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IT Manager at The Museum of the City of San Francisco
Real User
A reliable cloud-based solution with good support, but its biggest downside is the yearly fee and the initial price
Pros and Cons
  • "It is cloud-based. You can manage it remotely from anywhere in the world, and you don't have to be on-site, which is a very big advantage."
  • "It is super expensive for what you get. I just wish it was less expensive."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for Wi-Fi.

What is most valuable?

It is cloud-based. You can manage it remotely from anywhere in the world, and you don't have to be on-site, which is a very big advantage.

What needs improvement?

It is super expensive for what you get. I just wish it was less expensive.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for 20 years.

Buyer's Guide
Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN
April 2025
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable and very reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

You just buy more. In terms of the number of users, it is used by everyone in the organization. It is Wi-Fi, so you hook your phone or laptop. Everybody uses it.

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support is very good. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've used Ubiquiti. The reason I use them is that they're very inexpensive, but they're not cloud-based. You have to be on-premises in order to manage them.

How was the initial setup?

It is really easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is super expensive for what you get. You also have to buy a license every year. Otherwise, it stops working.

What other advice do I have?

If you can afford it, you should go for it.

I would rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a six out of ten. The biggest downside is the yearly fee and the initial price, but it is very reliable.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Director at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Reseller
A flexible product complete with integrated security and content filtering
Pros and Cons
  • "The captive portal feature is my favorite. It allows us to keep track of how many people are entering our client's businesses."
  • "The signal coverage radius could be extended."

What is our primary use case?

We use Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for offices, small retail stores, and restaurants. Most of our clients are medium-sized businesses.

Most of our clients have around 200 employees. There are around 50 access point users.

Only one person is required for maintenance.

What is most valuable?

The captive portal feature is my favorite. It allows us to keep track of how many people are entering our client's businesses. 

Also, the security and content filtering that's included on the cloud is great.

What needs improvement?

The signal coverage radius could be extended. I would also like to have a planner for designs. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for roughly eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, it's very good. The problem is the coverage.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, it's excellent. You can integrate with other products like MX, the firewall and router of Meraki, and you can also integrate with Umbrella which is cloud security from Cisco. You can also add more access points very easily.

How are customer service and technical support?

Cisco's technical support is excellent. Still, sometimes it takes a while for them to respond. There is also a lot of information on their web page for support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used to use Aruba and Cisco Access Point. Cloud management was the main difference between these solutions. We have more flexibility with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy but it's important to have training.

Configuration takes around one hour. It's the same for any access point but the installation depends on the physical installation — overall, it takes around three hours.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Meraki is a very good solution, but the price is quite high for small markets. We are based in Mexico and within Latin America, most of our customers think that this is an expensive solution compared to other brands. Overall, we think that the price is too high.

For example, the cheapest license subscription is around $600. It's around $1,200 for one access point. This is really expensive for one customer. Other brands charge the same amount for around five access points.

What other advice do I have?

I'd recommend this solution because it's easy to use and secure — the security is integrated. Apps can also be integrated very easily and it's very scalable. 

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a rating of eight. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN
April 2025
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Vice President at Radeon Technologies Ltd.
Reseller
Provides excellent visibility into the network and we can usually resolve the problem online without having to go onsite
Pros and Cons
  • "Its ability to be cloud-managed is the most valuable feature so if there's a reconfiguration or an issue, we have excellent visibility into the network and we can usually resolve the problem online without having to go onsite."
  • "The logging sometimes doesn't give us the granularity needed. Some of the rules are a bit more complicated. The switch ports on the routers are not individually addressable, in the sense that with a switch you can tell what MAC address is on what port but with the security appliances, you can't, which would be beneficial for troubleshooting."

What is our primary use case?

We resell it to our customers for networking, wifi, and security.

How has it helped my organization?

For some of our larger clients, it has enabled them to not need to grow staff in order to retain a large 13 access point network has needed a lot of reconfiguration because of the nature of our business. We are able to maintain that and the responses even after hours because we can usually make changes rapidly.

What is most valuable?

Its ability to be cloud-managed is the most valuable feature so if there's a reconfiguration or an issue, we have excellent visibility into the network and we can usually resolve the problem online without having to go onsite.

What needs improvement?

