Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Reviews

There are so many use cases. You can have multiple SSIDs and different LANs such as
guests, private, or hidden. There are so many options with it.

It is cloud-based, but the physical hardware is on-premises. We are using the Enterprise version.

It is cloud-based. It has a GUI rather than a command line, and it just works.

The biggest pain point is that they limit you through firewall throughput. I understand why they do it, but that really grates me. For instance, for 450 Mbps throughput, you're looking at £800 for a router, whereas if you look at the one gig connection, for some of us are lucky enough to have a gig connection, you could almost be spending £3,000 for the option to have one gig connectivity. That's one of the pain points I've got. I don't mind paying for throughput, but I should at least have the option to be able to update that throughput, maybe through extra licensing or something else. It is crazy expensive to jump through to the next one.

I have been using this solution for a good couple of years.

It is perfect in terms of stability.

It is perfect in terms of scalability. I've got one system here in the UAE and one in London, and I haven't even touched the one in London, and I can do it all from here.

Their support is perfect. They're there 24/7, 365 days a year. Whether you email or phone in, there is always someone there to help you.

Its initial setup is straightforward.

Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It can be for three, five, or ten years.

I'm happy with the pricing. You basically pay for what you get. It is that simple. When you look at Ubiquiti or Aruba, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN far outweighs what you get. If you're in the UK, Ubiquiti gives a three-year or five-year warranty, whereas here in the UAE, they only give a one-year warranty, which is no good to me. Who buys a piece of equipment with only one year warranty on it? It doesn't make sense.

I would recommend this solution, but there are limitations with some of these devices. The main issue that I have is related to the throughput. You can get any router that will do a gig connection, but you don't get the other features.

I would rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN an eight out of ten.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN facilitates daily operations by providing reliable connectivity for devices like PCs and machinery. It allows customers to access the Internet and essential applications without needing Ethernet cables.

The platform's most valuable feature is the ability to detect network issues through a dashboard.

The product's interface should be user-friendly. The integration options with third-party applications need enhancement.

I have worked with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for the past 2 years.

The product is super stable. I would rate the stability a ten.

We work with many customers using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, with deployments ranging from small offices to large enterprises. It is sometimes deployed in principal offices, catering to a user base of 15 to 20 individuals. Additionally, there are instances where larger-scale deployments are undertaken, accommodating up to a hundred users.

I rate the platform's scalability an eight out of ten.

Whenever we raise the ticket, we receive prompt assistance from the technical support team.

Positive

The product operates on its cloud platform, but some customers use AWS for certain functionalities. Deployment time varies depending on the scale of the project. It involves setting up wireless access points, configuring IP addresses, and connecting them to the network. Additional configurations are then pushed through the dashboard. It takes approximately a day to complete.

I would rate the initial setup process a ten out of ten.

I would rate the pricing of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN as a five. It could be more affordable than other solutions like Aruba.

Customers appreciate the ease of network management provided by Cisco Meraki's centralized dashboard, simplifying operations.

The cloud-based management has made a significant difference in the IT environment of our customers. It enables seamless access and connection to the dashboard, allowing them to troubleshoot network issues promptly. Customers no longer need to connect to the on-premises infrastructure or use specialized tools; instead, they can easily access and manage their network via the dashboard of any device with an internet connection.

It offers built-in security features like firewalls. We have purchased additional licenses for features such as SD-WAN technology.

Before installing it, the users should consider space requirements, network topology, and compatibility with existing IT infrastructure.

I would rate it a nine.

We primarily use the solution for wireless connectivity for our wireless network.

The connectivity is very good. 

It's a robust, stable solution. We haven't had any issues at all.

The graphic user interface is very nice. It makes using it very easy.

The product is simple to manage. 

It is not too expensive. 

The setup is easy.

It is stable.

The solution can scale. 

I don't really need any changes to be made. 

It may be expensive for smaller setups.

We'd like to have better mapping to showcase low-coverage areas. 

This is a recent installation. We did this installation towards the end of last year. We've used it for less than one year.

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. I'd rate the stability ten out of ten. 

The solution can scale. That said, I've never reached the limit of our deployment. We haven't tested the scalability too much. 

We have about 100 users in our office.

We do not have plans to increase usage. We may decrease the number. 

We've never contacted technical support. 

We previously upgraded from Cisco's 2500 series. 

The initial setup is straightforward. However, it is a global configuration and handled by another unit. I did not set it up myself. We got it out of the box and just needed to put it up. My understanding is that it would be relatively easy to set up. 

While it is on-premises, it does have some cloud reporting features. 

We received the solution partially configured. Therefore, I cannot speak of the setup process from end to end. 

We have four members in IT in our office and are supported by a bigger team at our company's headquarters. 

The cost isn't too high for an enterprise setup. 

We pay a license for three years for support and maintenance. 

While I would recommend ht eh solution to others, it does depend on the environment and usage. If it is a small setup, there are other options that are less expensive. Meraki works well in an enterprise environment. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

The product's cloud controller is easy to use. 

