Meraki MS Switches Reviews

A primary use case involves small to mid-sized offices consisting of under five hundred ports. 

While I do not have metrics to demonstrate how the product has improved the functioning of my organization, I can state that the upgrades to the portal have made it easier to manage the switches and the flexibility of the configurations. As for deployment, as you know, there are obviously multiple configuration styles. If you are going to do layer three at the edge, layer three at the core, the flexibility of the devices is very good. I cannot state to what extent improvements accrue to the investment, although I do know it is getting better.

The most valuable feature of the product is the console. The second most valuable feature is the technical support and the infrastructure behind the console.

Performance is an area in need of improvement. Other systems, such as Juniper switches, perform better for the same or less money. For consistency and ease of use, Cisco is definitely better, but performance is where things fall short. 

Price to performance value when compared with competitors is a feature that should be addressed in the next release. 

I have been working with Meraki MS Switches for four or five years. I try to use the latest models available. I have used the 250 and 450 and will have to check if I used another one. 

The product has good stability. 

The product demonstrates good scalability. 

I want to use the product so that I may plug it in and set it up in fifteen minutes. Then, when I have to troubleshoot something, it's easy. When I have a problem with the network, I call up technical support and they help. They actually help.

With other companies, when asking for something beyond the scope of technical support's outline, I would have the feeling of being deferred and not receiving the necessary help.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

I choose to rate the product a nine out of ten because of the cost. Remember, you and I are not paying for the equipment. Someone is paying for it. Someone has to be willing to pay the premium for this and they have to see the value. I am not a salesman, but if I want to go with Cisco, I need to show the client the better value of buying Cisco Meraki over Ubiquiti.

Another system I evaluated is Juniper switches. 

We provide Meraki Switches to schools, universities, and hospitals.

We find value in its ability to enable cloud management and visibility. They are also easy to deploy. It's very convenient because you can see who is accessing, what type of UI system they're using, what applications they're using, the bandwidth, and more. Management is also easy as you can access and manage the switches from anywhere. As it's managed on the cloud, we can support customers remotely if there's a problem.

Their subscription model could be better. Some of our customers prefer a one-time payment to a monthly or yearly subscription model, so they don't buy the product. Technical support could also be better.

We have been dealing with Meraki MS Switches for about four years.

It's a stable product.

Meraki MS Switches are scalable. 

Technical support could be better. Some support agents aren't adequately qualified to support us. Their technical skill needs to improve.

Meraki Switches have some advantages compared to others. For example, visibility, management, and auto device detection. 

The initial setup is simple. 

We provide installation and implementation services. Most of our customers use the warranty for maintenance.

It would be better if they had a one-time purchase option instead of a subscription model.

It's more suitable for medium-sized companies.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Meraki MS Switches a nine.

We are using the MS425 series. We like the ease of use, ease of administration, and central dashboard. Meraki also has fantastic documentation and community.

With its central dashboard, we can deploy a generic configuration across hundreds of switches, rather than doing it in the old school way where an individual or a group of engineers would log onto each device via CLI, which takes a long time. So, everything is connected.

It can have better security. It needs more security enhancements, and in particular, a zero-trust element. If we could have external and internal users vetted in the same way as a zero-trust network, that will be handy.

I have been using this solution for the last nine months.

It is probably not as scalable as Cisco Catalyst 9000 Series, which includes the 9200s, 9300s, and 9500s. Its security requirements aren't as strong as the Cisco DNA portfolio. 

Globally, we have about 3,000 users. We're on a five-year subscription. As and when the business requires more, we will increase its usage. We will no doubt adopt the same solution because that's our LAN standard now. It is the global standard.

We didn't need their support, but I do know that for any questions, they're normally very helpful. There are lots of configuration guidelines and best practice documentation. Meraki has fantastic documentation and community.

I'm currently trying out Cisco 9000 Series Catalyst Switches because this particular customer was stung by a ransomware attack. So, they're looking to lock down every single portion of the network, and they want everything to fall under the banner of a zero-trust network with lots of security tools, agents, and hosts.

