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AirMagnet Survey PRO vs Ruckus Wireless comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AirMagnet Survey PRO
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Network Modeling and Simulation (2nd), Network Troubleshooting (7th)
Ruckus Wireless
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Wireless LAN (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

AirMagnet Survey PRO and Ruckus Wireless aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. AirMagnet Survey PRO is designed for Network Modeling and Simulation and holds a mindshare of 13.3%, down 29.7% compared to last year.
Ruckus Wireless, on the other hand, focuses on Wireless LAN, holds 14.0% mindshare, up 13.9% since last year.
Network Modeling and Simulation Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
AirMagnet Survey PRO13.3%
Ekahau AI Pro18.3%
Cisco Modeling Labs (CML)11.9%
Other56.5%
Network Modeling and Simulation
Wireless LAN Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Ruckus Wireless14.0%
Aruba Wireless15.7%
Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN11.6%
Other58.7%
Wireless LAN
 

Featured Reviews

Mark Witherspoon - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution for site verifications and enhanced with adapters that provide more realistic readings, but needs to support Wi-Fi 6E
Ekahau and AirMagnet Survey have their own pros and cons, in my opinion. For example, the APs are not visible in Ekahau but AirMagnet Survey allows us to see what APs and channels are being used in a live view, which Ekahau lacks. In Ekahau, the signal from the AP it's capturing at that time is visible which is a bit of an inconvenience. The predictive planner of AirMagnet's is better. However, Ekahau has advantages over AirMagnet because it groups all the SSIDs into one AP, whereas with AirMagnet, one needs to group them manually. Ekahau also supports Wi-Fi 6E, but its licensing is restrictive and more costly.
Xander Janse Van Rensburg - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable and high-performance wireless networking with exceptional stability, scalability, and robust feature set
One of the most valuable features I appreciate is auto channelization, facilitated by a proprietary product called ChannelFly. This feature enables APs in a specific zone to automatically adjust their channels, optimizing performance. Additionally, Ruckus Wireless stands out for its ability to reuse certain beams, resulting in smaller data spots. In my experience with various products, Ruckus Wireless consistently delivers unparalleled throughput, coverage, and reliability in wireless networking across different environments. As a noteworthy point, the newly launched WiFi 7 standard is measured against Ruckus's WiFi 7 AP, establishing it as the global benchmark. When it comes to WiFi, Ruckus sets the standard, outperforming competitors with its superior performance and capabilities.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It allows us to prepare more real designs. Later, we validate them with actual surveys."
"The predictive survey is the most valuable feature. I use it quite often."
"The most valuable feature is the predictive survey. The antennas' RF patterns are reflected correctly on the drawing when preparing predictive heat maps."
"The AirMagnet Survey allows you to see the list of APs in the live view. It only supports certain adapters, which can be limiting, but it's also beneficial because these adapters are more comparable to real-life devices like laptops. With Ekahau, Sidekick needs to be used for full features, but I find the Sidekick too strong, which can hamper results. Therefore, I prefer AirMagnet's approach because the adapters provide more realistic readings."
"The heat maps are quite good, and some features are easy to use."
"It is reliable and easy to use (user-friendly). The heat mapping, passive network surveying, and doing the heat mapping of a building's wireless network allows me to see what level of coverage an area has."
"The addition of the AirMapper software on the nXG and our AirCheck G2s has helped a lot because we're mostly not drilling down into the data. Local managers only need to see the coverage on their end and whether there are performance bottlenecks. These things are easy enough for us to ascertain with iPerf."
"Using the products to ensure the safety of our equipment that we have a lot invested in."
"Ruckus WAPs have excellent coverage and their beamforming means that we can cover more area with fewer WAPs."
"​Tremendous throughput and easy installation, configuration, and monitoring."
"The setup is very straightforward."
"It can work with high-density traffic, and its management system is also good."
"Offers excellent WiFi connectivity and a valuable SmartRoam feature"
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The most valuable feature of Ruckus Wireless is its exceptional performance and reliability. The signal is highly reliable. We have not received a single complaint in the past year, which is a marked improvement from our prior equipment."
"The product has good technical support and offers excellent documentation."
 

