We performed a comparison between Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN and Cisco Wireless based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: While Cisco users across the board feel that both products are very expensive and provide very good customer service and support, users reported a better ROI from Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.
"The artificial intelligence feature is very good."
"The simplicity is great."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution is pretty generic and easy to use."
"In terms of reporting, in terms of all the user reports, it's very rich."
"With Mist, every Wednesday they roll out new features."
"It provides private network access, helping us protect our company’s devices."
"The AI capabilities of Mist Wireless are superior to other OEMs."
"We're able to automate as well as manually control as necessary."
"The automatic VMware update is very useful because you don't have to worry about outages and planning for VMware updates. It is very advantageous from a management point of view. The ability to restrict and review the clients connected to each of our segments. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
"For Meraki, the ease of deployment and management is most valuable."
"With Cisco products and third-party products, integration of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is good."
"The interface is excellent. We've been really happy with it."
"The functionalities are quite professional and complete. It offers good integration with other Meraki products, like switches and the firewall. You can get an overview of all networks and the host. It's really great; nobody else can do that."
"Meraki WLAN is easy to deploy, includes a cloud controller, and updates continuously. It also offers high visibility."
"What I liked about these is that they worked. I didn't touch them or do anything with them. They were up and running when I came here. Once they are set up and running, you don't have to worry about them."
"Cisco Wireless is quite convenient for mobile and laptop access."
"It helps with the visibility on our network."
"I find this solution easy to configure and use."
"Cisco Wireless is highly stable."
"You need to learn the technology but after that the setup is easy."
"Cisco Wireless is one of the more stable products so their products are scalable."
"The ability to disable RRM or set hybrid RRM provides a more granular design of RF in the environment."
"It's very easy to configure the access points."
"The solution is expensive."
"Juniper Wireless AP can improve by continually improving its reporting and integration with other systems."
"Improvement is needed in the user-friendliness of Juniper Mist, particularly in enhancing the interaction with AI features."
"The price could be better."
"I need a bit more time with it before criticizing the features."
"They should include SD-WAN features to it."
"The pricing should be made cheaper."
"It would be helpful to have even stronger security features to help protect against interference from other nearby access points that aren't part of our network."
"The issue primarily revolves around failure to renew the license on time, leading to service termination."
"It would be better if they enable full integration with Cisco's cloud-based network in the next release."
"When we are using SSID roaming, it is not flexible in terms of which AP it connects to."
"The signal coverage radius could be extended."
"Quality of technical support varies."
"If there are advanced features that you can have enabled, they should allow users access to that in an easier manner."
"The initial setup could be made easier."
"Currently, with Meraki, a controller is required to direct guest and user traffic to the internet. Improvement is needed in the portal for enhanced visibility into activities. Additionally, addressing multiple bugs, especially those arising with new releases, is crucial to ensure system stability."
"The main problem that traditional solutions like this one have is that you need to buy packages to deliver a similar solution as a Meraki one."
"The main concern is the length and overlapping. We have to put on four to six access points on the same floor, and we face the issue of overlapping areas. If Cisco can extend the range of their indoor APs, we would need to install just one or two access points, and it would eliminate the problem of the overlapping area."
"For all products on the market, the availability of the products may not be ideal. We're waiting on a lot of products simply due to the fact that there's a material shortage. We've ordered products and have had to wait three or four months for anything to get delivered. This is not just Cisco. It's a problem on the market for all components which include semiconductors."
"The installation is not too difficult but the solution could improve by making the configuration easier."
"It's end-of-life, it will be end-of-support in the next two years. The APs are also end-of-life."
"An expensive solution that small companies cannot afford."
"The solution is stable but it could be improved. However, this could be because there are not enough APs."
"The bind configuration between a physical port and an IP address is missing."
More Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is ranked 4th in Wireless LAN with 115 reviews while Cisco Wireless is ranked 2nd in Wireless LAN with 146 reviews. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is rated 8.2, while Cisco Wireless is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN writes "Offers good mobility, stability and scalability ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Wireless writes "Allows us to deploy a wide range of wireless products with stable WiFi". Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is most compared with Aruba Wireless, Ruckus Wireless, Ubiquiti Wireless, Mist AI and Cloud and Huawei Wireless, whereas Cisco Wireless is most compared with Aruba Wireless, Ruckus Wireless, Ubiquiti WLAN, Mist AI and Cloud and Omada Access Points. See our Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. Cisco Wireless report.
See our list of best Wireless LAN vendors.
We monitor all Wireless LAN reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
Cisco Wireless is very robust, very rugged, and can handle indoor and outdoor coverage extremely well. We found it to be very reliable and to consistently run very efficiently. Cisco Wireless helped us get more network access to more people wirelessly across some very large spaces.
It is expensive, though. The Cisco Wireless portal, like many Cisco products, can be very complex. The flexibility of the controllers needs fixing and Cisco Wireless requires a bit of tweaking to get the stability right. We would also like to see the reporting improved - this would help make troubleshooting easier.
Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is very user-friendly. You don’t have to be a wireless engineer to set it up. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is cloud-based, which is very convenient as you don’t have to have a physical controller, saving valuable space, power, and redundancy. This solution offers advanced configurations that are a great fit for small to medium-sized businesses that can’t employ an advanced tech team. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is high-performance, stable, scalable, and very easy to deploy, and offers a dashboard that makes managing the solution very easy.
Some of the built-in capabilities and filtering with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN needs to be made easier to use. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN needs to better identify devices, and the TAC reading and interpretation capabilities are not always accurate. There are also some processing limitations when you have multiple SSIDs.
Conclusion
As these are both Cisco products, they offer brand recognition you can trust, great quality, and good durability.
We found that Cisco Wireless offered slightly better access points and improved coverage, allowing the creation of better networks. Cisco Wireless takes a one-time payment for the hardware, and then annual payments. If you employ Cisco’s knowledgeable team members, this will be a good fit for you.
The huge selling point for Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is its ease of use. You don’t need to have a lot of knowledge to deploy or manage processes, which makes this a great product for smaller businesses with a less tech-savvy team.
The standard answer to such a question is: it depends.
The pricing for both solutions is very similar: per-AP, Meraki is more expensive than Cisco Wireless. Cisco APs are cheaper, but the controller raises the solution price to be almost equal to Meraki.
Meraki is subscription-based and requires constant internet access to manage the system. If the annual license expires, the APs will work, but you can't manage them or read reports of the Meraki portal.
Cisco Wireless is a one-time payment for the hardware with annual support payments. if you have a small office with only a few APs needed, you can use the Cisco Mobility Express Controller (which uses one of the APs or a Catalyst Switch as the controller) but that has a limit of 100 APs.