Meraki MS Switches Reviews

I am using MX400, MS320, MX250, and MS250. We also used MX64 before. We have replaced it with MX67.

The solution is efficient and easy to run.

The product has no CLI. The solution must provide a command line interface like the one in the Cisco environment with a proper iOS interrogation ability. It's the biggest thing for me because we don't know what these devices are doing half the time. It takes a long time to know we've committed a configuration change in Meraki. Sometimes, we have to wait for long before anything happens.

I have been using the solution for at least five years.

We have also used Cisco routers. They were plugged into NETGEAR Switches in our branches throughout the country. However, my organization wanted more visibility and the ability for our first-line support to do things rather than needing a higher technical level. So, we switched to Meraki.

The tool is expensive.

I will recommend the tool to an organization depending on its needs. It is a convenient product. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We can build virtual stacking for the switches. It helps manage multiple switches deployed in different locations with a single console on the cloud. If we make any configuration changes, it can be changed across all the features using it.

It is a cloud-based product and depends on internet connectivity. It is not limited to specific geographical areas as well. So, we cannot provide these switches in the BFSI segment, especially the banking sector, as they have certain limitations due to regulatory guidelines. 

They could add NAS encryption protocol to the switches. Nowadays, many customers enquire about this feature.

We have been using Meraki MS Switches for almost eight years.

Stability-wise, I rate the product as a nine out of ten.

We have seven to eight customers for Meraki MS Switches from the manufacturing sector. I rate its scalability an eight out of ten.

The product's technical support team needs to take ownership of the problems. There is always room for improvement.

Neutral

I am working with many product competitors like Ruckus, HP, Juniper, etc.

We have implemented the product in Cisco cloud infrastructure itself. It is a private cloud based on a public cloud setup like AWS, Azure, or Google. It provides connectivity to the devices through the internet via a terminal. We require two people to manage the entire setup for maintenance.

The product's licensing cost is about 30% to 40% of the hardware cost. We have a yearly subscription. All the features are bundled in the licensing component. There are no additional costs involved.

It is one of the best products. It has a very good dashboard and a straightforward configuration. Although, it is not compliant with the requirements of specific industries that want to set it up within a particular region or country. In such cases, we provide them with on-premise solutions.

I recommend it to others and rate it a seven out of ten.

Meraki MS Switches have revolutionized our network operations. With cloud-based management, deployment is effortless, and monitoring is streamlined.

Meraki MS Switches have been invaluable in our network management. Compared to other switches, Meraki stands out with features like Power over Ethernet. This capability, along with remote manageability, has transformed our network operations, allowing us to implement changes quickly and efficiently while maintaining our organization's standards. It has been a refreshing change, making our tasks easier and more streamlined.

The most valuable features of Meraki MS Switches are their reliability and simplicity. Once they are plugged in, they just work without needing much maintenance. They are dependable in various environments, from office to field settings. With Meraki, you can trust that they will perform reliably, which has been my experience.

One area where Meraki MS switches could improve is offering smaller switch sizes for distribution switches, as not all networks require the standard 24 or 48 ports. Having more compact options with fewer ports would be beneficial, especially for distribution switches with only a few connections needed. This could help optimize space, power usage, and cost efficiency, particularly for networks with many end-user switches and few distribution switches.

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for over a year.

I would rate the stability of the product as a ten out of ten. I have not faced any issues so far.

I would rate the scalability of Meraki MS Switches as a solid ten out of ten. We have approximately 20,000 end users at our company.

The technical support is excellent.

Before Meraki, we used a mix of Cisco and other brands. Then we switched exclusively to Cisco and eventually to Meraki.

I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as an eight out of ten. The deployment of Meraki MS switches typically takes a few days. We prepare parameters and schedule remote sessions with our network administrators. The actual session lasts about an hour, but the whole process involves coordination and preparation, including in-house support from an external company.

I would rate the costliness of Meraki MS Switches at around seven out of ten. They are not cheap, but I find them to be a good value for the money. However, I would prefer if the prices were a bit lower.

