MikroTik Routers and Switches Reviews

The solution is primarily for routing and switching.

They work nice, and they're easy to set up, and everything.

The routing is nice and straightforward. I run all the MikroTiks and we connect to our office. Therefore, the routing is so easy and the firewall's easy to set up. The queues obviously throttle certain users if they're abusing it. 

Everything just works easy and fine. To block websites is easy. It just works fine for me.

The stability is great.

The product makes scaling very simple.

In terms of the initial setup, it's very straightforward. 

If they can improve the OpenVPN, to make that a bit more straightforward, that would be ideal. Obviously, it's got a built-in OpenVPN server that you can do. I've played around with it a bit, however, normally, if people want OpenVPN, they just use a virtual machine with Ubuntu, as it's just easier to set up. 

When you block a website, so what I normally have to do is create a script with the domain name in it. And then it auto-updates the IP list. If they can maybe implement something where you can block websites using this domain name rather than the IP address, that'll be great. You can also obviously block it via the certificate, however, the problem is, a lot of the websites use a generic certificate from, Certbot or something like that. And then you block that, and it blocks a whole other list of websites. If they can do something like that, it will be great as well. I know it's not so easy as everything's encrypted, however, that'll be a great thing to improve.

If they can implement something for the hotspot, where you can actually filter out, that would be ideal. With the hotspot, you've got your counters. If they can implement something that if you use local data, it doesn't go towards your hotspot. I've got a client and they've set up the hotspot. They use it so they don't use the internet. If they copy something from the server, it goes towards their quota. Now, if you copy a big file from the server, and it uses your quota, then you have to obviously first call them and say, "Listen here, I've copied this thing. Please increase my quota, or reset it," or whatever. That's the only struggle that I found. Other than that, I can't really think of anything else.

I've been using the solution for the last three years.

It's super stable. I've never had any issues. There were obviously a couple of years back, maybe a year or two back, where there was a vulnerability version 6.3 or 5.8 or something, where the people were able to just run a script, and then it would give them the MikroTik username and password. They could obviously just log in and deploy whatever viruses or grab whatever they needed. That's long since fixed. Other than that, I've never had any issues.

The solution is super-easy to scale. 

I've never had to deal with technical support.

If I do need information or whatever, I'm on the Reddit forums everywhere. The community is super helpful. For that reason, I've never had to contact support.

I've got a client that had a Palo Alto, however, the licensing fees were too expensive for them. Eventually, we just got them over on a MikroTik. 

Before I started using MikroTik, I was using open source firewalls such as pfSense and OPNsense, which also obviously worked 100%. The problem is it works out to be expensive due to the fact that if you're running that, you basically have to buy a whole computer. Whereas with the MikroTik, you buy the router and you've got everything, and that's it. I've never really looked at anything else other than that. For example, RB2011, you buy it for R3,000 or R4,000, and that's it. There are no licensing fees, there's nothing. That's what I like. I don't like products where there's obviously recurring cost. Obviously there are required antiviruses and stuff like that. However, that's not that expensive. The bigger firewalls, however, such as Palo Alto or FortiGate have all these licensing fees. The services are very nice, however, for my clients, it's not needed.

The initial setup is easy. That said, for our junior techs, it's not that easy. I normally have to come in, do the firewall, stuff like that. For me, as a seasoned tech, it's pretty straightforward. 

I've got quite a lot of experience with firewalls. However, I'm more likely to look at the open-source stuff like pfSense, OPNsense, and MikroTik. That type of stuff. I try and get protection for my clients as cheap as possible, rather than letting them pay R200,000 a year licensing fee they obviously can't afford. That's why I normally just use the MikroTik.

We normally just buy the solution from the vendors, and then obviously we're just a reseller of IT companies.

I only use the routers. I've never used the switches or the APs. Usually, the switches we use, they're Ubiquiti. Same for the APs. And then obviously for the firewall, router, we use the MikroTik.

