Ruckus Wireless Reviews

We started rolling out Ruckus access points about eight years ago, but it was a very small deployment. We only had about 15 or 20 devices, and later on, we did a bond measure upgrade to basically go and expand that to having one per classroom and a few in the common areas such as cafeteria, gyms, and stuff like that. The idea was that we were going to put on-premises one-to-one, which is like putting a Chrome cart of 35 devices in each classroom. We wanted to be able to have the ability to have high-density wireless in the school district and up to possibly 80 devices per room because we were thinking of BYOD and devices that we already have. Generally, it was to be used for just normal day-to-day access to the network and internet.

We now have about 350 WAPs. Half of them have been installed over three years, and the other half are probably installed just under three years. We did a switch refresh in 2015, and we went with Brocade to replace our aging Cisco equipment, which was probably 20 years old. So, that's what we have right now. 

We are basically using the latest version of SmartZone. We are up to date on that. Unfortunately, about 98 of our wireless access points are now considered end-of-service. They don't support the newer boot code, so we had to create a separate zone. They are on a kind of legacy firmware that is probably about five or six versions back. Our other zone has the latest AP firmware. They basically have separate firmware. They are basically doing a firmware for the controller and then a firmware for the APs. You could even elect to have different firmwares per AP.

The APs themselves have been pretty solid. We haven't had too many of them go bad or anything like that. The wireless performance seems pretty good.

The ability to provision the devices is pretty good, and the back end is also pretty good.

Their support has been lacking a little bit and needs to be improved. I have had a ticket open for a month, and it is really hard to get a resolution out of them.

They haven't really come out with anything that is much of an improvement in a long time. It has mostly just been fixes and things like that. We used to have a ZoneDirector or a physical controller for the wireless network, and that was kind of end of life. It was very old, and at the time, we were expanding the wireless network, and we didn't want to rely on one piece of hardware that was pretty old. So, we went to SmartZone Cluster, which has two VMs in a cluster. Unfortunately, we lost the feature ability for guest networks and other things that we were using before, and Ruckus just kind of told us that they weren't supporting that feature in the newer product, which is not really great. I was told initially that SmartZone was an upgrade to ZoneDirector. It is the logical thing to think that it is going to have all the same features, but it didn't. 

The issue that we have right now is onboarding BYOD devices. It is not really great for us, and we're looking for a new product to make that easier. We did have Cloudpath, which was a product that Ruckus purchased from another company that was an onboarding solution, but it just didn't really work very well for us. So, we discontinued using it, and it actually created more confusion for people. They should make BYOD or guest network portals a lot easier and better.

In some areas, we have been having issues because there are just so many WAPs that are so close that we had to manually turn down the radio of power because the automatic feature of the AP wasn't really doing it right. It should also have a little bit better RF analysis capability to be able to see on the controller side. The front end for our staff, students, and guests has also not been quite as good as we had hoped.

I have been using this solution for about eight years.

It has been pretty reliable. I have not had any issues recently. A couple of times, we had some issues while upgrading the path to the latest version of the controller software, for which it took a long time to get a resolution, but otherwise, the system works pretty well.

It is scalable. It seemed pretty easy to scale. We went from having 25 to 350 devices, and it wasn't too difficult. The hardest part is just getting them in the physical location.

In terms of the number of users, it could potentially be up to 4,000 people. When we had full normal school going on, we were seeing somewhere around 1,900 clients a day on average.

One of the deficiencies that they have right now is their support. A lot of times I've opened a ticket with them, and I have this back and forth communication going on. I have had a ticket open for a month, and it is really hard to get a resolution out of them. I would rate them a five out of ten.

Before they had the mergers, their support used to be really good. They have been really good in the beginning, but the company suffered a little bit from being bought out a couple of times. Brocade bought Ruckus, and then ERIS bought them. They then got bought by Broadcom, who sold off half of Brocade's business and then spun the campus switch over to Ruckus Networks. After that, they got bought by CommScope. So, the support has been lacking a little bit.