The product's features for network analysis need improvement. It lags a bit in providing reports for Wi-Fi performance. Additionally, they should offer a higher-end firewall.

We have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for more than seven years.

I rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN's stability a seven out of ten.

We have 800 Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN users in our organization. I rate its scalability an eight out of ten.

We have used Cisco Aironet and Ruckus products before. Later, we switched to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN as we wanted more control of remote office administration. We are a small company that administers switches, configuration, and backup remotely. In comparison, the traditional Cisco switches need upgrading firmware.

I rate the initial setup process an eight out of ten. It takes 30 minutes to configure it and around two hours to complete the installation. We connect the switch to the LAN, which is already connected to the Internet. Once the device is seen on the Meraki portal, we configure it from there.

The product generates a return on investment for us.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is expensive. I rate its pricing an eight out of ten.

I rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a seven out of ten. I advise others to configure the product and then utilize the plug-and-play functionality.

It has limitations for pricing and supply of material. It takes around four months to be delivered. It is very time-consuming.

It is primarily used for wireless access, both indoors throughout the plant and outdoors.

One of the most convenient aspects of having access to the dashboard is the ability to work on access points from any location. This eliminates the need for a wireless controller, as all connections are made through the dashboard. This is the best feature of using this system.

The most valuable aspect of this solution is the single pane of glass management and reliability.

It has been very reliable.

The licensing could be improved.

Licensing is, in my opinion, the least appealing component. It can be difficult to keep licenses up to date in order for the system to function properly.

I have been working with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for more than five years.

We use MR74.

I would rate the stability of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a nine out of ten.

We rarely have any issues with them.

We only have two and didn't have any issues. 

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten.

There are no plans to expand our usage, and instead, we will opt for a single-vendor approach by replacing them with Fortinet.

Technical support is fine, but I would rate them a six out of ten.

The initial setup was straightforward.

When we initially purchased them, having these access points was particularly useful since I was the only one managing everything. It made my job much easier.

For small businesses, these access points are fantastic, as their stability and easy installation make them ideal. However, for larger businesses, the return on investment may not be as significant.

The cost of both the hardware and licensing is high, and it is more than what I would prefer to spend currently.

I would definitely try a proof of concept, unless you do a proof of concept, If they work, then, you use them. They are definitely reliable. 

They usually upgrade the firmware on their own.

I would rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN an eight out of ten.

We use it for our IoT devices in the office. It is currently our wireless solution for all devices that require wireless connectivity, for example, our IoT devices and our user's laptops and phones.

Within our organization, there are roughly 400 to 500 users, using this solution. Mostly
developers, editors, finance — everybody uses it.

Soon, we're making the switch to Aruba wireless.

Because it's so easy for the common person to use, It has become less desirable for people who know the technology. The funny thing is that Meraki does have the ability to allow you to do that because you're talking about stuff that is controller-based. 

That is very good for small to medium-sized businesses with somebody who doesn't have that kind of skill-set to troubleshoot their environment; however, it's frustrating for somebody that wants to actually configure certain things. You can't do it because there's no way that you can get into that without asking them for permission.

The fact that it's cloud-based is valuable because you don't have to have an actual physical controller in your location. That cuts down on space that you need, the redundancy, the power that you consume, how much it takes to cool down your server room, etc.

Because it's user-friendly, you can hand off some of the easier troubleshooting tasks to people that are not necessarily wireless engineers. You can hand it off to a desktop team, so that's helpful.

With other solutions, you have to configure the right guardrails to keep people from messing things up, but Meraki already has those guardrails in place. This is very frustrating for a competent engineer because then he doesn't have the ability to customize it the way he wants — it's a double-edged sword.

The advanced configuration makes it so that any user can enable some of these features without having to ask them for help. It's designed like this because their business model targets people with mid-range expertise.

I think Meraki's doing fine, but I had to leave them because I came from using Cisco before they bought Meraki — which gives you so many options that you can expand upon that it's absolutely mind-numbing. 

As you learn, you miss some of those features when you switch to something else. I did enjoy using Meraki and I would use it again, but I wouldn't be using it for a large office because they don't have the kind of manpower to properly administrate it.

If there are advanced features that you can have enabled, they should allow users access to that in an easier manner. 

I have been using this solution for roughly four years.

I don't remember any outages that were caused by a loss of connection to the Meraki cloud controller. They can operate independently, which is good — they were stable. It has not been a chore or a very hard thing to work through. I really don't have any problems with the stability of the product. It's a good product, it's just not great for everybody.

Because it is cloud-based, you don't have to worry about it. Once you deploy it, it's very easy. You could actually ship one to a remote office, have them plug it in and once it phones home, you register it, and then you can configure it. So in that regard, it's very easy to set up a remote office. It's very good that way.

Their technical support is pretty good. Overall, I would give their support a rating of 8 out of ten.