The analytics and dashboard functionalities of Meraki have greatly enhanced my network monitoring. While I primarily use it to monitor basic parameters like bandwidth and connectivity, it allows me to quickly spot potential issues and react promptly, despite overseeing a wide area.

In high-density environments, my experience with Meraki MS switches has been positive. They handle multiple wireless networks cohesively, including those for office and public use, without issues.

Overall, I would rate Meraki MS Switches as a nine out of ten.

My company currently has about a dozen switches in operation in multiple locations. We've got probably about four or five of them in our main headquarters, then we've also rolled out to individual sites to utilize them. We remove the Cisco router and go directly into what we currently have as an SD-WAN solution.

Updates are easier to administrate. Security is handled in real time updates.

Overall a great solution.

The most valuable features are the cloud and throughput visibility, the ease of configuration, and being able to implement them into our umbrella DNS solution.

As far as the downside, I would say that they're not data center ideal. They're definitely missing some of the higher end data center Cisco features, but I'm sure those are coming down the road. Probably the only other downside I see to these is that they're very limited in their GUI for the initial configuration. 

3 Years

So far, I have not seen any of the switches go down. 

I think the only downside that I've seen so far in the scalability of the product is that they don't have anything that's more than a 48-port switch. They're more useful as access switches than as core switches for large environments. I mean, you can stack them nicely, but I haven't seen anything like a blade switch. It's different from what we standardized on in the past, with the Cisco 6500 or the 4000 series blade switches.

The support has always been really good. 

This product is very straightforward. They're a little bit of a change from the standard Cisco gear, but if you understand the networking and how things work, they're pretty simple to set up.

We have the switches on the cloud, so we can centrally administer updates from the cloud pretty simply. It's nice in that respect because you don't have to have hands-on maintenance. 

Everybody would love for the pricing to be cheaper than it is, but I don't know if that's a legitimate ask.

It's $150 per year for licensing on each 250 switch. The 425 switches are about $500 a year for the enhanced enterprise licenses. 

My advice to those looking at implementing the product would be to understand how to get into the console before implementing the switches because, in a secure environment, they may not be able to call back initially without a little bit of configuration. However, if you have broadband with DHCP, it's simple to get the initial configuration downloaded.

I would rate this solution as an eight out of ten. If they had a little bit more advanced features, I'd raise them up, but they're real good.

I've got the appliances and I've got the switches and I've got the access points.

I have switches for the phones and the access points. I have standard switches for the network. However, I'm doing the layer-two switching. I don't do any additional programming on them. The advantage that I have with them is the user portal. I can find the endpoints by port. Therefore, if I need to control it, I can do it from the portal and shut a port down, however, I don't do any additional programming beyond layer two.

I like that I can patch and manage them remotely from the user portal. It's easy to patch and manage from anywhere.

The initial setup is easy.

I don't see any need for any improvements for my particular use case. 

They could lower the price.

At my latest company, we've used the solution for three years. However, I've worked with the product for seven years. 

In terms of stability. they're as good as any other switches I've used. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

I don't know that you scale switches. You get them for whatever amount of ports they're on.

I have sites with 24 port switches and I have sites with 48 port switches. Their size is growing to meet the needs we have.

Before this, I had HP and Cisco and was actively buying HP switches. We switched, not that it is cheaper. I am required in our industry to always be on the current firmware. That would, in the past, require either working late hours or scheduling downtime to do those updates. Now I can schedule them for any time of the day in the off hours. It happens automatically. There wasn't much difference between any of the switches. 

It's a straightforward implementation. 

I just did plug-and-play.

I can maintain them from my desk. I'm a one-person shop. They are very easy to take care of.

For example, I can schedule patch management. The biggest concern is keeping them patched or updated so that the firmware is always current to avoid potential bad players or issues. I can schedule that and do that all from the console. I don't have to worry about staying up late at night to do it or taking it down in the middle of the day and scheduling downtime. In the middle of the night, I can say, "Patch it," and it'll be done.

The pricing is high and could be reduced. 

The initial cost is above HP and probably comparable to Cisco. HP, on their switches, still has a limited lifetime warranty. You buy it and you'll get support and replacement for the life of the switch. The maintenance on the Meraki is not that great. I buy it three years at a time. It's not a big number.