Cons

"The throughput should be more advanced in the future. They need to add more versions of WiFi than just one."
"The surveying features are in need of improvement, along with general usability."
"It'd be nice if it was cheaper, however, you get value for your money."
"Printouts are JPEG printouts. The AirMagnet software is proprietary. I can't send my customers a file, because it is AirMagnet file, even for building projects. I can only send JPEGs or screenshots of heat maps."
"It would be nice to have some more training resources for younger techs. We can use them if we need some assistance, but that usually requires one of us who knows what we're doing to calibrate the programs properly."
"When you conduct an active survey and then want to use it for design work, it's actually not very useful."
"Less time consumed doing the real surveys."
"I would say some of our newer techs that are going out to job sites can be a little bit intimidated by the interface."
"The response time of the support team needs to improve"
"The solution isn't the cheapest option. However, you are getting a quality product."
"The solution should have more analytics capabilities."
"They lack in some hardware stratification."
"The solution is sensitive with reference to power fluctuations. This sensitivity should be improved. Additionally, the solution should have more security features integrated."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"Their support has been lacking a little bit and needs to be improved. I have had a ticket open for a month, and it is really hard to get a resolution out of them. They haven't really come out with anything that is much of an improvement in a long time. It has mostly just been fixes and things like that. We used to have a ZoneDirector or a physical controller for the wireless network, and that was kind of end of life. It was very old, and at the time, we were expanding the wireless network, and we didn't want to rely on one piece of hardware that was pretty old. So, we went to SmartZone Cluster, which has two VMs in a cluster. Unfortunately, we lost the feature ability for guest networks and other things that we were using before, and Ruckus just kind of told us that they weren't supporting that feature in the newer product, which is not really great. I was told initially that SmartZone was an upgrade to ZoneDirector. It is the logical thing to think that it is going to have all the same features, but it didn't. The issue that we have right now is onboarding BYOD devices. It is not really great for us, and we're looking for a new product to make that easier. We did have Cloudpath, which was a product that Ruckus purchased from another company that was an onboarding solution, but it just didn't really work very well for us. So, we discontinued using it, and it actually created more confusion for people. They should make BYOD or guest network portals a lot easier and better. In some areas, we have been having issues because there are just so many WAPs that are so close that we had to manually turn down the radio of power because the automatic feature of the AP wasn't really doing it right. It should also have a little bit better RF analysis capability to be able to see on the controller side. The front end for our staff, students, and guests has also not been quite as good as we had hoped."
"I do a reset of the access points from time to time because sometimes we have no access."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing of AirMagnet Survey is different when compared to Ekahu. It is a third of the cost of Ekahau but there are no dedicated laptops to the Sidekick. AirMagnet allows you to license an adapter and share that adapter."
"For technical support, you need an annual license, but it is not worth it."
"The tool's pricing is medium."
"There is an annual cost of the solution. There are some additional charges, such as support and maintenance."
"The pricing needs improvement."
"The moment we began needing more of the vendor's support, the cost became very high; we switched to another solution."
"This product is very expensive."
"It's definitely a good value. It's more expensive than some of the other offerings out there, but when you compare it to other enterprise-class gear, it's very well priced. And the beauty of it is, because it has better range because of their patented BeamFlex - which is the way they can send and receive and listen to signals - you can actually use fewer access points. That means that it's a cheaper overall project."
"Regarding pricing, Ruckus Wireless is a five out of ten. Though it's cheaper than Aruba Wireless, pricing for Ruckus Wireless, when you look at its functionality, could be more affordable."
"If you walk into any restaurant or hotel you will find Ruckus Wireless solutions because it is economical when it comes to pricing. There is a basic subscription for the license and support."
"The price could be better. Normally, if you find customers paying for cost-effective wireless solutions, Ruckus devices are a little expensive compared to other vendors."
"We found it a little more expensive than the other competitors on the market."
"Ruckus Wireless is a cheaper solution than Cisco."
"I would rate their pricing 3 out of 5. There is no annual licensing cost."
"​The cost can be prohibitive for many as it is a high-end product in the WiFi market.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business69
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AirMagnet Survey?
We use the solution for Wi-Fi and networks.
What needs improvement with AirMagnet Survey?
AirMagnet Survey needs to support Wi-Fi 6E otherwise they can lose to the competition. They also need to allow better grouping of SSIDs to one AP, removing the need to filter manually. At the momen...
What is your primary use case for AirMagnet Survey?
We use AirMagnet Survey, for site verifications after the wireless system has been installed. We conduct pre and post-install surveys with it. We have reduced the use since now our customers requir...
Aruba Wireless or Ruckus Wireless?
At my organization, we researched Ruckus Wireless among other solutions but ultimately chose Aruba wireless. What did we like about Ruckus? First, it was very easy to use, and anybody with minimal...
Which is better - Ruckus Wireless or Cisco Wireless?
Ruckus Wireless offers users the benefit of being both easy to set up and get running as well as being very user friendly. This user-friendly quality also renders it easy to learn how to use and ma...
How does Ruckus Wireless compare to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN?
Cisco’s Meraki Virtual MX is a virtual instance of the Meraki SD-WAN appliance. We liked the Meraki. The Wifi APs are a great feature. The dashboard is a simple interface and easy to learn. It feat...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Houston Methodist Hospital, Love's Travel Stops
American University of Sharjah, Baruch College, Centro Escolar Liceo Santo Tomšs, Chevalier College, Chico Unified School District, Colegio de Fomento El Prado, Columbia Public Schools, Delta School District, Dordt College, Douglas County School District, Drew University, Armonea, Central Utah Clinic, Grove Hill Medical Center, Inner South Community Health Service, Midwest Surgical, Satilla Regional Medical Center, Lyndoch Living, Polonus, Roaring Fork School District, Sonora State, Vivid, Sydney, Players Club, Sandals, Scandic Hotels, Sheraton LAX, Sunbird
Find out what your peers are saying about Ekahau, NetAlly, iBwave and others in Network Modeling and Simulation. Updated: August 2025.
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