Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Reviews

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. 

We use it for wireless and our network. All our switches and our APs are Meraki.

We are using its latest version. The device is on-prem, but everything is on the cloud. Meraki has its own cloud.

It is easy to set up. You can do everything on the GUI. You don't need to trace cables. You don't need to connect to the switch. Everything is there, right in front of you.

They're great. If there's anything that they need to change, it is just simplifying the site to which you go to make changes on the admin side.

I have been using this solution for five years.

It is very stable.

I can add or remove without any issues. So, scalability is no issue. It is being extensively used in the organization at the moment.

I have never contacted their support. It has always been great.

We used to have just the plain Cisco, and we just switched to Meraki. We switched because in the past, for you to trace or change VLANs and all that, you actually needed to log into the actual switch and make the changes there. You had to run a lot of commands and all that, but with Meraki, you could just go to their portal and make the changes there. Everything is kind of right in front of you. So, it makes things so much easier.

It is easy to set up. It took weeks because we had to install it, but the setup itself only took an hour or two.

It was done in-house. In terms of maintenance, it is very lightweight. I'm the admin for it. We do have other IT staff, but they don't really have to do much.

I would advise others to go and get it now. If you don't have it, get it.

I would rate it a nine out of 10 for the ease of use.

I've worked on this solution for a couple of clients who already had it deployed. It has many good features and good integration. This is more of a hybrid setup where the switch takes over a lot of responsibility depending upon what you have deployed. It takes a lot of control and allows for cloud-based management of your Wi-Fi network.

One of the key problems is that, similar to a solution like Ruckus, if you lose connectivity with the controller, your Wi-Fi network is immediately impacted and users are unable to connect to the network. It's a challenge because then your budget inflates as you have to invest in a high availability kind of solution and have more than one controller. If you are spread across a large area geographically, then you may want to have multiple controllers at different sites so that if one fails you always have a backup to go to and you're not dependent on the links that connect to your offices. It can become costly as a result. 

There is nothing much that can change but I believe the hardware could become more economical. The licensing part is okay, and compared to other cloud-managed Wi-Fi's, Meraki is well placed on the pricing, but the hardware costs a bomb. If they could reduce the price of the hardware, the access points, that would be a great benefit for them.

The solution is stable and more secure when you compare it to Ruckus because if you have an MX firewall, you automatically get the firewall features over your Wi-Fi as well. The outcome is that all the data passing through the Wi-Fi definitely passes through the firewall. 

Meraki is quite scalable. 

Thanks to my experience with Wi-Fi, I haven't needed tech support from Meraki. One good point about Meraki and Cisco overall would be the documentation. It's extremely comprehensive so that you don't need to call tech support unless you encounter a specific problem, and you can find most things by doing a Google search.

I believe the initial setup is pretty straightforward although I've never deployed the solution - I've managed it for clients. We currently have three companies that are using this product. From a maintenance perspective, it requires a couple of maintenance staff to keep a tab on the solution, depending upon your work environment. 

Licensing is on an annual basis and there is also the hardware inventory. If the firewall goes down, for example, that could cause a problem. The point of failure and the work involved around it makes it a more costly solution.

For anyone looking for a simple management solution in a geographically spread-out network, Meraki is a good bet compared to Ruckus. However, they lose points on the cost as well as on the complexity of its multiple-tiered structure, where you have an MX firewall or a switch, your Wi-Fi access points, and then the cloud. It's too much and could be as easy as having the cloud and access points, but the product has an additional tier integrated, which makes it somewhat complex.

I would place them at eight out of 10. 

With Cisco Meraki, I've tried motherboard, switches, and wireless, and everything is good. If you want to complete visibility, then you are required just a firewall and switches, and wireless. 

The solution offers good features and good performance. It's quite stable. We have never faced challenges just from our ID access point.

You can scale the solution easily.

The problem with the solution is that if you go for firewall, then there is no SSL encryption available. If you are talking about deep packet inspection, that is not available. If you want SSL encryption, then you have to integrate with Cisco Umbrella. 

If they could work on the Meraki firewall hardware, and add SSL decryption as well as more application control and deep packet inspection, that would be ideal. 

Also in Cisco Meraki access points, MAC filtering is not available. If they could add that feature, that would be great.

I've been using the solution for two or three years at this point. It's been a while. 

The stability is very good. There are no bugs. There are no glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

This is a cloud-based product and the best thing about a cloud-based product is if you have a cloud controller and access point, then you don't have to worry about that key for licenses. If you've got 70 access points, you can register there. If you have 1,000 and 2,0000, you can also register there. There is no need to change any controller hardware as that is a cloud-based product, which makes it fully scalable. You can add to it and still maintain a single point of management. 

This is a pure cloud-based solution and everything is managed by the cloud.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

I haven't deployed it for myself. I have deployed it for customers. I work for a systems integrator.

We use it for Branch-type of installations where you have a small branch. You just need to manage it via the internet. You don't need a controller-type of environment there, for a small office-type of deployment.

It's a cheaper resource that helps manage a company's WiFi network.

The solution's ease of use is great.

The ease of management has been great.

The initial setup is easy.

The product has been very stable over the years. 

Technical support is okay.

The pricing is reasonable. 

Meraki is still very much a small office type of solution. It is not a fit for large enterprise networks, as it doesn't have tunneling functionalities. 

If you are configuring Meraki as a RADIUS client, you have to add individual 100 or whatever devices on the site as a RADIUS client. There is no RADIUS proxy option. Therefore, it is pretty much still a good use case for small networks, however, it's not a great use case for larger networks. 

The product needs to offer role-based access. 

I've been using the solution for more than ten years now. It's been a decade or so. I have quite a bit of experience with it.

The solution is very stable. As long as your internet links are stable, Meraki works perfectly fine. There are no bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

Meraki is not a very scalable solution. It has its own limitations on the number of devices you can deploy. I would say it's not a very scalable solution.

I've contacted technical support a couple of times. They were okay. I didn't have any issues with them; they are fine.

I've used Cisco EROs, Cisco Meraki, Catalyst 9800, Aruba, and Instant Aruba, controller-based.

The initial setup is not complex or difficult. It's very straightforward. 

The pricing is okay. However, they don't have a perpetual license option. Regardless of what type of functionality a customer is looking for, they have to go for subscription-based licensing.

I'm a Cisco partner.

Meraki is a public cloud. With Meraki, you don't have a private cloud solution.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

We use it for Wi-Fi.

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.

I have been using this solution for 20 years.

It is stable and very reliable.

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.

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

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.

It is really easy.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.