Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Reviews

We installed approximately 20 Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN in our headquarters and we have a remote site, a satellite office, which has about seven more installed.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is an on-premise solution, but it uses the Meraki cloud portal. We have to register the WAP with the cloud.

In our Satellite office, we have approximately 30 users and guests. We have a guest network that runs through the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN and a corporate network that runs through it. Our headquarters network hasn't been used as much, everybody's working remotely over the last year and a half because of COVID. Prior to the pandemic, we would have up to 300 people in the headquarters and guests.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN has helped our organization because we are able to be connected to the network while moving around. For example, I am able to take a presentation from one conference room and walk across the building and present it in another conference room without losing connection. This is pretty good for us.

The most valuable features in Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN are that we were able to see all the registered users for each particular WAP, which is a big help. The roaming allows us to have continuous wireless throughout the building. The signal can carry over from one WAP to another. Which is probably the most important feature.

We're are not fully utilizing the features of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN to know a more in-depth analysis of what areas need to be improved. However, the security could improve. It would be a benefit to be able to lock out particular clients that are trying to connect from outside the building.

In an upcoming release, it would be a benefit to have a security dashboard that could show additional information. In addition to our Meraki solution, we have a Cisco product called ISE, Identification Security Engine, and we can detect non-compliant or non-corporate addresses from our network. Instead of using a second product, the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN should be able to isolate the non-specified MAC addresses into the network.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for approximately three and a half years.

The stability of the network is very good. I think we had oversaturated our HQ environment, where we had too many devices in a particular location. We actually had to change some of our configurations because it was causing some connectivity competition between WAPs trying to connect. We had to remove a WAP to allow better connectivity.  

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is scalable. If we needed to expand, it's easy to add another WAP for a new location.

As we come back into the office, in January, we'll start out with approximately 100 users. We're going into a hybrid mode and we will not have as many users as we did, prior to COVID. We had upwards of 300 people connecting and that's mostly everybody with their mobiles or laptops that come into the office. At our highest, it is approximately 300 users but starting in January, we'll probably have approximately 100 to 200.

We do not have plans to expand our usage at this time. However, if we open up a new office then we will most likely expand usage.

We have contacted Cisco's technical support a couple of times and they're very responsive. I would give them a thumbs up.

We used the previous version of Meraki at our old headquarters. The only reason we switched was that we wanted a newer product in a new office. In terms of our office move, we decided to buy all new equipment and that's the only reason we switched.

The installation is straightforward. The wireless portion of the installation took approximately one week. This included  mounting and bringing activating the network.

We used a consulting group for the completion of our network completion in our building. I followed along with them, it wasn't too complex. My experience with the constant was very good.

We have three system administrators, one being myself, and my two coworkers. We're all capable of managing the Meraki environment.

We are on a SmartNet contract. All of our Cisco products are licensed under one contract. I do not think there are any additional costs.

We did not evaluate any other options when we switched over to the newer version of  Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

My advice to other thinking about implementing this solution is to look at other products that are out there. I don't want to say stuck, but we are using all-Cisco products at the time and there are probably products that may be less expensive that could do the same job. We're in contract with Cisco and this is why we went with the newer version of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN when we needed a new solution. If anyone was looking for a wireless solution, look at different manufacturers.

I never rate anything at 10 because there's always room for improvement.

I 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.

My customer wanted to configure the solution as Wi-Fi instead of a firewall service.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is a user-friendly solution that has good performance and stability.

The solution's pricing could be improved.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for two years.

I don't recall facing any bugs with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, but the patches are done remotely.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is a scalable solution.

It was easy to deploy the solution. We had some help from the support team, making it easier to deploy the solution.

I read the document for a day and deployed it the next day.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is an expensive solution.

Users with a big budget should go with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. Customers with a low budget can choose Meraki Go, which is less costly than Cisco Meraki and does not require any license.

Cisco Meraki has physical boxes for centralized cloud management. If we are talking about a dashboard, we can configure location-wise, which will be called a network. In an organization, for each location, we can create a new network where it will be managed centrally. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN alone does not give security. In every company, the front-end will be firewalls, which will take care of the compliance part.

Overall, I rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a nine 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.

My company deals with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN since it provides better visibility, from my point of view, making it easier to manage. With Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, you don't need to create something else to create controllers. You can just enter in your internet browser to deploy and manage it from there. L7 firewall is also a very good sync option available with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the simplicity of operating it, which is its biggest asset. The product also has similar, if not better, capabilities than traditional wireless access points.

