Meraki MS Switches Reviews

We use the solution for switching only because it was already in place at an organization we took over who sold Meraki. We continue to use the Meraki solution as switches on that network.

Personally, I don't like the product because I don't like the idea of losing all functionality if your license for the cloud is not current and paid or if the cloud cannot be accessed. I wouldn't recommend these switches for most organizations because the cloud-based deployment is restrictive and comes with problems. The only reason I can see choosing this product is if your organization is totally non-IT, on-premises and you are comfortable leaving IT services in the hands of somebody else.

Realistically, the pricing should be improved to match the services and features provided. This also should be enhanced so that you are able to use the product when there is no cloud connectivity.

Because of dependence on the cloud, my strongest advice to people considering this solution is to make sure you have a reliable internet connection.

As far as future improvements to the product, it is not a concern for us as we are not doing additional installations at this point and would probably hope, instead, to phase out the use of the product.

I have not experienced any bugs while using the product, but in trawling the internet for more information and doing some research, it seems that there can be a lot of problems with this solution. We have not experienced any of these problems ourselves.

The product is scalable and can work if you're a small to medium-sized business. I wouldn't want to use Meraki in an enterprise network. At the moment we have about six clients sites where the Meraki device is used for storage. That is a total of about 40 or so end-users. 

I have not had the reason to use customer services or technical support.

We are currently using Meraki at some sites but we are also using NETGEAR. NETGEAR is our preferred switch kit. We normally would prefer not to use Meraki at all. We were forced to use it because a customer we took over already had the Meraki switches.

The initial setup can be straightforward if you don't make it too complicated by trying to do a lot of customization. The entire setup took us about four hours.

We did not use a vendor team for the implementation, we did it ourselves.

With the solution that we currently have, I think it costs about 1,200 pounds a year. They bill on a yearly basis. There are no licensing costs in addition to the standard yearly licensing fees, but of course, you have to buy the kit. It is the nature of this type of product to require that type of initial capital expenditure.

It is very important that people considering this solution have or can implement a very reliable internet connection. The product needs this to access the cloud.

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as a six. It is just too limited to be rated any higher.

I use it primarily when migrating from old or legacy to Meraki MS Switches supporting Meraki services and supporting the SD-WAN. But I am using them with the SD-WAN provided by FlexWare. I am also using it for connecting access points because it is easier than using the Catalyst with a command line.  Meraki MS Switches has its own user interface on its platform. It is easier for configuring the interfaces and monitoring, getting the box and logs from Exporter. We are using it in some regions, especially in the Americas, North and Latin Americas, Asia Pacific, and some countries in the EMEA.

I like that the portal has maps inside it that detect a given location which makes searching on it easier. You can also attach photos to the portal.

The shooting portal side needs to have CLI access for deep investigations.

The most valuable feature is that it is more stable than Catalyst switches. It is easy to configure and claim the switches by their serial number directly from the portal.

In reference to an area of improvement sometimes the switch does not connect to the internet initially. One area that needs to be improved is the issue of the STP incompatible versions It occurs when there is another version of the opposite device. If you have an older version or newer version of the software, sometimes it is an issue that happens with STP incompatible versions for the uplinks. There is a lot of dependency on software compatibility. I would like to see the feature of the Catalyst Switches regarding the LLDB and CDP neighbors to be included.

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for the past three years now.

Meraki MS Switches are a stable solution.

The scalability of Meraki MS Switches depends on the compatibility of the version you are working with. In addition, it also relates to a small office or a warehouse.

We have yet to send cases to the vendor.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward and easy. The deployment is pretty fast and takes usually about an hour to complete. We configure the ports, and LANs, you can select multiple interfaces, and configure them at the same time. This is similar to the interface range command line and the user interface, simply connect the internet and everything will work.

The solution was implemented in-house.

It depends on the cost center and the version of switches and their model no, so it varies from small places to large environments.

Meraki MS Switches are more stable and reliable than Catalyst switches. They are an easy product to configure. You need to know the network essentials and what are the IPs. A professional engineer is not required to install them. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

The solution is user-friendly and offers good visibility of users, service visibility and program management. It is easy to handle the configurations.

The setup is simple. 

We have found the product to be stable. 

It is scalable. 

The product is reasonably priced. 

The existing setup is okay right now.

The troubleshooting could be better. Sometimes we get the wrong information.

Technical support could be better. 

