We performed a comparison between Cisco Wireless and Ruckus Wireless based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: As competitors, Cisco Wireless and Ruckus Wireless come in at a close tie. Both products offer a really strong set of features. However, their pricing is where each stands out, with Cisco being more expensive and Ruckus being affordable. In addition, users of Ruckus Wireless report seeing an immediate ROI.
"The installation process is very easy."
"The installation process is nice and easy."
"The Artificial Intelligence on offer is very useful."
"Cisco is one of the leading vendors and is at the top of many lists. The access software is robust, and the performance of the devices is excellent."
"Overall, Cisco was stable and worked well for all our needs until we started having more and more students and teachers using YouTube and Zoom — what with classes being isolated and everything — which put a lot of strain on our Wi-Fi network."
"The support is very good. Technical support is very helpful."
"The stability is great. It's very reliable."
"The customer always feels confident with the solution because of its reliability."
"We were able to utilize the elements of the core and provide a solution to our customers similar to that of Cisco Meraki."
"The installation process is very easy."
"Cisco has good support services."
"Ruckus Wireless is a valuable solution. It's both scalable and reliable."
"Ruckus Wireless is a reliable solution."
"Ruckus Wireless provides good coverage."
"Valuable features include Bonjour Gateway and the hardware antenna array."
"The most valuable feature is the performance. It works great."
"Its high capacity is the most valuable. It is also very stable. It is way more stable than other platforms."
"It's easy to install, and the management is flexible."
"The most valuable feature is that this solution is reliable."
"The support on offer to other vendors switching - like Aruba or Ruckus - could be improved."
"The solution could offer more integration with other products."
"We would prefer it if the solution could be less expensive."
"Code stability is something that needs to be improved."
"We've recently had hardware issues which have caused us some problems."
"In the next release, I would like to have support for Wi-Fi 6."
"We use a Cisco product called Room Kit for meetings. It would be nice if Cisco could improve that. I would also like a cloud solution."
"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."
"Older versions used to be hard to deploy. The latest OS, however, has made things a lot easier. While deployment is much better, it could always be even easier."
"There are some areas of improvement needed in roaming and streaming."
"The solution is stable but it could be improved. However, this could be because there are not enough APs."
"It is very difficult to convince the customer to choose Ruckus because of the price."
"What would be interesting to see is if they had more of an ability for their customers to capture revenue. They should offer some sort of gateway functionality that you could tie through radius authentication, so you can bill the customers. That way, when you go in, you could just have a device and set up a hotspot, and it's a totally billable tool at that point."
"The price could be improved."
"The pricing needs to be more competitive. They need to re-examine their business model and see if there is a way to provide their service at a cheaper cost."
"Sometimes doing mass changes on their products can be challenging."
"The initial setup could be more straightforward. It would be better if we could seamlessly integrate security tools like a firewall or IPS with Ruckus Wireless."
"There is some strain with Ruckus because of various buyouts involving the company used for data centers and the cluster."
"We would like to see a better licensing model for our customers."
Cisco Wireless is ranked 2nd in Wireless LAN with 78 reviews while Ruckus Wireless is ranked 4th in Wireless LAN with 56 reviews. Cisco Wireless is rated 8.2, while Ruckus Wireless is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco Wireless writes "Robust with a good level of performance and very helpful technical support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Ruckus Wireless writes "Great performance, easy to set up and simple to configure". Cisco Wireless is most compared with Aruba Wireless, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, Ubiquiti WLAN, Huawei Wireless and NETGEAR Insight Access Points, whereas Ruckus Wireless is most compared with Aruba Wireless, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, Fortinet FortiWLM, Aruba Instant and SonicWall SonicWave Access Points. See our Cisco Wireless vs. Ruckus 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.
They both do a great job. But it depends on the application scenario.
For corporate environments probably Cisco will perform better not only because of Cisco Wi-Fi features but especially because you can be integrated with all Cisco infrastructure and manage it all.
In heavy-duty environments, like public hot-spot, stadiums, exhibition centers, etc, Ruckus should be considered. In this type of applications, pure Wi-Fi performance is more important than management features or security, and therefore, it could be the better choice.
If you care more about performance and stable communications, Ruckus Wireless is definitely better.
Ruckus Wireless APs have;
- Adaptive antenna technology (called BeamFlex). This technology analyzes different paths to reach the client and electronically turns itself to a directional antenna, choosing the path that gives the best performance to reach each specific client. If the client is mobile or if the environment changes (such as a warehouse) the selection of paths/direction also changes instantly.
Transmitting in a directional way allows a good Signal-to-Noise Ratio and also causes less interference for other nearby APs outside the path of the directional transmission.
- ChannelFly technology. This technology chooses the best channel based on performance rather than background scanning for noise.
- Polarization Diversity. This technology allows the clients not to lose signal strength when held at different angles (important for mobile devices such as tablets and telephones).
- Better receive sensitivity compared to the competitors.
All these features make Ruckus Wireless a better choice than any other competitor (better performance, better coverage area, more stable and surprise-free communication especially in not so easy conditions such as noise, too many clients, too much traffic).