We performed a comparison between Aruba Wireless and Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Of the two solutions, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is the more popular choice with PeerSpot users. While both have great features, users of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN seem to find fewer things lacking with it and are generally satisfied. In regards to service and support as well, Cisco users are happy with the service they receive. However, users do feel that it is an expensive solution.
"The most valuable feature of the solution is Marvis, the AI-driven network management system."
"The solution is pretty generic and easy to use."
"It provides private network access, helping us protect our company’s devices."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Juniper Wireless Access Points (AP Series) is the ability to troubleshoot ports on the network. Additionally, when there is an update on the APs they are able to reboot quickly reducing downtime. Other solutions have a longer downtime when updates are done."
"You can easily monitor, manage, and cover all your IT equipment."
"With Mist, every Wednesday they roll out new features."
"The simplicity is great."
"We were able to increase capacity very easily."
"Its manageability of APs is the most valuable feature: ease of adding APs and the ability to configure the APs on the fly. Also, their support engineers are great to work with."
"I like the analytics feature."
"The solution is stable."
"The most useful feature of this product is the configuration that allows us to have several areas covered with one unit."
"The feature I found most valuable to customers in Aruba Wireless is not a technical feature. It's more of its image, trademark, or brand as the product is very well-known in the market, and that's a good point to offer to customers. My customers just ask about the basic features of the product, and usually, when asking about Aruba products, customers don't pay too much attention to any specific feature as long as the product is solid and sure, and that you can change or modify it, as what you can get from Aruba Wireless."
"We like the centralized configuration and monitoring."
"The most valuable features are the Instant On capabilities, including the controller."
"It's simple to manage when there's a problem."
"You can scale the solution easily."
"The captive portal feature is my favorite. It allows us to keep track of how many people are entering our client's businesses."
"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."
"The product's cloud availability feature is the most valuable for network management."
"It is very handy to have a support number to call."
"The product offers HA solutions and redundancy features to ensure reliable operations."
"This product offers cloud-based configuration, so you can set it up from anywhere."
"The price could be better."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support and installation."
"The product should include adaptive Wi-Fi to show a more accurate location."
"The pricing is very high in the Indian market."
"Improving third-party integration is key for Juniper Mist's next release."
"Juniper Wireless Access Points (AP Series) could improve if the MIST platform had a built-in master key. This would be an advantage."
"I need a bit more time with it before criticizing the features."
"If you want to do more specific stuff, it's a bit limited."
"Some additional reporting features about the clients would be nice when not combined with the AirWave management package."
"Their documentation needs to be improved. Aruba's documentation is poor."
"The product’s performance got worse with newer releases."
"Additional detailed reporting for client traffic would be a great addition."
"The solution could be improved on the security side."
"We needed the help of network consultants to complete the setup for us."
"Sometimes the configuration is difficult."
"The solution's GUI for configuration could be better."
"There's nothing that special about it."
"There is a processing limitation when you have multiple SSIDs, above three or four."
"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."
"The product doesn't effectively do its job anymore since some issues crop up in it once you run out of your subscription licensing...Improvements are needed in the licensing part of the tool."
"There needs to be some work done on security because, with time, some viruses may emerge that one may not know about."
"We face a bottleneck on the gateway while using the solution for large enterprises."
"Unfortunately, we have to deal with European privacy laws and as far as we can see, the solution is not compliant with these. It's why we're not able to continue with Cisco Meraki. They need to become compliant with GDPR laws."
"An area for improvement would be that Meraki doesn't work well in a warehouse environment. The device is too sensitive to other wireless devices, which provokes noise and can require a reboot to erase this."
More Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points Pricing and Cost Advice →
Aruba Wireless is ranked 1st in Wireless LAN with 138 reviews while Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is ranked 4th in Wireless LAN with 115 reviews. Aruba Wireless is rated 8.4, while Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Aruba Wireless writes "The portal for centralized management and virtual controller for APs are very valuable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN writes "Offers good mobility, stability and scalability ". Aruba Wireless is most compared with Cisco Wireless, Ruckus Wireless, Ubiquiti WLAN, Huawei Wireless and Mist AI and Cloud, whereas Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is most compared with Ubiquiti Wireless, Mist AI and Cloud, Ruckus Wireless, Cisco Wireless and Huawei Wireless. See our Aruba Wireless vs. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN report.
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Pricing is different based on region; it depends on Aruba's and Cisco's strategy in the region. You must contact the respective partners to get an accurate price for comparison.
That being said, in MENA where I live, as of a few months ago (21H1), Aruba pricing was cheaper than Cisco.
Aruba licensing for the AP's is much cheaper compared to Meraki.
You can get a 1/3/5-year cloud license per AP.