They should expand their knowledge base online. I think a lot of problems could easily be solved if they had a better knowledge base.

We were using a WLC wireless LAN controller. We stopped using that solution because we had just been purchased by another company that was using Meraki, so we just sort of moved it over against my wishes. 

The initial setup was very straightforward. Our network engineer had it deployed in roughly one week.

We deployed it ourselves. We read about it and then we implemented it. As I said, it's not very hard.

Utilize the packet capture — I found that very helpful. Troubleshooting is one of the features that I found really helpful — day by day, trying to figure out what's going on. I think that people that are going to purchase it are looking for something really simple and something that works.

If I had to summarize Meraki, the biggest lesson that I learned while using it would be: simplicity has its costs.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight.

It's a very good solution for small to medium-sized businesses that don't have the technical know-how to look for an enterprise-wide wireless solution. It's a great product for sub- enterprise solutions. It's also really good for hospitals and schools because of the easy deployment.

I use the product and I think that for what they're trying to achieve, there's nothing better.

Even though I'm moving to Aruba, I've seen and felt their wireless cloud-based controller system. I think that might be a little complicated for the average person. 

To take it to a rating of ten, there should be some more advanced features. I know that they have more stuff. You buy into the Meraki way, so to speak. You buy their switches, you buy their access points, everything starts to work a little bit better together; I never did that. I think that some of the stuff that I've even thought was making them better, they probably have already done. It's just that it wasn't for me. They should allow for some more granular configuration features that give people more control over their environment.

Our project's primary use case for Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is within the education sector, encompassing approximately 5,000 schools. The deployment involves the installation of 20 to 30 access points per school, establishing a robust LAN infrastructure. This network is the backbone for various communication tools, particularly integrated with Google Workspace, facilitating collaborative activities. With a deployment of around 55,000 Cisco Meraki access points, it supports diverse educational activities across multiple sites.

The product's pricing needs improvement. 

We have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for five years.

I rate the platform's stability an eight out of ten.

The product is easy to scale. However, the extension might be expensive compared to other vendors. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

Cisco has good support services.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. It may take a week to complete the deployment. We have 40 engineers working on the implementation process. We have a dedicated maintenance team as well.

The platform is more expensive than other solutions.

The product's cloud availability feature is the most valuable for network management. It provides simple mobility and configuration options to create a new wireless network for new site access.

The reliable speed with Cisco Meraki has been impressive, particularly in our data center, where we leverage high-speed technologies. It is crucial for facilitating collaborative work involving tablets and computers on the Wi-Fi network, especially for tasks like design, computing, and image rendering.

The use of a portal for gate access adds an extra layer of security for corporate IT and access management. Authentication through dot1x PAP (Password Authentication Protocol) and 3P (3rd Party) for enhanced security access.

I rate it a nine out of ten.

We are resellers and our customers are generally medium to enterprise size organizations. I'm the senior manager and we are partners with Cisco. 

The dashboard is a great feature that is architecturally based and I like the fact that the solution is accessible from anywhere. As an administrator, it is very useful to have access to the dashboard from anywhere through my mobile Meraki app. I can see if there are any issues and can get alerts over my emails. The basic value of the product is the ease of use and ease of access from anywhere. The product is very easy to manage, easy to configure, and easy for our customers to understand. It's the ease of use that sells Meraki. When it's used as a whole stack, Meraki is one of the very good and easy to manage products.

There are a lot of improvements that could be made, especially from the feature point of view. If you compare the Meraki firewall to UTM, Meraki has close to 90% of all the features that UTM offers but there are some that are lacking and that need to be rectified. For example, UTM has a feature that enables you to block videos inside Facebook or block particular applications inside another application. In Meraki, you can only block the entire app or the entire URL. For example, you can block the category video, but not any applications that are inside apps. When it comes to switching, Meraki lacks categories of features, like the traditional Cisco, Aruba, or Ruckus app, and I think they need to increase the number of modules and categories of switches.

I've been using this solution for almost six years. 

 The product is stable and I have not seen any issues over the past couple of years.

The solution is scalable, the only problem we had earlier was the Meraki firewall did not support more than two ISC links, but I think the hardware has matured and can now support more than two ISC links. Some years ago now, Meraki used to lose many customers because it didn't support more than two ISC links.

It's very easy to get support from Meraki, because everything is there in the dashboard. You just need to open a case through the dashboard and you get good support. 

The pricing is a little higher than other similar architecture products such as Ruckus or Aruba. Meraki has a premium pack added to it so it's costly.

If you're a medium enterprise type of organization, I'd recommend something like Meraki, at least from the wireless point of view, because I think it has a very, very simple and easy-to-use dashboard. As mentioned, it's easy to configure and very easy to manage. Wherever there are very low resources to manage a network, Meraki is the one. If a company isn't managing many people and there aren't too many network administrators, it's a very good solution. 

I rate the solution seven out of 10.