In terms of an enterprise solution, this is the only solution that we have been using. Before that, we had some kind of APs that weren't really controller-based.

It was pretty straightforward. Once we had it kind of configured and dialed out, it was pretty easy. Obviously, different buildings, devices, and things can be complex. There is no blanket setting that works for all places. 

On campuses where we have buildings more spread out, it works better. When we have one site that is basically a whole giant building, the WiFi is a little too dense there, and we had to manually change some settings for that.

As far as adding an AP is concerned, it is pretty easy. You plug it in, and it contacts the SmartZone controller and downloads the firmware. After that, it shows up as a new available AP. You just put whatever WLAN or zone that you want it to be in.

It is decently priced.

I would advise others to make sure that they do a good demo and the feature set meets what they want.

I would rate Ruckus Wireless an eight out of ten.

Ruckus Wireless is used in high-density environments, such as theaters, meeting rooms, and city centers where there is a lot of interference from other wireless networks.

One of the biggest features of Ruckus Wireless is its BeamFlex+ technology.

It's a potential technology only available through Ruckus wireless access points. This technology permits to follow each user during its Wi-Fi experience, which is awesome.

The pricing is the biggest issue with Ruckus wireless. It's so expensive, but Ruckus are just the best. 

So, from my point of view, portal features are something missing in Ruckus Wireless. I want to see Ruckus Wireless integrate a Wi-Fi portal into its product. This would allow for easier user authentication for vendors.

We are a vendor or reseller of Ruckus Wireless, and we deploy it across different customers.

I have been working with Ruckus Wireless for 15 years. I deal with the latest version of Ruckus Wireless.

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

We have more than 100 customers currently using Ruckus Wireless in our business area. So, I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. 

It is a very scalable product. 

The customer service and support ask too much. The product on it says it's already really expensive. And if you want premium support, then it's, again, more money, and then it becomes really too hard.

Neutral

I worked with Ubiquiti and Aruba. We have replaced Ubiquiti with TP-Link. So if we need a cheap solution, then we'll go rather to TP-Link than to Ubiquiti.

There are no difficulties with installing Ruckus Wireless. However, you have to be certified to install Ruckus wireless equipment. 

So, today, there's a key version of Ruckus wireless, which is called the unleashed version, where you have no controller, but you miss lots of features when you do that, so we never use it.

Ruckus Wireless is both an on-premises and cloud-based solution. The antennas are always on-premises, but the management can be done in the cloud.

The time it takes to deploy Ruckus Wireless depends on the complexity of the infrastructure. For a small deployment, it can take about 30 minutes per device.

But it surely depends on the complexities and experience of the person. When you use the cloud controller, it's really a job for an expert, not for the novices.

I'm a technician with extensive experience in Ruckus Wireless. Our implementation strategy for Ruckus Wireless is the same as for any other product. 

There is an ROI because it's really set up and forget. It just does its job. It saves a lot of time. It is a reliable solution. 

There are extra expenses in addition to standard licensing.

I would recommend using this solution for professional use. And if it's just like amateurs, people who don't have experience with it, so they might face some difficulties.

That's a question of connection density. So if you want to deliver Wi-Fi to more than a hundred people in a small room, then you do it with Ruckus, or you don't.

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

The mesh technology is the solution's most valuable aspect. Ruckus originally had the patent for it. They might've lost it because I see now that other people are doing it, however, they were the ones who came out with the smart mesh technology first, which is phenomenal.

Ruckus is superior when it comes to indoor and some outdoor wireless. I use it for some arenas. The T750 outdoor access point is fantastic. The bridges to get to the access points are great. 

Ruckus offers a technology that works with frequencies, which is excellent. That means if there are other access points or other wireless interference in the area, Ruckus has enough frequency band to change frequencies automatically. So they're never being interrupted.

Another excellent feature Ruckus offer is, if you have access points or other items in your organization, in, say New York City, and your network doesn' want interference, they can cancel out other access points around there. Especially in a place like New York city, you're picking up stuff from other buildings. With Ruckus, you could block those access points and those signals to make your network the only one that people can see within that network. To this day, I haven't had this experience on Mist or Aruba. You can also whitelist certain networks. It's an excellent amount of control that's provided to you as a client.

