Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Reviews

Our basic feature here is that we're in the education field.

I used to be a Cisco controller-based program, and 

This product has absolutely improved the way our organization functions.

It's much faster and it's more balanced. It gives me the ability to balance the network a little bit better from a 2.4 interface, as far as channelization is concerned. Then, with AC coming out with the five gigahertz, getting much more stable, it's allowed a lot of us to switch over to that. However, it is important that you still have the support for 2.4 because it's out there.

What I like best about Meraki is that I can change it from anywhere. I'm really the only person here that understands the concepts, which means that if I'm not on campus, resolving the problem is something that I can do online.

We also have a resident program here as well. So, if something's not right with the resident or they have an issue with their internet over there, I can flip to make it go over to a different internet circuit pretty quickly without ever coming onto campus.

Initially, I liked some of the filtering features, but that's one of the components that we ran into problems with. We don't use it as much anymore. This is one of the things that I'm trying to find out if Aruba does better.

For example, I like all of my iOS devices to go on one network so that if they try to do iOS updates, we have an Apple server online so that they can just pull the iOS updates from it instead of having them on other parts of the network. Also, we're a one-to-one school where we give laptops out, and I'd like to be able to block the old laptops from being able to access the network. That means that the students are forced to use their new laptop, as opposed to an older one.

It would be really helpful if there were a way that the access point could determine whether the client has an AC radio and if so, force it to try and connect to there first. As it is now, it lets the client determine how it wants to connect. This is the case with wireless in general, but it would be nice to have this option.

We have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for approximately six years.

The only time we've had any issue at all is when the firmware upgrades don't automatically apply. You can set them to automatically apply, but you have to be really careful in a school setting, because you can't just say, "Oh yeah, I want to reboot this building." It would mean that the entire building will go down. This means that you have to schedule those a little bit differently. I always do it manually instead of automatically.

I wish it would let us do one access point at a time because then I could literally do a building. It doesn't let you do one at a time. It does let you schedule them as a network but doesn't let you pick a specific access point for a specific time.

This is a product that scales pretty easily. We have about 1,200 people using it.

We have students and teachers and parents, and then, of course, we have staff members in general, and lots of different devices. One of the big things that I will challenge people at, and I don't think a lot of people realize this, but the challenge of some school networks is, especially for us, I'll use a final time, for example, is all of a sudden you have to have 850 to 900 people on the network at one time.

The exam starts now and all 850 students have to get on the network now. You don't see that any other school at that point in time. Kids come on, they join whenever, they've already got it on. You don't see that, but in those classes when they have to start exams, everybody has to hit that network and load a page now. Your network has to be able to be designed to handle that.

This is one of the reasons we've had to balance the wireless to make sure that we've been able to get good successful connections throughout the entire campus inside of every classroom. That way, no access points overloaded or the bandwidth is not overloaded. If you lose one in the middle, it's enough that it can withstand the fail over of another classroom in the middle of that type of exam.

It is this concept and design that has allowed us to sustain this system for more than five years without a problem.

The technical support is pretty good the team is very knowledgeable. Normally it takes once or twice to get through to them or get to the right level, but other than that, it's really good. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

We originally had Cisco and it was really costly. They eventually grew out of our price range in terms of the price of their equipment.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

We evaluated Aruba but at the time, I didn't feel that they were quite there. They had just introduced some of the web-related products, and Meraki was already seasoned.

We are currently looking at other products, including those from Aruba and Cisco. This is because our licensing is about to expire and it's time to upgrade the access points in some of our buildings. 

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is that you have to evaluate what your overall goal is. If you have a team that's going to monitor your network, that's not going to be there, especially if they're offsite, then you're going to have to do a web-based solution because that's the easiest way that they can help maintain it, versus an on-premise solution.

That narrows you down to a couple of different entities. Then, you just have to look at your features and what you like, from security measures to applications to structure. You have to find what fits the best.

I would definitely do an evaluation with any of them to make sure that they all fit within your confines.

In summary, this is a good product but there is always room for improvement.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this product for the branch network connecting with the core application in the data centers of our main customers. 

We provide a Wi-Fi, secured internet connection for the customer branch.

This is an entry point to excel in other value-added services. 

Connectivity is the base of our internet provider service.

The most valuable feature is the technology of the security that is offered.

The connection to the internet via Wi-Fi, for external people who frequent the customer branch, needs improvement.

In the next release, I would like to see the central control plane have the flexibility to control and distribute policies to all LAN networks, balance the traffic, and the performance based on application monitoring.

I have been using this solution for approximately three or four months.

It's a stable solution.

This is not an area that I have explored as I am not a project specialist, but we would like to increase our usage.

We have approximately 300 users.

Technical support is good, but not easy to access and the technology is not open. It is very proprietary.

We have to have a variety of solution vendors in our portfolio. Currently, we have Aruba, Huawei, and Fortinet.

