Meraki MS Switches Reviews

We provide Meraki Switches to schools, universities, and hospitals.

We find value in its ability to enable cloud management and visibility. They are also easy to deploy. It's very convenient because you can see who is accessing, what type of UI system they're using, what applications they're using, the bandwidth, and more. Management is also easy as you can access and manage the switches from anywhere. As it's managed on the cloud, we can support customers remotely if there's a problem.

Their subscription model could be better. Some of our customers prefer a one-time payment to a monthly or yearly subscription model, so they don't buy the product. Technical support could also be better.

We have been dealing with Meraki MS Switches for about four years.

It's a stable product.

Meraki MS Switches are scalable. 

Technical support could be better. Some support agents aren't adequately qualified to support us. Their technical skill needs to improve.

Meraki Switches have some advantages compared to others. For example, visibility, management, and auto device detection. 

The initial setup is simple. 

We provide installation and implementation services. Most of our customers use the warranty for maintenance.

It would be better if they had a one-time purchase option instead of a subscription model.

It's more suitable for medium-sized companies.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Meraki MS Switches a nine.

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.

All of our endpoints are connected to our servers via the Meraki switches. Every user goes through them and it mirrors a cloud portal that allows you to administer it.

It hasn't really improved the way our organization functions. It's very similar to any other switch that I've used, although it is easier to manage than other switches.

The licensing model needs to be improved. The way they license their products, I'd rather just pay for a device by the device, and not have to pay annual subscription fees.

We have been using Meraki MS Switches for about two years.

This product is very stable.

This is a scalable solution and everybody in the organization uses these switches. This includes the president and CEO, the business development underwriters, and everybody else. In total, there are about 75 users.

I have not used their technical support.

Prior to Meraki, I used HP switches. I changed because they were too old and it was time to replace them. They were at the end of the normal lifecycle and Meraki had some great reviews, so I figured that I'd try them out.

The initial setup is straightforward.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to do your research to make sure that it's exactly what you need. These are powerful switches and they can do a lot. They probably do more than most people might need so just make sure that it's the right switch for you.

To me, this is a product that meets all of the needs that anyone could possibly have for a networking device. I mentioned the issue with the licensing, although all of the manufacturers are now going with that licensing model. I think that I have that problem with anybody, at this point.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We are using the MS425 series. We like the ease of use, ease of administration, and central dashboard. Meraki also has fantastic documentation and community.

With its central dashboard, we can deploy a generic configuration across hundreds of switches, rather than doing it in the old school way where an individual or a group of engineers would log onto each device via CLI, which takes a long time. So, everything is connected.

It can have better security. It needs more security enhancements, and in particular, a zero-trust element. If we could have external and internal users vetted in the same way as a zero-trust network, that will be handy.

I have been using this solution for the last nine months.

It is probably not as scalable as Cisco Catalyst 9000 Series, which includes the 9200s, 9300s, and 9500s. Its security requirements aren't as strong as the Cisco DNA portfolio. 

Globally, we have about 3,000 users. We're on a five-year subscription. As and when the business requires more, we will increase its usage. We will no doubt adopt the same solution because that's our LAN standard now. It is the global standard.

We didn't need their support, but I do know that for any questions, they're normally very helpful. There are lots of configuration guidelines and best practice documentation. Meraki has fantastic documentation and community.

I'm currently trying out Cisco 9000 Series Catalyst Switches because this particular customer was stung by a ransomware attack. So, they're looking to lock down every single portion of the network, and they want everything to fall under the banner of a zero-trust network with lots of security tools, agents, and hosts.

It is very easy to install. You probably could get away with zero-touch provisioning or plug-and-play. All the profiles are pre-configured on the central dashboard, and then a non-technical person could be on-site and plug everything in based on how you've drawn things out in a topology drawing. After that, you just take the reins and just check, and that's it.

A lot of customers deploy it during LAN refresh. When Meraki came out, they were the best cloud-based access point. Everything was centrally managed through the central dashboard. It was a cloud-based wireless LAN controller. Then they started to infiltrate into the LAN switching arena. So basically, everyone wants a single pane to administer their network, and that's what you can get with Meraki. It is a single pane incorporating everything from switches to access points to even routers, which are MX SD-WAN.

I would recommend this solution if security is not paramount. If you're a secure industry or a technology company where you want a bit more security, it is probably not suitable for you. It is suitable if you're in retail or manufacturing where security isn't paramount.

I would rate Meraki MS Switches an eight out of ten because they're really easy to configure.

• All the switches managed from one dashboard, forget about CLI
• One-click changing VLAN
• Aggregate ports, I can easy see what is connect to each port on the switch,
• I can see how the bandwidth is used
• Automatic firmware upgrade
• Adding new switch takes less than 10 minutes

We have about 20 switches across five offices in USA, Europe and India, and we can all manage all of them from one dashboard. No more spending time on the firmware upgrade, it is automatic, and the switches just work!

