We performed a comparison between Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN and Cisco Wireless based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: While Cisco users across the board feel that both products are very expensive and provide very good customer service and support, users reported a better ROI from Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.
"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."
"The solution is pretty generic and easy to use."
"The simplicity is great."
"The most useful feature of Juniper Wireless AP is the reporting Marvis."
"In terms of reporting, in terms of all the user reports, it's very rich."
"I like the status page Cisco added that shows you the health of the wireless connection."
"The solution has worked very well in our campus environment."
"The visibility of the site is most useful."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN are the ease of use and the ability to manage it from the 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."
"Great architecturally based dashboard and the solution is accessible from anywhere."
"Meraki WLAN is easy to deploy, includes a cloud controller, and updates continuously. It also offers high visibility."
"Its management is most valuable. It is the major feature of Meraki."
"Cisco Wireless is highly stable."
"I'm very satisfied with Cisco's technical support."
"Creating policies is simple."
"The solution is scalable."
"Cisco has good support services."
"This is a very stable solution that solves complex issues."
"I like that Cisco Wireless is easy to implement. If you get stuck with any issues, they have ample documentation on the internet. It's easy to implement, and Cisco documentation is easily accessible."
"The integration is great."
"If you want to do more specific stuff, it's a bit limited."
"The solution is expensive."
"I need a bit more time with it before criticizing the features."
"Juniper Wireless Access Points (AP Series) could improve if the MIST platform had a built-in master key. This would be an advantage."
"Juniper Wireless AP can improve by continually improving its reporting and integration with other systems."
"Concern when there are a number of concurrent users."
"The only concern is when the license has expired and it will no longer function, the entire network goes down, without any notification, or warning."
"The dashboard could be a bit better. I'd like to see more information about the whole controller and APs. It should be as simple and convenient."
"There's nothing that special about it."
"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."
"Cisco offers pretty expensive devices."
"It would be useful to have a service management platform integrated within this solution where we can measure the customer experience."
"If you lose connectivity with the controller, your Wi-Fi network is immediately impacted."
"And from an administration point of view, it is a very tedious job to check on each and every control. We have around 30 or 40 controls in our network."
"This solution is very expensive, which means we often have to go for cheaper options instead."
"The solution could improve by having an advanced model with a controller. Additionally, the solution could be more secure."
"In the future, I would like to have Cisco add video documentation on configuring and overall learning of how to use the solutions. For example, in such areas as, security, authentication, and load balancing."
"The solution is stable but it could be improved. However, this could be because there are not enough APs."
"In the next release, I would like to see some AI capability deployed. Other competitors like Mist and Juniper already have it. So, AI features need to be introduced next year."
"Its licensing model and cost should be improved."
"For all products on the market, the availability of the products may not be ideal. We're waiting on a lot of products simply due to the fact that there's a material shortage. We've ordered products and have had to wait three or four months for anything to get delivered. This is not just Cisco. It's a problem on the market for all components which include semiconductors."
More Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is ranked 3rd in Wireless LAN with 45 reviews while Cisco Wireless is ranked 2nd in Wireless LAN with 54 reviews. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is rated 7.8, while Cisco Wireless is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN writes "Highly reliable, effective site blocking, and beneficial reports". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Wireless writes "Robust with a good level of performance and very helpful technical support". Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is most compared with Aruba Wireless, Ubiquiti Wireless, Mist AI and Cloud, Ruckus Wireless and Fortinet FortiWLM, whereas Cisco Wireless is most compared with Aruba Wireless, Ubiquiti WLAN, Ruckus Wireless, Huawei Wireless and D-Link Wireless. See our Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. Cisco Wireless report.
See our list of best Wireless LAN vendors.
We monitor all Wireless LAN reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
Cisco Wireless is very robust, very rugged, and can handle indoor and outdoor coverage extremely well. We found it to be very reliable and to consistently run very efficiently. Cisco Wireless helped us get more network access to more people wirelessly across some very large spaces.
It is expensive, though. The Cisco Wireless portal, like many Cisco products, can be very complex. The flexibility of the controllers needs fixing and Cisco Wireless requires a bit of tweaking to get the stability right. We would also like to see the reporting improved - this would help make troubleshooting easier.
Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is very user-friendly. You don’t have to be a wireless engineer to set it up. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is cloud-based, which is very convenient as you don’t have to have a physical controller, saving valuable space, power, and redundancy. This solution offers advanced configurations that are a great fit for small to medium-sized businesses that can’t employ an advanced tech team. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is high-performance, stable, scalable, and very easy to deploy, and offers a dashboard that makes managing the solution very easy.
Some of the built-in capabilities and filtering with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN needs to be made easier to use. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN needs to better identify devices, and the TAC reading and interpretation capabilities are not always accurate. There are also some processing limitations when you have multiple SSIDs.
Conclusion
As these are both Cisco products, they offer brand recognition you can trust, great quality, and good durability.
We found that Cisco Wireless offered slightly better access points and improved coverage, allowing the creation of better networks. Cisco Wireless takes a one-time payment for the hardware, and then annual payments. If you employ Cisco’s knowledgeable team members, this will be a good fit for you.
The huge selling point for Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is its ease of use. You don’t need to have a lot of knowledge to deploy or manage processes, which makes this a great product for smaller businesses with a less tech-savvy team.
The standard answer to such a question is: it depends.
The pricing for both solutions is very similar: per-AP, Meraki is more expensive than Cisco Wireless. Cisco APs are cheaper, but the controller raises the solution price to be almost equal to Meraki.
Meraki is subscription-based and requires constant internet access to manage the system. If the annual license expires, the APs will work, but you can't manage them or read reports of the Meraki portal.
Cisco Wireless is a one-time payment for the hardware with annual support payments. if you have a small office with only a few APs needed, you can use the Cisco Mobility Express Controller (which uses one of the APs or a Catalyst Switch as the controller) but that has a limit of 100 APs.