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Aruba Airwave vs ExtremeCloud IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.8
Aruba Airwave provides long-term ROI with efficient troubleshooting, significant cost savings, and improved productivity despite initial hardware costs.
Sentiment score
6.8
ExtremeCloud IQ enhances productivity by simplifying management, stabilizing Wi-Fi, reducing costs, and offering quick deployment for business growth.
I managed to support and deploy ExtremeCloud IQ and handle network management without requiring external staffing, thus saving on external hiring costs.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Aruba Airwave technical support is praised for effective service, knowledgeable staff, and multilingual communication, despite occasional slower responses.
Sentiment score
7.8
ExtremeCloud IQ offers efficient, responsive customer service with knowledgeable support, though some find documentation and resources lacking compared to competitors.
I would rate their technical support as a nine or ten, as it's quite good.
Angie was very kind and communicated well in both Spanish and English, making it pleasant to connect with her.
I experienced effective help mainly remotely, though for some issues, a technical person had to assist on-site.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Aruba Airwave is scalable, supporting different user counts and environments, often used with Cisco tools, rated highly for scalability.
Sentiment score
8.0
ExtremeCloud IQ offers scalable, seamless network expansion with cloud-based architecture, supporting high-density and smaller-scale applications efficiently.
Aruba Airwave gives good information about SNR value, signal value, and you can get extensive information.
Aruba Airwave is fully scalable, as we have a large number of tenants using the network with approximately six thousand end users.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Aruba Airwave is stable, reliable, and highly rated, with minor manageable issues during high usage and integration.
Sentiment score
7.6
ExtremeCloud IQ is stable, with minor firmware issues; updates improve reliability, with newer bands performing well and occasional reboots needed.
As it is centralized, sometimes it disconnects from the cloud, and I need to reboot.
I have found Aruba Airwave to be stable.
It requires some time to update, which affects real-time management.
 

Room For Improvement

Aruba Airwave requires cost reduction, system integration, UI simplification, pricing changes, and better synchronization, support, and compatibility.
ExtremeCloud IQ needs improvements in UI, stability, performance, security, support, and pricing to meet user and market expectations.
The end-to-end users' messages show some details that are not always up-to-date, and sometimes the information from the GUI is not exactly aligned with what's on the website.
I find the price of Aruba Central compared to Aruba Airwave to be more expensive.
When attempting to copy a floor plan, it does not copy well, so I often have to redraw the walls.
I needed deep details and more thorough resources.
 

Setup Cost

Aruba Airwave licensing is seen as complex and costly, yet often cheaper than Cisco, with variable pricing flexibility.
ExtremeCloud IQ is competitively priced, offering flexible licensing and reasonable support costs, especially advantageous for educational institutions.
The pricing for Aruba Airwave is acceptable because compared to Cisco, it's slightly cheaper, but not significantly - maybe 5% or 7% less expensive.
The licensing was a challenge due to budget constraints, and I used ExtremeCloud IQ without a license for a period.
 

Valuable Features

Aruba Airwave provides multivendor support, robust reporting, real-time analysis, and easy network management with zero-touch provisioning and Visual RF.
ExtremeCloud IQ excels with centralized management, AI analytics, seamless scalability, and integration with planning tools for efficient networking.
Aruba Airwave provides good visibility, offering extensive data on network dynamics, such as access point connections, usage, signal strengths, and potential interference from neighboring Wi-Fi networks.
It provides near real-time monitoring using AIMON and AURO protocols, which is robust with multiple models and brand support.
The feature that proved most beneficial for our organization's network monitoring is the virtual four, which we use frequently when working with Aruba.
The automation and information provided by ExtremeCloud IQ, such as connection status and logs, were very beneficial.
 

Categories and Ranking

Aruba Airwave
Ranking in Network Management Applications
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ExtremeCloud IQ
Ranking in Network Management Applications
11th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (12th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Aruba Airwave is 5.7%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ExtremeCloud IQ is 2.9%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmet Bulbul - PeerSpot reviewer
Reports generation remains efficient while support and updates require attention
The biggest problem for not using Aruba Airwave extensively now is that HP is not upgrading this tool. They're not investing money and time into it, which is why we're not using it. I find the price of Aruba Central compared to Aruba Airwave to be more expensive. Customers start to complain and get annoyed about the license price. For example, when customers have 500 access points and features about access point licenses, moving to Central requires purchasing new licenses. This makes customers annoyed and complaining about this situation. It's hard to move from on-premises to Central because they always compare costs. If Aruba gave free licenses, they could move. But going to cloud and Central means more investment, and their budget doesn't cover the new investment. This creates problems for local partner companies.
KristianLarsen - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps resolve network-related issues quickly and is reasonably priced
The tool has both advantages and weaknesses because it has several pieces of software on which it has been working because of buyouts. The tool has several branches of software versions, and you can consolidate it into ExtremeCloud, but it also has the disadvantage that sometimes people can get issues because the software on the hardware is different than they expected, especially if it is not converted to the tool used. The tool has simplified things, but it also adds a complexity that sometimes stumps some users. In the future, I think the tool’s onboarding setup of a new tenant could be smoother or faster. I also think that they could provide a simpler setup for first-level support so that it can be easier for them to have a support dashboard that would help them. I am talking about customer support organizations, so you usually have a high turnaround, but you need to have something that is easier to use and where you don't need so much training.
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Aruba Airwave?
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aruba Airwave?
The pricing for Aruba Airwave is acceptable because compared to Cisco, it's slightly cheaper, but not significantly - maybe 5% or 7% less expensive.
What needs improvement with Aruba Airwave?
The biggest problem for not using Aruba Airwave extensively now is that HP is not upgrading this tool. They're not investing money and time into it, which is why we're not using it. I find the pric...
What are pros and cons of Aruba 515 Series AP vs. Cisco Meraki or Extreme Networks?
Depends. I have personally used both Cisco and Aruba so I am familiar with them. Extreme I am not, so unless they have some feature that I need or want, I wouldn't consider them. Do you have expe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ExtremeCloud IQ?
The licensing was a challenge due to budget constraints, and I used ExtremeCloud IQ without a license for a period. The documentation and training courses were also costly, impacting how easily I c...
What advice do you have for others considering ExtremeCloud IQ?
I rate the overall solution nine out of ten only due to the poor documentation. Despite this, I was very happy with ExtremeCloud IQ as it greatly eased my workload, allowing me to manage the networ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Aerohive Networks, Aerohive HiveManager, HiveManager, ExtremeCloud , ExtremeSecurity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Henkel, University of Findlay, University of Minnesota Duluth, University of Iowa
Henry Ford Health System, Baltimore Ravens, Brandili, Federal University of Alagoas, CEDAE, Caxias do Sul, UNISC Concurrency, CenturyLink Field, Louisiana College, Cricket Tasmania Stadium, Moscow Internet Exchange
Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba Airwave vs. ExtremeCloud IQ and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.