It's not perfectly priced. It could always be a bit lower. 

I've used the solution for two or three years. 

It's a stable solution. The product is reliable. We have not faced any problems so far. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is scalable. 

We currently have hundreds of switches. 

At this point in time, we do not have plans to increase usage. 

Technical support is not the best. We can't say they are very good. 

Neutral

It's an easy initial setup. It's straightforward. It's not complex or difficult. 

We only need one person to handle the initial setup. 

The price is quite good. I'd rate it four out of five. It's affordable. 

We did look into other solutions.

We have a partnership with Meraki.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

I am using it to put it in a secure end-to-end solution in my IT lab. I am using MX65. I have got three Meraki solutions. I have the switch, the access point, and the appliance itself.

Being able to look at every port and see what it is connected to is very useful. Everything seems to be running really well. They've got everything covered.

They have a really cool mounting system at the bottom and an access point that you can use to level up your device. It is kind of cool.

It would be great if they can get the price down for small businesses.

I have been using this solution for three years.

It is rock solid.

They are after a certain market, that is, the small business market. You wouldn't put a Meraki solution at an enterprise level. That's not the market that they want to go after. You would probably scale up to full Cisco for that.

They've always been really good. To be able to get somebody at the end of the line is the real advantage of having a subscription-based solution. I had to wait for maybe three minutes at the most.

You can initiate a service request from the device itself, which is something that not too many companies do. When you're logged into the interface, you can see who your rep is. You have full connection to support. If you want to learn how to configure VLAN, you just click on the support ticket, it generates a ticket. It figures out your number and other information and sends an inquiry ticket with Meraki, and they call you back.

I have used a lot of stuff at the lower end, such as SonicWall, Linksys, and TP-link. I have also used the actual Cisco stuff, but it just never worked together. I haven't worked with Ubiquiti, but I believe that they've got a similar product. I haven't been hands-on with Fortinet, but I understand that they have a quite selective setup as well.

In terms of security and intelligence, Linksys and other such solutions tend to be more for the home business, so they are not really competing with each other. Ubiquiti competes with them, but I haven't worked with Ubiquiti.

Its setup is very easy. A kid could do this stuff. It is cloud-based. There is one interface for all three devices. They are all tied together under a web console.

I configured it myself, and I am not a real techie guy.

You need one person for its maintenance. I pretty much do it all myself.

They can get the price down for small businesses. The way I bought it, I paid hardly anything, and I got all my licensing with it.

The firewall appliance is around $900, and the switches are around $150. This is for the device itself. For licensing, I signed at $70 or something like that for the switch. Technical Support is included in this.

I wouldn't try and manage any piece of Cisco equipment by itself. You wouldn't want to just buy a Meraki Switch. You wouldn't be able to access it the same way as your firewall. It is only when you start off with an MS cloud appliance, you can add on the Meraki stuff.

I would rate Meraki MS Switches a nine out of ten. They are a good rig.

The general use case is just as a unified platform for APs and switches. In our particular case, we brought on a client that had firewalls, access points, and had a need for switches to all run on one platform.

Where they are in the market and the market segment with their cloud management is an impressive aspect of the solution that originally lead ut to the solution. The maturity with their cloud management is really great.

The technical support is quite good.

The initial setup is straightforward.

In terms of the switches, generally, we have some stability problems. There are general stability issues with them. It's been inconsistent for a couple of years. It's not really based on any firmware. 

Switches that are in production and running will stop responding. And so we have to reboot the switches.

We've been using the solution for six years at this point.

The stability of the solution isn't ideal. We've had a lot of problems with the switches. They are unstable and unreliable. We need to reboot them often.

I haven't seen any issues with scalability. Our environment is relatively small, about 20-25 offices, and therefore we haven't tried to expand the solution.

The support of the solution has always been very good. They're very knowledgable and responsive. We're satisfied with their level of attention.

The initial setup is not complex. It's straightforward.

We are a Cisco partner. Our previous solutions were all Cisco-based, however, we were just using the traditional Cisco 2900 Series Switches. We still have a lot of those in production.

As far as switches go, it's a good product. As long as it makes a good fit for the customer, the only advice is to not let the maturity of the product dictate the need to implement.

There are a lot of solutions out there now that are a little bit cheaper, and that might meet a company's desired price point. Many other products also provide the same level of functionality. Don't just buy it because of the name.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten overall.