• Management
• Maintenance
• Support

I've used it for two years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Unfortunately, they don't have an upgrade path, so if you need higher model, you need to buy a new one.

10/10.

10/10.

• Dell
• Cisco
• Arista

It is very easy, just add the switch to your dashboard network and you ready to go. And you don't need to be a network expert to do it.

We did it in-house.

• Arista
• Juniper

I hope they will have an upgrade path soon. For example, we bought a switch, and after two months we needed to upgrade it to the model with 10GB ports. Unfortunately Meraki said that we can upgrade because it is over 30 days, but we needed buy new switch.

The most valuable features are ease of use and configuration. It has a cloud-based configuration that makes it easy.

They've added some improvements to firmware update scheduling where you can stagger the updates, which is the biggest advantage. Prior to that, you could not stagger updates when you have data center switches or stacks, which was difficult. They've now added some improvements for more update processes to stagger devices, which has greatly improved my happiness. It is in beta right now.

They tend to have some weird issues with fiber uplinks.

I have been using these switches for six years. We have the latest version.

They are stable. The only issues I've encountered are with fiber uplinks.

I don't have any scalability issues, but there are certain things for which I probably wouldn't use it, such as storage area, networking, etc. For local LAN, it shouldn't have any scalability issues.

It's usually pretty good. It tends to lack when we run into some bug issues. They take time.

It was straightforward. For maintenance, one to two people are enough for about 200 users.

It depends on what type of equipment you have and other things. We're about $17,000 a year.

I would rate these switches an eight out of ten.

The main thing that we try to take advantage of is the web console. The administration console that is on the cloud is great. That allows the customer to take full advantage of metrics, configuration, and control of the device.

Overall, the switches are really good.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I would like to know if Meraki is going to offer IP phones again. 

The lead times can be long in terms of actually getting the hardware. 

I do work with the Cisco distributor, the main distributor here in Bolivia. I am in charge of developing projects for the customers. I've been dealing with Meraki for five years now.

Most customer networks are small networks. In Bolivia, we don't have very big companies or corporate networks. Most clients have between 100 and 300 users or endpoints and no more than that.

I haven't needed technical support so far. All I've used so far is device replacement when something fails. In terms of Meraki support, so far, I'm not very well involved with that. Most of the time, we have been dealing with any configurations by ourselves.

I do work with various Cisco devices. 

I do work with the whole set of switches, sometimes related to the corporate or enterprise networks. Sometimes I do work for the service provider, however, most of the time, I handle the Catalyst Series switches with enterprises.

It's really straightforward to set up and very easy to get the device up and on the network. It's a really easy process.

Most of the time, we deal with annual licenses. Typically, there's just the standard fee, although some organizations use the enterprise option. 

We are a Cisco partner. 

I'd rate the solution at nine out of ten.

My advice to new users is related to all hardware provisioning and that is to be patient. There's often a delay from the factory when releasing the devices for the customer. Sometimes the lead times are extensive, and sometimes people here don't want to keep moving with the project when it takes too long to get the device. I know that that's not a factory problem; it's a general problem with all electronic devices.

We primarily use the solution for switches for our clients.

The cloud management on the solution is very good.

The Wi-Fi 6 for access points is excellent.

The performance is pretty good.

We've found the initial setup very simple.

The stability of the solution is quite good.

The scalability potential of the solution is great.

Clients are very confused by technical support. They seem to have trouble reaching Meraki to get the assistance they need.

I'd prefer if they'd go for Layer 3 features. We do not have access to these yet. Aruba, for example, offers full Layer 3 features.

I've been using the solution for about a year at this point. It hasn't been too long just yet.

The solution is very stable. The performance is reliable. It doesn't have any bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash and freeze.

The scalability of the solution is rather good. If a company needs to scale, it can do so with ease.

We typically work with small and medium enterprises.

There isn't a convenient first-hand way to communicate with technical support right now. The tech support is mainly through Cisco - which is very quick typically. However, with Meraki, which is separate from Cisco, customers can only directly contact support through dashboard licenses and they can't open a case with Meraki effectively. They don't know how to reach the right people, and so they come to us, the distributors, to get answers. We need to advise them to go directly to Meraki technical support as we are not in a position to help them, and they tell us they can't, that Meraki is not available. 

Meraki needs to make their technical support policies and processes very clear and to communicate this to their clients so that their clients know how to reach out when there are issues. It shouldn't fall to us.

We did not previously work with other solutions, although we are looking at a few options now. We're considering something in two months or so.

The initial setup is not complex. It's very simple and easy to set up. It's straightforward.

The deployment and management are very easy.

The solution's pricing can be high on Cisco. There are options, such as Avaya, that can be a bit lower. The pricing of this solution isn't too bad.

We are a Cisco partner.

We primarily use the solution in our client companies. We don't use the solution ourselves.

I'd recommend this solution to smaller companies and enterprises. For larger-scale organizations, such as campuses, Cisco Catalyst may be better.

Overall, I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.