With most of my clients, including home users and companies, everything MikroTik. Obviously, the home users will use the RG750. For businesses, they'll use 2011, the bigger switches that have a bit more beef.

In terms of which version we're using, they auto-update. We're always on the latest stable version.

I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use MikroTik Routers and Switches as access points rather than all-purpose routers. We are not working with all of the functions as it is also connected with the Catalyst Switch.

MikroTik Routers and Switches are very good switches. 

They are very compact. 

They use wireless and wired connections that include all of the features.

It's a small firewall that can be managed in that way.

The interface is good. It is easy to deal with.

There are a lot of features included.

The only issue is with the software. The Winbox has many log-ins to it.

The only thing I would improve would be with the software Winbox. It would be helpful to have more than one login capability. 

With the ability that we now have, when you want to change to another user account, using the Winbox and go through the user name and password for one device, the current user name and password for Winbox will be lost. Even if I try to copy the Winbox to a different location, it uses the same user name and password, and if I change it on the copy, it will also be changed on the other destination.

I would like to have the option of having multiple logins.

You should always do something to be better.

We have been working with MikroTik Routers and Switches for a few years.

MikroTik Routers and Switches are very stable. The area that the Wi-Fi inside of it can cover is very large.

The connection inside is stable. It does not require a constant restart, because it's hanging, or when resetting occurs with a system. 

Usually, it has a very stable and wide range of Wi-Fi coverage.

MikroTik Routers and Switches are scalable.

It's mostly connected as a Wi-Fi network with approximately 20 to 25 users.

As of now, we have no plans to increase our usage.

Technical support is good.

Previously, we have used ITP-Link and Linksys Switches.

The initial setup can be simple, but it all depends on the features you intend to use. 

It's simple if you are using it as a regular access point. If not, you'll need a little more information to go over all of the features in detail.

I am currently only using it as an access point. It takes two to three minutes to arrange it, which isn't much.

A license is not required.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I would rate MikroTik Routers and Switches a nine out of ten.

We are a system integrator and this is one of the solutions that we implement for our customers.

Our primary customers are Fiber to the home (FTTH), which are small customers who are connecting by fiber.

We have found this solution is quite robust and there are a lot of features in a small device.

The dimensions of this unit are quite good.

You do not need extra licensing to use all of the features.

In the Israeli market, we are in need of Hebrew support. We would like a Hebrew GUI or something that can translate it. We need this because when we remotely support end-users, they do not always speak English. Hebrew would be lovely.

There are a lot of issues regarding the power supply.

The interface for this solution is in need of a dashboard. Thinking about somebody who is in control of hundred of small routers, they need a way to manage all of them.

This solution is ninety percent stable. The defects are coming from instability with the power system, and there are a lot of issues regarding that.

Most of the errors occur when the system shuts down incorrectly. Otherwise, there are not a lot of bugs.

For our purposes, we are not concerned with scalability. 

We do not use technical support for this solution. We read articles and have been able to do the support ourselves. We do use the forums and the internet for searching for answers.

I am familiar with solutions by Aruba. The MikroTik routers and switches are not as well known in the Israeli market.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward.

The deployment takes approximately twenty minutes for the technician to implement one house. It is a matter of connecting and doing some basic enrollment.

Our technician performs the deployment for our customers.

In our last project, we used two hundred units and the price was approximately 500 Shekels ($140 USD).

My advice is that this is a small package with huge features and you should try it on your own.

The biggest lesson that I learned from this solution is that we underestimated the power and value of MikroTik. We primarily implemented Cisco and Aruba solutions, but since then, we have found that MikroTik can be used in place of these bigger brands.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I configure and implement WiFi internet and wide area networks using MikroTik Routers and Switches. I also use it for connectivity with end-users and for implementing a firewall and routing protocols.

The switches Mikrotik have a good optimization with MSTP, they can interconnect with other brands equipment such as switches Huawei and Cisco. They can easily configure with the app Winbox, creating bridges, and attached ports to differents bridges, working like a differents virtuals switchs. Electing the spanning tree protocol mode into the bridge configuration such as STP,  RSTP and MSTP.