It is very easy to install. You probably could get away with zero-touch provisioning or plug-and-play. All the profiles are pre-configured on the central dashboard, and then a non-technical person could be on-site and plug everything in based on how you've drawn things out in a topology drawing. After that, you just take the reins and just check, and that's it.

A lot of customers deploy it during LAN refresh. When Meraki came out, they were the best cloud-based access point. Everything was centrally managed through the central dashboard. It was a cloud-based wireless LAN controller. Then they started to infiltrate into the LAN switching arena. So basically, everyone wants a single pane to administer their network, and that's what you can get with Meraki. It is a single pane incorporating everything from switches to access points to even routers, which are MX SD-WAN.

I would recommend this solution if security is not paramount. If you're a secure industry or a technology company where you want a bit more security, it is probably not suitable for you. It is suitable if you're in retail or manufacturing where security isn't paramount.

I would rate Meraki MS Switches an eight out of ten because they're really easy to configure.

We primarily use the solution for switches for our clients.

The cloud management on the solution is very good.

The Wi-Fi 6 for access points is excellent.

The performance is pretty good.

We've found the initial setup very simple.

The stability of the solution is quite good.

The scalability potential of the solution is great.

Clients are very confused by technical support. They seem to have trouble reaching Meraki to get the assistance they need.

I'd prefer if they'd go for Layer 3 features. We do not have access to these yet. Aruba, for example, offers full Layer 3 features.

I've been using the solution for about a year at this point. It hasn't been too long just yet.

The solution is very stable. The performance is reliable. It doesn't have any bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash and freeze.

The scalability of the solution is rather good. If a company needs to scale, it can do so with ease.

We typically work with small and medium enterprises.

There isn't a convenient first-hand way to communicate with technical support right now. The tech support is mainly through Cisco - which is very quick typically. However, with Meraki, which is separate from Cisco, customers can only directly contact support through dashboard licenses and they can't open a case with Meraki effectively. They don't know how to reach the right people, and so they come to us, the distributors, to get answers. We need to advise them to go directly to Meraki technical support as we are not in a position to help them, and they tell us they can't, that Meraki is not available. 

Meraki needs to make their technical support policies and processes very clear and to communicate this to their clients so that their clients know how to reach out when there are issues. It shouldn't fall to us.

We did not previously work with other solutions, although we are looking at a few options now. We're considering something in two months or so.

The initial setup is not complex. It's very simple and easy to set up. It's straightforward.

The deployment and management are very easy.

The solution's pricing can be high on Cisco. There are options, such as Avaya, that can be a bit lower. The pricing of this solution isn't too bad.

We are a Cisco partner.

We primarily use the solution in our client companies. We don't use the solution ourselves.

I'd recommend this solution to smaller companies and enterprises. For larger-scale organizations, such as campuses, Cisco Catalyst may be better.

Overall, I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

I am using it to put it in a secure end-to-end solution in my IT lab. I am using MX65. I have got three Meraki solutions. I have the switch, the access point, and the appliance itself.

Being able to look at every port and see what it is connected to is very useful. Everything seems to be running really well. They've got everything covered.

They have a really cool mounting system at the bottom and an access point that you can use to level up your device. It is kind of cool.

It would be great if they can get the price down for small businesses.

I have been using this solution for three years.

It is rock solid.

They are after a certain market, that is, the small business market. You wouldn't put a Meraki solution at an enterprise level. That's not the market that they want to go after. You would probably scale up to full Cisco for that.

They've always been really good. To be able to get somebody at the end of the line is the real advantage of having a subscription-based solution. I had to wait for maybe three minutes at the most.

You can initiate a service request from the device itself, which is something that not too many companies do. When you're logged into the interface, you can see who your rep is. You have full connection to support. If you want to learn how to configure VLAN, you just click on the support ticket, it generates a ticket. It figures out your number and other information and sends an inquiry ticket with Meraki, and they call you back.

I have used a lot of stuff at the lower end, such as SonicWall, Linksys, and TP-link. I have also used the actual Cisco stuff, but it just never worked together. I haven't worked with Ubiquiti, but I believe that they've got a similar product. I haven't been hands-on with Fortinet, but I understand that they have a quite selective setup as well.