Visibility is part of the Meraki mindset or the culture. You manage your infrastructure from a single portal. I have visibility into what's going on from a single portal, and I can manage and update and maintain it from that single portal. I don't have to have multiple solutions. I don't have to log into the switches. Everything's managed from that single portal. It's great.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

Meraki is a cloud-based solution that can be accelerated to clients and compensate for the entire gamut of networking, switching, wireless, and gateway security. Everything can be managed and monitored from the cloud. It's a multidimensional scenario where clients might have many locations and need infrastructure to be deployed quickly and remotely. If there's no local manpower available at those sites, then these are the ideal use cases for Meraki.

For me, management and security is the most valuable feature. Moreover, Meraki has a beautiful management console from where you can manage the entire solution.

From an enterprise level, too, their pricing is reasonable. Being the Cisco umbrella, they are on the higher end but pretty okay.

The challenge we face, not only with Meraki but maybe with all vendors, is the delivery timeline because of our global issues. There is a lead time issue that we are facing, specifically on the Cisco or Meraki. If Cisco can work on something with better lead times, they could regain the edge they lost due to delivery delays that have happened for the last two years.

If it's a greenfield kind of opportunity, Meraki does make sense. But, if they can look at opening up a bit of their management portfolio to other vendors, too, maybe it will be more useful because many clients might already have some solutions as part of their environment. In case they have a few switches of some other brand, Fortinet, or they could have switches from HP. If Meraki can also address this point of managing those components as part of their cloud offering, that will help the future upgrade.

There is definitely room for improvement in the delivery lead time. In case someone wants to procure something new, inherently, Cisco was having a challenge even for Cisco hardware to get all the components. Even now, as we see, the delivery lead time is close to four to five months. Clients are not ready to wait for five months for a business to start. They want it immediately. They placed the order today, and in another two to three weeks, they need the hardware.

I have been using this solution for eight years.

Stability had some issues early on, but now it's more or less stable. I have not received many complaints from clients using the Meraki MS Switches. It's pretty okay now and has reached that level of stability.

It is a scalable solution. It's a cloud-based solution, so you can add as many devices as you want.

Initially, there were some challenges related to dependencies. However, since Cisco TAC has taken over, I have noticed a significant improvement in the speed at which issues are resolved. The call is now diverted to the same tag, which has made the process faster and more efficient.

The initial setup is fine. The device is manageable console-wise and has a user-friendly GUI.

When it comes to implementation, it's just a matter of plug-in and start working. A branch could be up and running in half an hour, provided the necessary parameters are set and available.

Meraki MS Switches is neither too expensive nor too cheap, but yes, opex-wise, Meraki is not too cheap. Again, if you want me to rate it on a scale of zero to ten, with ten being the most expensive, I would rate Meraki around six and a half.

Price can be better because if there are other offerings in the market, they are also scaling up, gearing up, and giving most of the functionality similar to what Meraki is able to give. To be competitive in the market, it's better that some pre-thinking can be done from the pricing front too.

The pricing model is based on a yearly renewal because everybody is in the subscription world. But we generally ask clients to go for a three-year upfront purchase. Then, after every three years, they need to renew.

Depending on the customer's overall solution, we also work with other networking components, such as Fortinet and other cybersecurity solutions.

If it's a single-location kind of environment, definitely, you have got other options to look at. But if you have a multi-site kind of environment and you need all inherent functionalities starting off from the basic networking, going on to security, and going on to your SD-WAN and other functionalities to be part of the same solution, then it's the right solution that you can look at because it has all these as part of the inherent OS itself. And the biggest benefit that you get is that it is manageable. It's a cloud-based offering, and you can very well manage the entire setup without even being at the site, provided that the environment is on the network.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use the solution for our networking.

The most beneficial features of Meraki MS Switches are the visibility and convenience they provide. We have a single-pane-of-glass and a cloud-based management dashboard, so we do not need to manually configure each device. This is the greatest advantage. Additionally, they are easy to deploy with zero-touch provisioning, meaning that even those with limited technical knowledge can connect the devices.