I think they have very strong routers because they have multiple processors. I like its easy configuration with applications. For example, configuration with Linux, Iptables, and routing protocols.

Technical support could be better. They don't have good support like Cisco. It can also be more stable and scalable.

I have used MikroTik Routers and Switches within the past 12 months. I have vast experience with this solution. I have implemented it in other enterprises and also worked with my partners that have enterprises.

The stability of their switches is very poor. It doesn't have a good score with Spanning Tree Protocol, and it's very difficult to implement.

Scalability is very hard to implement because when I connect through the links, the network doesn't go back.

Technical support could be better. MikroTik Routers and Switches don't have technical support in the cloud.

We use MikroTik Routers, but for switches, we use Cisco or Huawei. Clients prefer Cisco, Huawei, and McAfee, depending on their budget. MikroTik's equipment is very cheap.

It's easy to implement, but it's very hard to fix it when we have trouble. Depending on the project, it usually takes four days to implement this solution.

I implemented this solution in universities, banks, and commercial centers. We have two or three people in charge of deployment and maintenance. 

MikroTik's equipment is very cheap compared to Cisco and Huawei.

The routers are very good, and they are very cheap. We can buy a lot of these routers for backup.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give MikroTik Routers and Switches a six.

I primarily use the solution as a firewall, and for routing purposes, and for multi-band load balancing. 

The load balancing is very good.

The solution offers very good multi-routing.

The firewall is very good.

For the interface, I always use Winbox.

The MikroTik weblog, web user log, was supposed to be remotely accessible. However, it was not as good as I had wanted it to be. I found its functionality disappointing. There's no proper interface. They show only IPs but not the DNS address or complete address. It only shows the IP addresses. Also, they only show real-time data and not the history of the user's log address. We would like to see a history on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

The solution needs to improve its security firewalls and mirror that of, for example, Sophos, or FortiGate.

The solution needs to focus on UTM in its devices.

I have about five years of experience working with this solution.

We've found the stability of the solution to be good enough.

The solution is quite easy to scale. We haven't had any problems expanding the solution when we need to.

I've never contacted technical support. If I have issues with the solution, I try to handle it myself. So far, I've never needed anyone else's assistance.

I've previously used FortiGate and Fortinet devices. They have very good security and firewalls.

The initial setup is a little bit complex for beginners. It's difficult to install the router and for initializing from the beginning all of the configurations we need, like setting up the initial firewall rules, for example.

If a user knows all the basic steps, the deployment only takes about ten to 15 minutes.

I handled the implementation myself. I didn't need the assistance of an integrator or reseller.

I'd warn others that a tutorial or a bit of learning is required before beginning. It helps if a user has a bit of understanding about the solution. There's some complexity in the terminologies and surrounding the initial implementation process.

Overall, it's a good product, but it requires a bit of improvement, especially in relation to UTM and security.

I'd rate it eight out of ten.

MikroTik is our main router for incoming and outgoing traffic throughout the system architecture.  

I really have not found anything valuable or special about MikroTik routers. I have not used them a lot and have not done enough with the product to know if it is good or bad in certain areas that I can put my finger on.  

In general, I know that it is functioning and we have not had any breaches or any kind of attacks through our firewall. We have not had any downtime with it. It has been a solid performer that way.  

My first impressions of the MikroTik router I have are that it is old and slow. I would like to see a higher throughput in the switch. The throughput speeds are killing us. Our VPN speeds are not up to par. MikroTik may make some routers and switches that do have higher throughput, but the models that we are using are not in that group of products.  

The security itself is lacking. For instance, most later model routers have web filtering so we can filter out websites and types. I would like to just be able to go in and say that I want to block out porn sites, or I want to block out hate speech — whatever the case may be. I would like to do that and get it done in an expeditious manner and have it work as expected. There is nothing like that type of simplicity and functionality in this router.  