In terms of security and intelligence, Linksys and other such solutions tend to be more for the home business, so they are not really competing with each other. Ubiquiti competes with them, but I haven't worked with Ubiquiti.

Its setup is very easy. A kid could do this stuff. It is cloud-based. There is one interface for all three devices. They are all tied together under a web console.

I configured it myself, and I am not a real techie guy.

You need one person for its maintenance. I pretty much do it all myself.

They can get the price down for small businesses. The way I bought it, I paid hardly anything, and I got all my licensing with it.

The firewall appliance is around $900, and the switches are around $150. This is for the device itself. For licensing, I signed at $70 or something like that for the switch. Technical Support is included in this.

I wouldn't try and manage any piece of Cisco equipment by itself. You wouldn't want to just buy a Meraki Switch. You wouldn't be able to access it the same way as your firewall. It is only when you start off with an MS cloud appliance, you can add on the Meraki stuff.

I would rate Meraki MS Switches a nine out of ten. They are a good rig.

The use case is small to mid-sized offices, under 500 ports.

The upgrades to the portal made it easier to manage the switches. The flexibility of the configurations is great — there are multiple configuration styles relating to deployment. If you're going to do Layer 3 at the edge, you're going to do Layer 3 at the core. The flexibility of the devices is very good.

The most valuable feature about Meraki is the console. The second most valuable feature, to me, is the technical support and the infrastructure behind the console.

I think their feature set is far better than most

The biggest area that they fall short on is comparing the performance. I don't have the articles in front of me, but the performance of a Cisco Meraki Switch versus some of the other devices that are more expensive or are equally as expensive as Meraki, they're falling short on the performance, because you're paying so much more money and they're not performing better.

That is a big problem when you talk to clients who've researched this. If ease of use and flexibility is important, I usually forego the high-end performance for the money. The performance is not bad, but let's say I bought one of the other Cisco switches or Juniper switches — they perform better for the same amount or even less money. That's a big drawback.

They need to work on the performance. Maybe the chipset that they're using is not as good as Juniper, for example. But their goal is not performance, it's consistency. If you're about consistency and ease of use, Cisco is definitely better. If you're about performance, that's where they fall short.

Keep in mind, that's my opinion; someone may argue differently with me — that Meraki is not better. It's not slower or less performance-optimized, but it's something I come up against when I discuss it and offer it as a solution versus Juniper or some other devices.

I want to use Meraki because I want to be able to plug it in and set it up in 15 minutes. Then when I have to troubleshoot something, it's easy. When I have a problem with the network, I call them up and they help. They actually help. You call up some of these other vendors, they're like, "Huh? Oh, you got to do all this stuff." I'm like, "No, no, no. Let's look at the logs together. Then you tell me what you see. And then I'll fix, or I'll adjust, or we'll replace." I don't want to go through this whole story and song and dance as I did with HP. So it's a problem.

Cisco overcomes that, but performance is where they get hurt. When you talk to any of the other guys that do network architecture, they're like, "Well, we're not going to pick Cisco Meraki. We're going to pick the other Cisco switches, or we're going to pick Juniper, or we're going to pick something else, but we're not going to go with Meraki." I'm like, "Okay." But in a small to medium-sized business, you can't beat them. 

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for four to five years.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Meraki MS Switches a rating of nine. The only drawback is the cost — that's what kills them.

I am not paying for the equipment; someone else is paying for it. Someone has to be willing to pay the premium for that and they have to see the value. I'm not a salesman, but if I want to go with Cisco, I have to show the client that if they buy Cisco Meraki versus Ubiquiti, they're going to do better.

This solution is suited for the cookie factory just around the corner and up to including multinational organizations with locations spanning around the globe.

The solution is a switch and many of them do the same operations, it connects devices together.

In this solution, you are lacking a feature that Cisco Classic has that allows you to save your configuration with a serial cable.

In some deployments, I would like stacking to act like RAID 1 but not if you are updating the firmware of one switch in a stack. Stacking and switches with Meraki, they need to improve on this. I had a different experience with Extreme Networks which behave completely different.