Meraki MS Switches do not offer as many features as their competitors, so we are quite limited in what we can configure on the switches and firewalls. They are meant to be simple, but perhaps they should offer advanced features for more experienced users who would like to opt for them. I would suggest improving the price as well, as Meraki MS Switches are quite expensive due to their Cisco branding.

Perhaps in a future release, we could implement security technologies that are not yet available, such as SAC. To do this, we may need to purchase different types of switches; for example, Cisco has an access switch for data centers that allows for virtual port channeling, which cannot be done with a regular switch. However, this is a different market and use case.

The price of the solution has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for almost four years.

The solution is stable and we have not encountered any issues. Meraki MS Switches have a familiar life cycle, so we are not required to upgrade. Everything can be done automatically as long as we adhere to the most common scenarios; we should be good. We have 150 locations where we use them and we have not experienced any stability issues.

The solution is scalable. The solution is suitable for all organization sizes, except for those that are very large and require a service provider or data center, footage. Meraki should be a good fit as long as a reasonable price can be negotiated and the technology is compatible.

Technical support is quite satisfactory. It may not be as great as Cisco support, but it is much better than other vendors I have had to work with. Response times are still quite fast and we can call someone if we have an urgent problem, with reasonable waiting times. Whenever I have needed help, I either get the answer or am being pointed in the right direction. Overall, it is quite satisfactory.

Neutral

The pricing varies. If we start with this small eight-plus switch, it is quite inexpensive. However, if we need some ten gig switches, it can be very expensive, ranging up to $10,000 or $18,000. Additionally, we also need to purchase the license, making it more costly than the regular Cisco Catellis.

I evaluated Ubiquiti UniFi.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

It makes sense to purchase Meraki MS Switches if we already have other Meraki devices, such as IPs. Getting the switches is a good choice, or if we plan to use the full Meraki stack, including the firewall, switch, and AP, then we will benefit from visibility in the dashboard. If we mix and match equipment, then it is not ideal as support may not be as good, and we may have difficulty identifying the source of any issues. If we use Meraki, then they will take responsibility for any issues on the network.

Ubiquiti UniFi Switches are the main competitor to Meraki MS Switches because they offer a range of products, including switches, access points, security appliances, cameras, and more. However, Ubiquiti is primarily focused on small-to-middle-sized businesses, and their prices are lower than Meraki's. However, they do not provide the same level of support or documentation as Meraki, and their warranty is much shorter - only one year compared to Meraki's lifetime warranty on data devices.

For our customers, there are multiple locations, around 3,500.

My configuration is to do the configurations on Cisco Meraki Dashboard. There are MS Avant switches, MS switches, MS routers, et cetera. Mostly, I work with all the switches, switch modems and routers, and access points also.

The switches are very stable. 

It's able to expand.

The product is easy to set up. 

Sometimes, when we plug the new switch into the internet, they will upgrade there and it'll take time. At times, we didn't know whether the switch was operating or not so we have to take the console and we have to do some troubleshooting. In the console, we can find out there if the Cisco Meraki switch is not connected with the Meraki cloud. 

The MG21 is not working on a 5G SIM card. It requires 4G SIM cards. Therefore, we are using two links, an internet broadband link and one for MG21 that is on SIM card based for small sites. We all suffer a lot of issues for MG21. 

I've been using the solution for five years. 

It is stable as a product. The solution is reliable. There aren't any bugs or glitches. 

It is a product that can scale. It's not a problem.

Typically, if I run into issues, I'd run them by my team lead. I don't reach out to Cisco directly. It's a good solution. We don't run into many issues. 

I previously used Cisco and HP switches. 

I've also used an Alcatel switch.

The solution is very straightforward, actually. It is not complex. This is a simple product to configure.

In terms of the ease of setup, I'd rate it a nine out of ten. 

I'm not familiar with the exact cost of the solution. 

Our organization has a partnership with Meraki.

It is a good product and it is scalable. It is not too complex in terms of configuration. It supports a lot of technology.

I'd rate the product eight out of ten.