We use Meraki MS Switches to provide network security. We have around 900 users.

I've been using Meraki MS Switches for five years.

Meraki switches are stable. 

Meraki switches are easy to scale. 

We haven't had any major issues, but we've gotten general support from them.

Setting up a Meraki switch is fairly simple. It can be done by one manager and a senior engineer developer. 

We did it in-house.

The licensing cost isn't too expensive. 

I rate Meraki MS switches nine out of 10. I would absolutely recommend it to other people.

The solution is used for different office locations. The client wanted to have central control from their headquarters on wireless across a number of users, traffic, NMS. It was more of a network and switching type of deployment. They have some applications which they want to track, including how much traffic is going to the user and uptime of devices. For that, they wanted more central management.

We like that it can work on a cloud basis. It gives the customer a choice to be operated from a central location and it can be controlled from there. Our customers mostly opted for having a centralized approach.

It's a proactive approach to networking for IT infrastructure. It will bring better uptime and availability to the network.

The initial setup is easy.

They need more variety in terms of models to satisfy different customer requirements. There are very limited models right now. The range of models could expand.  

They need to work on prioritizing different types of data on the network, whether it's voice, data, video, et cetera. Video needs to be prioritized in a much better way, for example.

If there are certain search protocols added to these switches that make for better network trafficking, that would be ideal.

The lack of availability of hardware is causing issues and bottlenecks. 

We'd like interoperability to continue to be improved. 

We've been dealing with the solution for two years.

The stability is okay. 

I understand Cisco has far more stable products. For example, Cisco Catalyst. That is more stable as compared to Cisco Meraki.

I'd rate the stability four out of five overall. 

The scalability is fine. It's not an issue for us. Cisco is always working on scalability.

I'd rate it four out of five in terms of scalability. This is a new product that is still being refined. However, as they are working on the cloud, it's only going to get better. 

We have around 250 to 300 users based on the switches we've deployed. It's in an international organization with many departments and many levels of people working on it. 

Technical support is good. It is good only for certain areas. Their support needs to be improved to level it out for everyone. Even a premier customer may not get answers within the next business day.

We use Cisco Meraki Switches and Cisco Meraki Wireless.

Cisco has a big problem right now. Their availability of hardware is delayed due to high demand. A lot of system integrators and companies are opting for different hardware providers as they understand that deploying Cisco will take a long time. Cisco needs to work on faster deployment. The manufacturing side needs to speed up deploying hardware to meet demand or they will lose market share.

That said, once you have the hardware, the initial setup is not hard at all. 

We have two to three engineers that can help set up the solution. It depends on the kind of project. For example, if there are four or five switches, so it doesn't take more than two days to settle that. IN that case, maybe we need to have two different engineers: one physically installing the hardware switching and doing the basic configuration and then maybe an L2 engineer who configures things on the cloud and brings different switches alive. We have certified Cisco people. We don't get any problems in terms of deployment. We can also easily handle maintenance tasks. 

I'd rate ROI a three out of five as it is costly. The ROI is not very fast. No doubt they are getting ROI with the cloud-based approach. That said, not everything is on the cloud as of now. The transition is happening very slowly. Some departments and customers are partly on the cloud, not fully. If they're deploying anything like Meraki, they're not getting fast ROI as they're not fully on the cloud. They're not fully utilizing the benefits.

The cost is on the higher side if we are comparing it with Catalyst. It's approximately double the cost. Cisco needs to work on licensing if they want the system to be deployed more. They can have the same set of licensing: standard, premium. Premium customers who don't have any budget issues can buy premium license-based hardware. However, if there are customers who want to deploy good hardware like Cisco yet have budget constraints, they should offer a more affordable tier. 

I'd rate it a three out of five in terms of affordability.

We're resellers. We've been dealing with the 300 and 390 series. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

We use it for network connectivity in our organization. We use it across all of our locations.

It is cloud-based. So, the software is updated to the latest firmware on a regular basis by Cisco. We have a private cloud.

I like the support, and basically, that's why I'm using Meraki by Cisco.

I've had some hardware failure issues on the POE side on several switches across the years. There seems to be a problem with the POE ports of their unit system.

I have been using this solution for probably seven or eight years.

They're pretty good. I would give them a 10 out of 10.

If you're looking for cloud switches, I would definitely recommend including them in your evaluation because they're really good. 

I would rate Meraki MS Switches a nine out of 10.