We will be increasing our vendors to include others to enlarge our portfolio.

Aruba is better for radio performance coverage, and it's easier. Meraki is more secure.

The initial setup is quite complex.

We have a team of six or seven internal members, plus the system integrator to maintain this solution.

We used a systems integrator selected by Meraki.

This solution is quite costly and there are costs in addition to the licensing fees.

Depending on the preference of the customer, we have some monthly or yearly licenses.

This is a product I can recommend to others.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

One significant area for improvement with the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN solution lies in its licensing model. The issue primarily revolves around failure to renew the license on time, leading to service termination.

I rate the platform's stability a ten out of ten.

It is a scalable platform. We have deployed 60 access points across our organization.

The initial setup was straightforward and seamless.

The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten.

Using the Meraki portal has significantly streamlined network management tasks. It makes the process much easier by providing visibility and centralized control over the network.

It has primarily addressed reliability concerns related to aging equipment. It has yet to improve operational efficiency, but it has stabilized the environment from an IT perspective.

The feature that I find most beneficial for our networking needs, especially wireless networking, is the portal's reliability and accessibility.

I recommend it to others and rate it a nine out of ten.

I haven't personally recommended the product to my company's customers. Many of my company's customers use Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN at corporate levels where wireless LANs are needed.

I am not a big fan of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. Based on my company's customers' opinions, I feel that the best feature of the product stems from the fact that it serves as an actual cloud management platform and the ease of deployment it offers.

The thing that concerns me the most about the product is that, with a lot of our other customers, the platform's behavior once its licensing runs out. The product doesn't effectively do its job anymore since some issues crop up in it once you run out of your subscription licensing. Once customers run out of subscriptions, they could end up with a non-functional environment, an area of concern.

Overall, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is an easy platform to use. I think it would be good if the tool provided a perpetual licensing option, even if it has a limited set of features. If you went back to a basic set of features or something available on a perpetual basis, it would probably be the single biggest improvement in the solution.

Improvements are needed in the licensing part of the tool. The predominant reason why I don't recommend the tool to others is because it puts a large onus on the customer in terms of the tool's operational expenditure year on year. A lot of the customers my company works with want some flexibility and want to stop a product's use after the fourth or fifth year. If customers plan to implement a tool today, they are forecast to replace it in the upcoming four or five years. Having a tool that doesn't lock customers into subscriptions during a time when they want to switch to other products would be great.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for four to five years. My company is a reseller of Cisco Meraki.

From a scalability perspective, I think the tool is incredibly scalable. I assisted one of our company's customers, which is a global supermarket chain, in an evaluation, which included Cisco Meraki and the wireless component, during which, for the first time, I was exposed to the true scalability feature of the platform. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Compared to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, I recommend products like RUCKUS and HPE Aruba Networking. Considering customers who largely use Fortinet infrastructure, I would also recommend switches and firewalls from Fortinet.

Apart from the advantages offered by the product other than Cisco Meraki in areas like licensing model, from Fortinet's perspective, I like the product's ability to offer a single pane of glass, so it has a single vendor. RUCKUS and HPE are normally deployed due to the RF capabilities it offers. My company did quite a detailed RF study four or five years ago, and HPE and RUCKUS stood out quite well. RUCKUS has adaptive antenna technology. What holds back RUCKUS is that it has been acquired multiple times over the last six or seven years. CommScope is rebranding a lot of the switches under RUCKUS, which is something my company is interested in seeing and observing how that pans out over the next few years.

The cloud management aspect of Cisco Meraki has improved our company's customer's administrative efficiency in some cases, while in some other cases, it hasn't. Depending upon whether or not the tool integrates the switching and SASE aspects as well, I had a few customers whom I had to split apart due to some of the tool's features not being visible once you opt for the product's unified infrastructure model.

With Cisco products and third-party products, integration of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is good. The tool doesn't have a lot of integrations that are necessarily native. I think that a lot of the larger infrastructure providers offer the same integration features as Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN since such a solution brings on additional products through acquisition, and true integration processes take time.

Speaking about how the tool's specific security features strengthened our company's customer network defense, I would say that I am not a fan of the product as a security platform. MS Switch Access Policies (802.1X) and NAC are good areas in the product, especially if you integrate with Cisco's platform. I won't usually use the product as a layer 3 boundary.

With the current models offered by the product, it is not a solution that my company recommends to others. If our company's customer already has a large Meraki deployment in place, we recommend it for continuity's sake. The product is not normally something our company would encourage others to use, but if there are additional facilities, we recommend it.

I rate the product a six out of ten.

I have sold Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN in Pakistan's market since its cloud management features are good.

The product is useful for security purposes, specifically network security or to secure a network. It is useful for our company's clients who want to secure their network over the cloud. The product helps to manage your network centrally.