The physical device itself is lacking. They're made with plastic and seem a little cheap in construction, especially when compared to other manufacturers and providers.

The company itself has had its time in the sun and may be past peak after so many mergers and acquisitions. They were originally a router and switch company. Then they were bought by one of their distributors. The company is floundering after so many changes to the organization.

The product is great, but the problem is there are other players in the market now. In 2004 when they were founded, they had the market and they were the big name for wireless within an enterprise. The company was also expanding out between buildings and everything. Then all of a sudden, after 2017, you don't really hear their name anymore. 

They have so many products that there are so many different part numbers for the US and other countries. That means it's easy to make a mistake with the licensing. You have to have somebody knowledgeable on the other end with the licensing. If you make one mistake, it can be a $2,000 mistake.

I'd like to see them do some licensed frequency stuff on the 365 gigahertz band, more for service providers, and then on an enterprise level.

I'd like to see them do something with LTE.

I've been using the solution since about 2015 or maybe as early as 2014. It's been about five or six years.

The solution is quite stable, even in large networks. I've sold 50 access points and the client swears by them. They run the largest car dealership in the country. It's very, very reliable.

You can scale the solution as much as you want. There's never a problem with scalability. 

Ruckus used to have amazing support. It was impeccable. Before, when something broke, I had to go through these channels to get stuff resolved under warranty. I still sell their products to select customers that are stuck with them because they won't switch off due to the fact that they use the same management server. They can only use Ruckus access points or Ruckus management servers.

The last time I had to deal with them, I had to go through CommHub. I wasn't impressed with it. It may have been when they were going through an acquisition transition. Still, the level of technical support was awful. It's really dropped off. Their staff needs more training. 

What they need to do is not have technical support under CommHub, They need to keep Ruckus as a separate division for support.

I have knowledge of many different solutions, including Ubiquiti and Mist. I don't use Ubiquiti. However, Mist that does BLE technology and I don't believe Ruckus can do what they do. BLE technology is superb because you could track people with it using their cell. There's a ton of features available if you look at Mist. I sold probably about $300,000 or $400,000 worth of equipment from between 2005 and 2017. That's about $250,000 worth of equipment. Then, all these other players came into market. Ruckus was expensive, but you didn't need as many access points with Ruckus as you did with other access points because they were that good. With the wireless, more doesn't mean better.

I have an extensive technical background with Ruckus, especially on an enterprise level. I was able to figure the implementation out easily. It was pretty simple. To set it up is easy, however, to work with it is more complex. It takes a while to understand all the features. 

Their pricing is expensive. That said, being a partner, their competitive upgrade pricing is phenomenal. 

I don't remember the exact pricing. When we bought it, we bought the warranties with them for three years. We got advanced replacement.

We've been using the latest version of the solution. We're resellers of Ruckus.

Typically, I would recommend the solution. However, their market share has really dropped off and their marketing is terrible from the logo to the name.

Their partner portal is great because you could register as a partner, and, because I'm a partner, I could register easily and use the backend and frontend for salesforce.com. I can log in and register deals with them. 

It looks like CommScope created their own technology with Ruckus technology and an LTE solution. Some sort of small cell. I would advise users to stay away from that because if they were better in the enterprise, they should stick to their wheelhouse and market that instead of going out into the small cell.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Ruckus Wireless is a robust solution, and I don't need to restart it often. It can work with high-density traffic, and its management system is also good. The solution claims to have a good direction technology for not interfering with other access points that don't belong to us. I'm not sure if that's true, but we don't have problems with that.

I do a reset of the access points from time to time because sometimes we have no access.

I have been using Ruckus Wireless for six years.

I do a reset of the access points from time to time. I'm not sure why I need to do it, but sometimes they complain we have no access, and it's solved after restarting.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

We have only 52 access points and can manage 100 access points in our system. Since I don't have much trouble with the solution, I only need to change the password occasionally. The tab sheet is always open, and I use it once a week.