As a daily user of the solution, I haven't found anything that needs improvement. The solution's mobile application and management of dashboards are areas with shortcomings that need improvement.

Though there are a few features that I would like to see in future releases of the product, they cannot be made possible.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for a year. I am an integrator and not an end-user of the solution. I don't remember the product version I use.

It is a very stable solution. Besides a few outages from my power supply, I had no problems with the solution.

It is a scalable solution, though I never tried to use its scalability option. I don't even know how many devices you can add to the product.

I have, unfortunately, never interacted with the technical support team of the product. Based on the opinions of others, I came to know that the product's technical support team is very good.

I don't have any experience with other solutions at a business level. I work with Huawei and TP-Link at home, though I find Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN comparatively superior. Huawei and TP-Link's costs are very low, while Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is more reliable from both hardware and security point of view.

The initial setup of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN was very easy.

Though, I don't remember the steps involved in the deployment process of the solution since it was done a year ago. The deployment process was very simple because I only had to make a few clicks to create an account on the device to complete the deployment process. In the last stage of the deployment process, you need to put your license into the product and configure your SSID.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is not a reasonably priced product for home use. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is a reasonably priced product for enterprise-sized businesses.

Apart from the firmware upgrades, no other processes are followed to maintain the solution.

I wouldn't recommend the product to those planning to use it at their home. I recommend the product to those planning to use it commercially in a certain industry or market.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.

The last company I was working for did an overall network revamp project where they replaced all of the access points, switches, and firewalls. We replaced all the aging equipment with new ones including Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN solutions.

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.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN could improve by having more granularity in terms of the data displayed. However, I understand that with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, you need to have a compromise point to what are the functions that you're going to provide to the users versus ease of use. More granularity in terms of the data and the things that you can do to the devices would be helpful. For example, when we wanted to make a change, restriction, or segregation within Palo Alto, we can go to the level of detail that we want. The amount of detail provided is amazing, it is very granular. However, it comes with much more difficulty, it requires a technical understanding of the environment compared to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. 

I used Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN within the past 12 months.

I have not used the technical support because the equipment was new.

We used other vendor devices previously, such as Dell PowerConnect. We were looking for a solution that was easier to configure and maintain while not compromising the visibility of our environment. That's why we chose the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN solutions because they have user-friendly dashboards to use the equipment and at the same time, it does provide the visibility that we needed to control our traffic in all our branches. 

When you are deploying equipment in remote areas where you don't have many employees having a cloud dashboard where you can make changes to your equipment easily is a large benefit. Having a centralized, single pane of glass dashboard where you can manage all your equipment in one place has been helpful.

The initial setup was very easy considering it is a Cisco solution.

It took us approximately two to three weeks, to migrate small branches which were quite fast. We hadn't migrated the head office systems when I left the company but that implementation would have been more complicated because that's where the data center is involved.

We hired a network architect as a consultant and that team helped us do the whole migration and implementation. When we were doing the setup of switching and the access points, it require a lot less preparation because of its ease of use. Other solutions, such as Palo Alto, required a lot more planning.

We have 12 branches and our head office and we use one person for marinating and supporting the solution. However, we did outsource the support, we pay annually for support from a third-party company that helps us maintain our equipment. They are on call if we need them.

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

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN was easy to deploy and use, it gives us the functionality that we need to maintain our infrastructure functions, and at the same time, it does provide the security that everybody's looking for these days. We did replace the firewalls with Palo Alto, which gives us another layer of security because Palo Alto's very good in that regard.

We are a reseller, and because we're doing mostly refreshes, we have its latest version.

Its interface is not as daunting as others, which makes customers a bit more at ease.

For Meraki, the ease of deployment and management is most valuable.

Meraki leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to the technical capabilities in terms of throughput, spectrum, management, higher-level functions, etc.

I have been using this solution for eight years or so.

Its stability is a five out of 10.

Its scalability is a five out of 10. 

I would probably rate them a six out of 10.

Meraki is probably the most straightforward. 

For its deployment and maintenance, just one engineer is required for a medium-sized company.

The return on the investment with Meraki isn't from scalability, rollout, or saving in hardware costs or software costs. The save is either in terms of the ability to keep the number of technicians that you hire or in terms of being able to outsource it all together to an organization that specializes in it. The higher costs of Meraki are offset by the cost of the people you may have to bring in, depending on your Wi-Fi airspace.

I would advise knowing your use case and matching it to the technology.

I would rate it a six out of 10. It provides ease of management to customers, but it is not for throughput and availability. 

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.