It's mostly stable.
The solution can scale.
What needs improvement?
We've had some issues with the product and are looking to replace it.
The coverage has been an issue for us.
In the traffic analysis, there are too many categories.
I do not have any notes for new future features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for about three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is okay. However, with the cloud, it depends on the internet traffic. Sometimes the connectivity is not good, and that can affect the product. I'd rate the stability seven out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution has been scalable. I'd rate the ability to expand nine out of ten.
We have around 250 users on the solution and 500 devices.
How are customer service and support?
So far, in terms of technical support, we've had some cases. They are fine.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are planning to replace Meraki with Fortinet. I've used Fortinet in the past. There are some extra features, such as the firewall from Fortinet, that are a bit better.
How was the initial setup?
The setup process is very simple. It's not overly complex.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing is okay. I'd rate it five out of ten. It could be less expensive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did evaluate other vendors as well and compared them to Meraki.
What other advice do I have?
I'm an end-user.
I wouldn't recommend the solution to others right now.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten overall.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Well-organized, easy to use, and practical
Pros and Cons
- "What I found most valuable in Meraki Dashboard is that it's well-organized, easy to use, and practical."
- "An area for improvement in Meraki Dashboard is licensing management because it's a little complex. Product licensing can be made a little bit easier through license concurrency and a more straightforward approach to applying the license to products and services."
What is our primary use case?
We're using Meraki Dashboard for the overall insight and management of the products and services that we have with Meraki, whether switches, SD-WAN, access points, MDM, or the system manager. Meraki Dashboard is our overall portal for service management for all Meraki products.
How has it helped my organization?
Meraki Dashboard helped my company because it allows the oversight and management of Meraki products and services from an operational and maintenance perspective, including software updates and overall utility. The solution also allows the segregation of rights so that multiple people can quickly manage different aspects of the services.
What is most valuable?
What I found most valuable in Meraki Dashboard is that it's well-organized, easy to use, and practical.
What needs improvement?
An area for improvement in Meraki Dashboard is licensing management because it's a little complex. Product licensing can be made a little bit easier through license concurrency and a more straightforward approach to applying the license to products and services.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Meraki Dashboard for five or six years now. I'm still using the solution but in a different capacity.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Meraki Dashboard is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Meraki Dashboard is a scalable solution.
How are customer service and support?
I found the technical support for Meraki Dashboard good, so I'm rating it four out of five.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
From a dashboard perspective, my company used Fortinet before Meraki Dashboard to oversee products and services.
How was the initial setup?
Meraki Dashboard was straightforward to set up.
What was our ROI?
I've seen ROI from Meraki Dashboard.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Meraki Dashboard is a utility and portal that's part of the Meraki solution.
What other advice do I have?
In my company, ten to twelve people use Meraki Dashboard.
As the Meraki Dashboard deployment was very straightforward, only two to three people deployed it. Ten people handled the maintenance of the solution, but it was based on areas in which people had responsibility.
Currently, there's no plan to increase the usage of the Meraki Dashboard.
I would recommend Meraki Dashboard to others who have Meraki products and services, as the solution can provide oversight into what you're doing and what you'll be able to maintain from a Meraki point of view.
My rating for Meraki Dashboard is eight out of ten because it's a strong product for me.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Systems Administrator at Inetum
Simple configuration, automatic updates, great for home remote work
Pros and Cons
- "Meraki Dashboard does not require a lot of maintenance. Cisco tells communicates through the Meraki Dashboard web client, it will automatically send updates to the equipment. They will send you an email on what day the updates will take place. If you want to proceed, you can click on accept, or you can decline them and schedule the updates at another time."
- "Meraki Dashboard could improve the user interface by making it more user-friendly. The configuring can at times be difficult."
What is our primary use case?
We use a private cloud that is owned by Cisco. We create an account and we can add devices via their MAC address. We then can configure them even before we take them out of the box or when they are on site. It saves a lot of time.
The main use for the Meraki Dashboard is instead of the traditional Cisco way of configuring things where you need a common line, with the Cisco Meraki Dashboard you can configure them through the web. You only need to configure it by doing some checkmarks and typing some IP addresses. It becomes a lot easier when configuring the whole equipment. You can also know the device locations of where they are installed. It will give you a Google Maps location of where the devices are.
How has it helped my organization?
Meraki Dashboard has improved organizations because the configuration of the solution is very easy. It has saved a lot of time.
What is most valuable?
Meraki Dashboard does not require a lot of maintenance. Cisco tells communicates through the Meraki Dashboard web client, it will automatically send updates to the equipment. They will send you an email on what day the updates will take place. If you want to proceed, you can click on accept, or you can decline them and schedule the updates at another time.
I have been happy with all the features that Meraki Dashboard provides.
What needs improvement?
Meraki Dashboard could improve the user interface by making it more user-friendly. The configuration can at times be difficult.
Also their support team could be better with response times.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Meraki Dashboard for approximately eight months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good in the Meraki Dashboard.
For example, when something is about to break, it will give you a warning, such as "There is a problem that I think will be happening. Let's fix them before it happens."
How are customer service and support?
The support itself, it´s not been great. Long times waiting for them to pickup a phone call (1h30min) long or even more!
Cisco provides a 24x7 support if you are on an enterprise license.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Negative
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Meraki Dashboard is straightforward. You only need to click on add a new device, insert its MAC address, and then it is almost done. You have to type the name you want to give to the equipment, and the IP address, and you are finished.
The deployment takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
What about the implementation team?
We used an integrator which was the vendor's support.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of Meraki Dashboard is kinda expensive because knowing that it is a cloud-based solution has its benefits.
What other advice do I have?
Meraki Dashboard is a great solution for every company.
If you want ease and peace of mind throughout and especially if you are starting out with networking. This is a great solution to learn.
Where I see the real potential for today's networking, would be for the healthcare services.
I rate Meraki Dashboard a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Updated: October 2024
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