The logging sometimes doesn't give us the granularity needed. Some of the rules are a bit more complicated. The switch ports on the routers are not individually addressable, in the sense that with a switch you can tell what MAC address is on what port but with the security appliances, you can't, which would be beneficial for troubleshooting.

I would like to see more information on what is plugged into each MX switch port. I would also like to be able to see that the templates would be able to be used because we're in MSP, so if I create a template, I have to recreate the template with each of our clients. I'd prefer to create one template and then personalize it for each client which is a little extra work that way. 

The dashboard security is not as good as it could be in terms of provision users. If I provision the user at the high level, I'd like to give them rights to our customers so if I have a new technician, I have to go and touch each customer and add that technician which is kind of silly. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's quite stable. There are relatively few issues we've had with the product. Compared to others, it's more stable than most.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It scales well up to the larger midsize enterprise. The MX appliances are less scalable than the wifi or the switches. They're a little underpowered and so that's the point where you'd move to a different solution if you needed more scalability if you had more bandwidth requirements. We currently have 150 users. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is good. It's really easy to get someone and they try to help and work to resolve the issue. I'm pleased with their support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We've also used D-Link, Netgear, and other similar solutions and Cisco small business solutions as well. We found Meraki is easier to deploy and easier to maintain.

We also evaluated WatchGuard, SonicWall, and Ubiquiti but we found Meraki to be superior. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup. The deployment was very quick. It takes under half an hour to fully deploy on site.

What was our ROI?

We've definitely had a good ROI. It helps our support resources as well as gives the customer a good product.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Meraki is certainly not the cheapest solution. The coterminous licensing that they do is a challenge with some of the sites where there's corporate and franchise sites. If a franchise is buying in and they want to put them on the same dashboard, it means that their license is going to expire earlier than it should. The fact that if you don't license it, it just stops working has been a challenge. It's not as friendly as would be ideal, where other solutions will not allow you to do any changes but it will keep working. If some of our clients are less organized at renewals this is a little bit adverse. MX appliances are a little overpriced for their power.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.
PeerSpot user
IT Manager at a real estate/law firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 20
Provides a reliable portal and a straightforward setup process
Pros and Cons
  • "It makes the process much easier by providing visibility and centralized control over the network."
  • "The issue primarily revolves around failure to renew the license on time, leading to service termination."

What needs improvement?

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.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward and seamless.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Octavian Andrei Drugu - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Manager at IXODRON
Real User
Top 10
The outstanding visibility offered by the tool to its users makes it a tool that can be easily deployed and managed
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN was very easy."
  • "The solution's mobile application and management of dashboards are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."

What is our primary use case?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

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.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of 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.

How are customer service and support?

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.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Product Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
A flexible solution that provides great in-depth visibility for network analytics
Pros and Cons
  • "The most amazing part is that their Access Points have the ability to connect to multiple conference devices at different times, and it shows you the very in-depth Wi-Fi analytics through their dashboard."
  • "We would like to see Wi-Fi 6 support for devices sold in the Middle East."

What is our primary use case?

We are a solution integrator and this is one of the products that we provide to our customers.

I develop, market, and strategize products.

We have customers in all sorts of market segments including large businesses, government, SMEs, retail, hospitals, hotels, and others. We have a lot of clients who use this product.

How has it helped my organization?

Well since we are reselling the Meraki as Partner product, the aim was to choose the vendor for the organization as revenue-generating and enhance customer experience product, Meraki happened to be the best fit in this regard. We marketed this product according to regional market trends, and it generated potential sales leads for the company. 

What is most valuable?

One of the best features of this solution is that it has enough in-depth visibility for the people who connect to their wireless technology.

This solution is quite flexible and compatible with other devices.

The most amazing part is that their access points have the ability to connect to multiple conference devices at different times, and it shows you the very in-depth Wi-Fi analytics through their dashboard.

This solution is simple and easy to use.

What needs improvement?

These products are more suitable for SMB rather than an enterprise for one of the listed Access Points like MR-20, Whereas MR-33 and above models covers and target the Enterprise customers.