The product offers solutions for businesses ranging from small to large companies. The product offers HA solutions and redundancy features to ensure reliable operations. Some products don't offer the aforementioned features. The tool offers products for small businesses and large enterprises, with high availability and redundancy features.

There needs to be some work done on security because, with time, some viruses may emerge that one may not know about. The tool provides basic security features for VPNs like IPS and IDS. The tool should have its own lab where engineers can work on new viruses or upcoming and undefined viruses.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for more than two years. I am a seller of the product.

The product's stability is good. The product can improve in the area of security. The switches provided by the product are good and are commonly used in Pakistan. There is also demand for used switches in Pakistan. In Pakistan, businesses cannot afford new switches, or they face some import-related issues when it comes to products like the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. Pakistan market has a few network switches in stock as a backup. In terms of network switches, the tool is good, and I rate it an eight and a half out of ten. In terms of security, the product needs to improve.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

If I compare the other brands in the market, like Sangfor or Sophos, with Cisco in terms of security, I see that Cisco is not a part of the Gartner Report. Cisco is deployed in multinational companies and not in small to mid-sized organizations.

The solution's technical support is good. Through Google, you can get support from the product's community website, on which you can reach out to comments to help you deal with the areas where you are stuck with the product.

The product's initial setup phase is not complex. It is quite easy to configure or deploy it due to its simple and centralized backbone.

The solution is deployed on the cloud model.

The deployment process is easy since you just need to connect the firewall. You can log in to Cisco portal and put in your password and user information, after which it opens your dashboard. You can configure whatever policy you want to implement and use it as per your requirements. You can activate your license by simply putting in the license key. If you face any issues with the tool, you can open a ticket with Cisco's support team or approach resellers. I also help people who face issues with the product. I can align my technical team to help those who have issues with the tool.

Against Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, I offer tools like Sangfor and Sophos. Many of my company's customers opt for Sophos, considering its visibility in the Gartner Report.

only sold a few Cisco Meraki Wireless LANs in the market. My company's clients had asked me about the specific models of the product, and I had them in stock, so I sold them without having to convince them or tell them the technical features of the tool. My company's clients already know about the product via its website and how easy it is to integrate and use the scalability features. My company's clients are also aware of the tool's subscription and base licensing that Cisco offers. As I am a salesperson, I don't think it's difficult to convince IT people to use the tool since they already know about Cisco. It is a positive thing how Cisco has captured the market.

The most valuable feature of the product for network management stems from the fact that the product is flexible, has a centralized dashboard, and offers a yearly subscription-based licensing model and support while being scalable, reliable, and cloud-centric. The tool is already popular in the market.

The tool's analytics are quite capable of securing a user's network, and the insights from Cisco Meraki ITM are good as they allow organizations to get valuable insights in areas like visitor behavior, traffic patterns, and device presence in an environment. There are a lot of resellers that deal in Cisco, so its availability is not difficult.

In terms of the tool's built-in security features, VPN capabilities are quite good. Intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) can filter out malicious content and offer advanced security features. The product can offer protection against malware and offer a threat intelligence platform. The tool provides basic features that can be used as default or built-in functionalities.

Considering the technical support and security features, I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

The scalability of the tool aligns with my organization's goals.

I rate the overall tool out of ten.

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 most important feature is flexibility.

I believe it is user-friendly. The techie guys don't care for it, but in my opinion, essentially, it has a very simple interface. Most other vendors are now including those in their dashboard features and interfaces as well.

The only concern is when the license has expired and it will no longer function, the entire network goes down, without any notification, or warning.

The price could be reduced.

I have been working with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for four or five years.

The first implementation we did was with the MR32. MR32, MR42, and MR62

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is stable.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is easy to scale.

Technical support is very good.

I used to work for VS Information Systems, and I'm currently looking after the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN and the data center infrastructure.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We use a couple of guys for the more physical aspects of the implementation, such as access point mounting.

Because they are cloud-based, we are only using one person for maintenance.

Previously, I did the majority of the configuration by myself. Now, another person has been assigned to the configuration part.

When compared to other vendors, Cisco's pricing is higher.

We did some research and found that we already had the HP solution in-house. Because of the features and feasibility, flexibility, and everything else, as well as the cost, we like the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

We haven't received any requests for additional features at the moment. Previously, any request for additional features was made on the other Cisco dashboard, and the majority of them were already implemented on this one.

We have a partnership with Cisco.

For my experience, I would rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a nine out of ten.

We are using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for our corporate network for internal users. 

The most valuable features of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN are the ease of use and the ability to manage it from the cloud.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for approximately one year.

The stability of good for Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is scalable.

The support from Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is good.

We used Cisco Aironet before we switched to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

The initial setup was simple. However, the full deployment could be easier.

We used a local partner for the implementation. We use four technicians for the maintenance and deployment of the solution.

The price of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN could be improved, it is too expensive. We pay for the solution on an annual basis.

We evaluated other solutions before choosing Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

I would recommend this solution to others.

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