I rate the solution ten out of ten for scalability.

Our system was totally down last week, and the support team helped me resolve the issue very quickly.

Positive

We simultaneously use a different solution called UniFi.

Ruckus Wireless is not an expensive solution.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten.

Ruckus Wireless meets the demands of high-density environments quite well, and I have no complaints about that.

We had Ruckus Wireless, and now we have added UniFi. We are a school, and we don't have that much money. We are now together with other schools, and they use UniFi. I replaced Ruckus access points in some buildings with UniFi solutions. In other buildings, I used Ruckus, which came free, to enlarge the Wi-Fi network in those buildings.

I would recommend Ruckus Wireless to other users because of its high density and stability.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We have two customers where we implemented on-premises solutions with Ruckus Wireless, making use of Ruckus Unleashed and access point models R510, R610, and R320. 

Our one customer is a small-medium business and they have 50 to 100 employees, and the most recent solution that we implemented was for a government client where we installed 17 access points.

In the years that we have worked with Ruckus, we have found it to be a very comfortable solution for both my own company and our customers. Ruckus enables us to give organizations better wireless access to their network, and can support many devices.

With Ruckus, alongside some Aruba products, we are able to more easily solve communication problems in the companies we work with.

For me, the most valuable features are good integration with the customer's existing network and the ease of deployment and configuration. Ruckus products are also easy to learn to manage and deploy for not only our own staff, but also for the IT workers in the customer's organization.

Ruckus products, overall, have a wide range of useful features, however not all customers have the budget to buy a corporate Wi-Fi solution. Most of the time, it's far too expensive for our clients to consider going with Ruckus, and they might like to see cheaper solutions in the Ruckus range.

I have been using Ruckus Wireless for five years now.

Ruckus products are very, very stable. We have clients that can go one or two years with no issues at all, and with other clients we tend to see only minor issues with the wireless network.

Up until 25 access points, things are very simple. When you get to more than 25 access points, you need a controller and it is sometimes an issue for clients because they generally don't want to spend more buying the controller. 

The support from Ruckus Wireless is acceptable. When we open a support case, they normally respond in a short amount of time.

The setup is easy. 

Our implementation process is very quick, and it normally takes only one or two days. It's especially quick to implement when we already have all the equipment and cabling ready to connect and configure on the customer's premises.

Not all of our clients can afford a fully corporate solution like Ruckus. But for many of our clients, pricing is the only factor that prevents them from choosing Ruckus, as we have found Ruckus to be a very suitable and reliable solution for integrating wireless access points to a company's network.

Normally, here in Medellín, Columbia where we work, the clients consider Ubiquiti or TP-Link first because they're cheaper. 

Ruckus incorporates the latest technology in their products and they are indeed very fast performance-wise.

I would rate Ruckus Wireless a nine out of ten.

We have Ruckus ZoneDirectors and WAPs in all of our facilities. We have one ZoneDirector 1200 and three ZoneDirector 3000s spread across our facilities geographically, all running the latest firmware (10.1.1.0 Build 26). The ZoneDirectors are controlling a total of 48 WAPs.

Dead zones were immediately eliminated when we deployed these WAPs in all of our locations, plus Ruckus’ analytics on the ZoneDirectors allow us to quickly identify clients that are taking too much bandwidth.

We are able to quickly identify Rogue WAPs in our network and move to disconnect them immediately when Ruckus alerts us.

We also had a plant where the fiber link between switches broke without warning a few months ago. The Ruckus WAPs immediately recognized the network outage and put themselves into bridge mode to bring the network back up over the WiFi link. It was so seamless we didn’t catch the fiber outage for almost 24 hours. 

It also enabled us to quickly roll out RADIUS authentication for our internal company network and eliminate shared WPA keys which all of our plants were using previously.

Ruckus WAPs have excellent coverage and their beamforming means that we can cover more area with fewer WAPs. 