We would like to see Wi-Fi 6 support for devices sold in the Middle East, however, Meraki has introduced WiFi-6 where we would strategize our GTM plans for WiFi 6, where we would offer WiFi 6 to specific customers with extensive needs of high WiFi availability in KSA.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working this solution for almost one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a very stable solution, the stability of wireless networks depends upon a lot of factor like how much and complex the requirement is for the customer, its not always necessary to have bulk Access Point installed on customer site, in case of Meraki as of different model option and feature like high-density broadcasting, few access points would be enough to cover WiFi coverage, The solution itself is stable. As its cloud-based Access Points, The stability in Meraki networks is autonomous. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This solution is scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

The service with them has been amazing. I would rate their technical support a nine out of ten.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did competitive and comparative analysis while we were in the ideation phase for the company, having said that, after reaching conclusion to our ideation study, we found Meraki as a market leader in WiFi technology from a commercial perspective as well as features and benefits to end customers. Thus we choose to go with Meraki as our Strategic Partner for our standard WiFi product. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of this solution is plug and play and very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We never used vendor teams to install or configure rather we have our own certified people working to install the configure the Meraki network at customer premises. In fact, we have our own business processes which the organization follows. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The setup cost varies from Service Provider to others, how they want to build the cost model. The licensing part for Meraki is extensible, it depends on which model you would choose to offer to the market as SP. Mostly pricing models are yearly contractual fees, but normally you would pay as one time cost as SP. In our case, we followed the international pricing trend for WiFi where you Bundle connectivity Per Access Point on a flat-rate monthly fee, and the customer doesn't want to pay extra charges and want easy to install plug and play solutions. In that specific case, you transfer the ownership of the hardware to the customer, while you charge only for Monitoring and Management which are minimal fees. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did look into other options, there are pros and cons, but since the company strategy was to focus on SME's, we found Meraki was the most suitable option. The option that we were looking for the Field Operations for Site Survey, Meraki Access Point had features like Site Survey Mode where Access Point would detect the signal strength and adjust its broadcasting range to premises where it was installed. In other vendors, we did not find that feature. This was important for us to make an easier job for our Field Operations teams who would visit the customer site to install the WiFi Solution, it saved time and efforts and especially the Site Survey cost which was Plus in reducing the Operations Opex for WiFi.

What other advice do I have?

The implementation and suitability of this product depend on the client and the want they want to achieve.

When it comes to Wi-Fi wireless technology, you also have to consider 5G. The 5G is already here and it's the fastest, ever, wireless network. There is going to be a conflict between Wi-Fi and 5G when it comes to what enterprises are using. Wi-Fi 6 will help to keep the technology in the market.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1073604 - PeerSpot reviewer
Presale Consultant at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
User-friendly with a great dashboard and very good scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is easily scalable. There are not really any limits for the customer in terms of expanding if they need to."
  • "Meraki should share their viability roadmap. It is really hard to know which functionality will appear or when they will be available. It is also hard to know which features are available now but are not visible on the dashboard."

What is most valuable?

The dashboard is the solution's most valuable feature. It's very user-friendly. It's a good solution for people that don't have a big technical team.

What needs improvement?

In many wireless solutions, there are a lot of things that can be added, like WiFi 6. 

Meraki should share its viability roadmap. It is really hard to know which functionality will appear or when they will be available. It is also hard to know which features are available now but are not visible on the dashboard.

In France, there's a law that requires we should keep a log of connection for 1 year, so it would be really nice to have a solution or feature that allows us to keep a log in the cloud during the year with log rotations and secure log authorizations. Right now, in France, it is not possible.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been dealing with the solution for 25 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

So far, we haven't had issues with stability. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is easily scalable. There are not really any limits for the customer in terms of expanding if they need to.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support of Meraki is very good. They're always quick to answer. You can create a case on your dashboard and after a maximum of 30 minutes, they contact you. This is a great process. Many other solutions should copy their support model. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy; it's not complex at all.

In terms of deployment, depending on the customer, it can be installed rather quickly. A customer can even handle the installation themselves.  Some may need more help with design, and it can take a bit more time to do that, but overall it's rather simple. 

What other advice do I have?

We're a partner with Cisco. We create architecture for customers and design solutions for surveillance products. We also deploy WiFi production engineers from our company.

My advice to others considering implementation is to be aware of Meraki limitations. If you are not sure if the features you need are available, you should verify that with Meraki. It will keep you from having any surprises down the road.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It's a really good product.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Gustavo-Morris - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Business Analyst at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Helpful centralized dashboards, beneficial user visibility, and simple setup
Pros and Cons
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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. 

For how long have I used the solution?

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

How are customer service and support?

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

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What about the implementation team?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2025
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.