I have been using the solution for approximately three years.

I have found the solution to be stable.

The solution is plug and play. If you want to upgrade, all you do is plug it in and it works.

In my experience, they sometimes reply with a proper answer and others they reply with, "You can always file the I wish button request" I am confused why an organization would push automatically scheduled release candidate firmware. They tend to be too pushy. After this, I have to look at every customer individually and cancel those updates, which does not make sense to me.

I have used Extreme Networks and Cisco products in the past, some of the features are better than this solution in Extreme Networks and Cisco's licenses will not expire like they do in this solution.

The setup was as easy as a setup can be, we had no issues.

The licensing element is not favourite with Meraki. My opinion is if you buy something, it should be yours, and not if the license expires, the lights go out, or you might not be able to manage it anymore. The licensing is purchased on a one, three, five, and seven year basis.

Switches are switches, they do what they say they do on the box. I do recommend this solution If you are looking for something easy, and do not mind having to renew your license or else you will not be able to manage it anymore. Then this solution could be a good fit. Cisco Classic 2900 Series and the likes, they just keep on going. Unless you really need support, that is extra, but at least functionality will not expire with the license.

I rate Meraki MS Switches an eight out of ten.

We are using these switches to provide internet access to our users. They connect the access points.

The dashboard and the interface, in general, are good features. We can work globally and anybody can log in from our web-based console to use it. Everything from switches to access points can be used from a single dashboard.

We had some dashboard licensing issues, maybe because their method of collecting data from the user needs to be more streamlined. It seems that they have collected information from the vendor, but perhaps there is not a proper SOP regarding this.

They collected some vague information that was registered and when it came to us, we found out that they didn't use our proper email address. As a result, licensing became an issue. It was only resolved after we contacted them and changed the details of the registration. Consequently, there was a long delay before we started using it.

When I registered the system in India, there was no problem. However, in the UAE, the vendors were not collecting and properly verifying the details. The need to streamline the licensing data collection process to fix this.

As a manufacturer, or OEM, they might be doing their part correctly, but the vendors might be losing the data. So, they need to be strict on their vendors to collect the information properly. Or, they need to at least contact the people, the end-users, and verify that it is correct. As it is now, they just depend on the vendors' data. Before they register it, they need to contact the customer directly with the data and verify it. Ideally, some kind of SOP should be there.

With no SOP in place, the question becomes one of what happens when Cisco takes the data from the vendor and registers the product, but doesn't verify it by contacting the customer. This can happen in cases where the vendor is in a hurry to sell the product. In fact, they might fill in bogus data and give it to Cisco. Then, once the customer gets the product and starts to configure it, they get the licensing issue like we did, which is the first step in the process. The fails only because the data given by the vendor is wrong, and it's not the fault of the customer.

If instead, Cisco verified the details with the customer again, once they receive the data, it would be better. As I suggest this, it might seem like a slow process, but in today's world, it is not. They can contact the customer directly, using the provided email or mobile number. They can call them, verify the details, and it will be good for both Cisco and the customer.

We have been using Meraki MS Switches for approximately six months.

It is pretty stable so far, but we really only just started using it so I may have more comments in another year or so.

Scalability is something that we'll determine in the long term. At this time, we have between 30 and 50 users. It can scale up to 60.

I have not yet dealt with technical support.

Previously, we used MR access points and we liked the user interface. We wanted to extend that to our switches. At the time, the switches were web-managed but they were not under the same dashboard. Switching to Cisco and Meraki brought everything together, from switches to access points, into a single dashboard.

I was involved in the installation and found that it was straightforward. The deployment took between one and a half and two hours, although we still had the problem with the licensing. That was a long wait.

Our deployment team consisted of three people. There was one person on-site, another in India, and one in the UK.

We are just about to do some configuration with these switches.

This product is quite expensive. The vendor might be cashing in on the dashboard because it's attractive, and nobody else is providing such a sophisticated dashboard. It has the IP, switches, routers, security cameras, and everything else included in one place. So, while the product is expensive, the features they provide are unmatchable.

This is a product that I recommend for others.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.