At times of heavy network congestion, we can restrict the bandwidth available to clients either by SSID or at the client level, which helps cut down on our bandwidth costs.

Ruckus makes securing your wireless network as easy as a few clicks. For a basic installation, even someone without advanced IT skills could set up this system without assistance.

The only complaint I have about Ruckus is the price, but considering other enterprise WiFi products are similarly priced, I feel Ruckus is a superior product I don’t have much to complain about. The latest ZoneDirector firmware addressed all of the tiny issues I hated in older releases.

We have never had a WAP fail in the four years we’ve been using Ruckus in the enterprise; the reliability is top-notch.

I use Ruckus Wireless to provide it as a service in residential areas.

Mesh networking and antenna patterns are the most valuable features of the solution.

Wi-Fi 6E and the cloud are areas with shortcomings in the solution that need improvement.

The technical support from Ruckus should be made better and free.

I have been using Ruckus Wireless for twelve years. My company has a partnership with Ruckus Wireless.

Stability-wise, it is an absolutely fine product.

Though the solution is scalable, our company does not use the scalability options provided by the tool.

My company mostly caters to the needs of our clients, consisting of hundreds of people who mostly want the solution for their residential purposes.

The technical support from Ruckus is okay. I rate the technical support a six out of ten.

Neutral

I have experience with Aruba and Meraki. Ruckus Wireless is above average in price and performance, but it does a good job. Ruckus Wireless is expensive compared to other tools in the market. Considering the fact that there are more expensive products in the market, Ruckus Wireless is a robust product compared to the other cheap alternators in the market. Ruckus Wireless performs well at its price point but is expensive when considering its features.

The product's installation phase was easy.

The number of days required to install the product depends on how big of a deployment process is required for a particular infrastructure. It can take you weeks to complete the deployment of 1,000 access points, while a single access point can be deployed in around 10 minutes.

No one has deployed Ruckus Wireless on the cloud since it doesn't provide users with a robust or easy-to-use cloud solution.

Cost-wise, the product is priced above average, considering its competitors in the market.

Speaking about whether it was easy or difficult to maintain the solution, I would say that my experience was average.

I would tell those who plan to use the solution that it is not a voice move to deploy it now since you can't deploy Wi-Fi 6E currently.

Ruckus Wireless doesn't offer the latest protocols in all formats. For small deployments, you have to be on their enterprise platform, and if you're not deploying with the help of their enterprise platform, you can't deploy the latest generation of Wi-Fi, making it difficult for you to sell it. Ruckus Wireless is currently only good for maintenance purposes.

I rate the overall solution a three out of ten.

My organization is a college, so we just want to make sure we have a reliable Wi-Fi connection for the students.

We are using the latest version of Ruckus. It is deployed on-premise.

Right now, there are over 2,000 people using this solution.

We were in a bad shape, especially with remote teaching and things like that, so now everything's all right because of the reliability of Ruckus.

The most valuable feature is that this solution is reliable.

We use this solution in a certain way, and it works very well. So, I don't expect it to do a lot more, but to do what it's doing probably better or faster. But it's not a problem with the features; it's more the operations.

I've been using this solution for the past 12 months.

The stability is fine. We haven't had any problems.

We haven't had any issues with the scalability.

Technical support is good. I would rate it a 4 out of 5. There's still some improvement that could be made.

We have also used Cisco. We switched because of many reasons, but staying with Cisco would have cost us almost double the price. So, we had to change. It's not a question of reliability because Cisco is reliable also. It's more a question of something that's not for corporations and more for education in our case.

Initial setup was pretty straightforward. On a scale of 1 to 5, I would rate it a 4.

Deployment took a week. We require less than 5% of our staff for maintenance of this solution to be hassle-free.

We used an integrator for deployment.

I would rate their pricing 3 out of 5.

There is no annual licensing cost.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10. 

It's very good for our needs, but because it's a school, it maybe wouldn't be as good for a corporation or for other users. For our school, it's very reliable. We have peaks, but it's always well-managed. We don't have any problems.