So, the two main things that I look for in a router — speed and filtering by classification — are two things that I did not see. It is working, so I kind of leave it alone for right now because I do not really have the time to figure out what is making it work at all.  

I do know that the interface is very archaic-looking. It does not seem like the ease-of-use was a major concern in the development of the product. It is not very good in the area of user-friendly.  

Another problem that I do not like about the MikroTik routers is that I have to use a specific program called Winbox to access it and configure it. I should not be limited to accessing the configuration using just one tool.  

I have actually been able to use and access it for maybe three weeks now. It has been at the company for several years.  

One thing I can say for the product is that it has been stable. There has not even been downtime. I checked the uptime on it and it has been up almost a year without having to reset or do anything of that nature for maintenance. So by whatever magic, it is stable.  

I would say that these products do not have much potential for scalability. They are limited to what is in the hardware now without doing a firmware update. But one thing is for certain, any firmware update is not going to change our throughput speed. The actual hardware itself is limiting us.  

We have approximately 52 employees passively using these products.  

With a year of uptime, we obviously have not had to use the tech support at all. On the day when the thing falls apart and I do not know a thing about it, that is when I will find out how good the support is as well.  

Because the product has been here for several years, I was not involved in the installation. I assume it was not much different than other routers and switches.  

There are not any external or hidden costs. The company bought the products and put them in. They are not paying for any kind of maintenance or anything of that nature at this point.  

My main advice to people considering this solution based on my experience is that I would suggest looking for other robust solutions. I know they are out there because I have used them.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best. I would rate MikroTik routers and switches as a six-out-of-ten. It seems to be working by its own devices but there is just too much old, slow, and unfriendly about them.  

We use this solution for high-speed wireless connections.

The most valuable feature is the ease of use.

I have been using this solution for approximately four years.

I have found this solution to be stable.

MikroTik Routers and Switches are scalable.

There needs to be better support for this solution in India. We have no local support.

I have previously used Cisco Cloud Service Routers, such as the L2 and L3.

The installation is very easy.

I did the implementation of the solution myself.

There is a one-time license fee for the use of this solution and it is less expensive than Cisco products.

I recommend this solution to others.

I rate MikroTik Routers and Switches a seven out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for high performance, low-cost routers and for low-cost wifi environments where we need specific configurations.

The cost and versatility are the solution's most valuable features. You can do anything with them if you know how to. The solution has a whole portfolio of routing features available.

You don't need to buy special licenses for the solution. You have everything there. The configuration capabilities are good too. They're very flexible. 

The solution doesn't fit every need. There are lots of things you cannot do. There is no management and there is no controller in wireless. It's not a real whole network. You have to work them into other solutions. Mikrotik is mostly a standalone solution and you have to manage how it relates to other solutions, unlike Cisco, which is something that you can easily put into an ecosystem.

They could improve their product if they set, for instance, a controller for wireless LAN.
That would allow them to really have something more than an access point.

The solution isn't really scalable. Each machine has a purpose, and while you can swap it out for a bigger one, you have to create a new design. They're stand-alone products. There is not a flow of products that brings you to the next step easily.

I haven't reached out to technical support myself, however, my colleagues have, and my understanding is they were able to resolve the issues. They were satisfied with the level of support they received. However, it was a process to get in touch with them, share the problem, and work together to solve it.

The initial setup is complex. Users will need to do a bit of research before implementing the product. You must prepare and understand how to set each parameter. You couldn't use Mikrotik if you're not certified or have a deep knowledge of the solution.

We use a few different solutions. We are installing big networks with Aruba and use Extreme Networks as well. Which solution we ultimately use depends on the project itself.

We buy from wholesalers, but we don't have a special selling agreement with anyone.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten when it fits. It's useless if it doesn't fit. If it fits, I don't think there's a better product when you are looking at price-performance. Overall, I'd rate them nine out of ten. Any requirement would be fulfilled from Aruba or from Cisco, but not necessarily from Mikrotik, which is why I don't give them a perfect score.