Ubiquiti UniFi Switches Reviews

I use Ubiquiti UniFi Switches. I like the Ubiquiti PoE EdgeSwitches, but I have to use their switches in certain cases because I have 24-volt and 48-volt PoE. Ubiquiti runs 24-volt PoE in a lot of their radios. We use our switches to have programmable voltages. Our day-to-day use cases with Ubiquiti UniFi Switches is basically internal LAN switches for routing WiFi by normal LAN traffic and telephony. We also have to worry about load balancing, because of our telephony in cameras on the same networks.

For the world where you have to balance traffic and traffic loads and bandwidth, their GUI makes it really easy because the switches, though they are enterprise grade level two or level three switches, the GUI is designed so that it's easy to set up VLANs where you need to control your traffic so that your phones don't break up and get choppy because of other people loading the network down too heavily. Telephony is pretty tricky to get right on a heavily loaded network.

When working with doing pedals and things like that, you have to go down underneath the hood, into the Linux occasionally, which is unfortunate. They have great papers on how to do it and the documentation online is wonderful. They've got lots of guides. Plus, these guys that do videos all the time, they have tons and tons of videos on Ubiquiti that are excellent guides. But, you do have to once in a while go under the hood and people don't like that. If you have Cisco, you don't care. You're always underneath the hood of the Cisco. They have a GUI but no one uses it. With newer stuff nowadays, everybody tries to stay in the GUI. 50% of the time, after I once set the unit app fixed for the time, I'm probably down in the GUI, in the CLI. Like setting up a VPN, instead of a VPN, there's a point-to-point VPN. You can get most of it in the GUI, but there's always a little tweak here, a tweak there in a VPN to a client. In your own system it always matches up. But going to a class, there's always a tweak. You have to go underneath the hood and tweak it.

We have been using the Ubiquity UniFi Switches for about eight years.

The Ubiquiti is a rock and that's why we use them. It's the same as their WiFi equipment. The Ubiquiti hardware, though they're software, they don't bill you for it and their software is not as pretty as others. Their Iron is our rock which is more important than anything else to me. I can remotely fix software. I've got to go on site to fix hardware.

Ubiquiti has had a bad rep for the support. I don't see that the best because I work with lots of people. I am a guy that gets up in the middle of the night to contact support. So, I'm working with a support guy that I know works at a particular shift. I know when to get ahold of them and we talk. I think the Ubiquiti service is actually pretty darn good. Some people complain that they're hard to get ahold of. They're a little busy in the daytime. I have learned to work with them. I think it's fabulous. Sometimes, they get a new guy. I have to take a little bit of time to get past him, but they're pretty good at filtering entry level guys and upper level guys through their support structure. Their chat's pretty good. So, I don't have any problems at all with them as far as support. But, I've read lots of complaints that in the daytime, it takes 15, 20 minutes. I've adjusted my ways to work well with Ubiquiti because it's a partnership. I know they're 24 hours. And so, I just grab them when it's a little bit slower in the evenings. Their support is good. But in the daytime, it could be a little sluggish to get to them. But, I haven't experienced that problem because I've adjusted my ways. The answers are accurate, which is a big deal.

Before using Ubiquiti UniFi Switches we were kind of a Netgear house. I'm Cisco licensed, but I don't like Cisco. I don't like Cisco engineers. They're kind of uppity. And so, I'm kind of an anti-Cisco guy. So, it was Netgear. And then, it was basically Ubiquiti. 

I've been using Ubiquiti UniFi Switches for a long time, so I just slap them in. I would say they're a little bit harder than most for the initial install if you are a pro-consumer. For an IT guy that has at least a little bit of background in networking and things like that, they slap right in. But if you are faint of heart, I would have to say that they're a little trickier than just buying a Netgear and slapping it in. It is a level two, level three switch. So, you can't just expect to slap it in. It's smart.

Like I said, it's a rock. The big deal is that a lot of the other companies charge you for software and Ubiquiti doesn't. You buy the gear. You don't ever pay for software. When it comes to software, it comes with updates and it made a huge difference in our ROI because of that. Now, I'm infringing other areas because the real expenses for the software like is in the WiFi and the access points and things like that. With Cisco, you pay money for all that. Cisco is a rip off. I'm sorry, I'm so down with Cisco.

The price performance is amazing, but it's a little bit of faint of heart for somebody who's brand new. But, they can get past it. The videos are really great with it. Physically, they use this turnkey. But for experienced person, if they're doing networking and don't know Linux, I don't know what they're doing in the IT business. So, I think they're doing just fine. I like them to continue to focus on great hardware. If the software's a little bit harder, I can live with that because, to me, it's all about the Iron, high-performance Iron, that this runs.

I would give Ubiquiti UniFi Switches a rate of Nine on a scale of ten. I just really do like them. Having programmable voltages is fabulous on the ports. Nobody's got programmable voltages on the ports. Ubiquiti have to be because of the gear, but it makes it really slick. That's one place where the GUI is kind of cool, is that you can toggle a port on and off. You can toggle a group of ports off. You can say, "Hey, kill my cameras." It toggles all my cameras for me and bring them back online.

We mostly use the solution for wireless. We have a lot of wireless clients. That's the big bulk of usage as we're rapidly evolving to IOT.

The solution has improved our organization in the fact that we don't take as long to configure anything. It's just plug-and-play. As far as the wireless goes, it's instantaneous for anybody who wants to get on the network. We have a lot of wireless access points deployed. It works really well. It's convenient.

The ability to deploy quickly and then having one central location for all the settings are its most valuable aspects.

They've been very aggressive as far as their feature sets as their capability.

The documentation for command lines needs to be improved.

When we do firmware updates, it usually creates problems in the devices themselves. If we do a firmware upgrade, it's for sure that there will be an issue. They need to work out the kinks in that regard.

The security of the solution could really be enhanced.

It would be ideal if you could roll back firmware. It would be ideal to have something that's built-in that you can kind of just go and push a few buttons and then it reverts back to the old firmware.

I've been using the solution for five years at this point.

The stability of the solution has room for improvement. It could be unique to us, however, there's been some instances where it's very unstable. Instabilities are something that we've been striving to reduce ever since I got here and even before that.

I believe that it has to do as much with the environment that we're putting this hardware in. When you're in a facility where the temperatures get high, the humidity sky-rockets. If you don't have hardened equipment that is designed to handle that kind of very harsh environment, you will have problems.

I try and design so that we can mitigate without spending exorbitant amounts of money to do so. 

I used to sell systems to a crab fleet that fished out of Ballard Washington and go up to Alaska and we'd sell them two or three of the same systems because they'd rot. They'd throw them overboard and install new ones. It's that kind of environment that things get corroded because there's a lot of moisture. Therefore, the stability issues we face could be based on the fact that the environment is a questionable and uncontrollable factor.

We have about 60 plus switches deployed right now. We have four active sites and a fifth site is coming online. I'd say probably closer to 100 switches. We've got all sizes. I tried to standardize recently on eight ports and that's a whole different conversation, however, we use them in horticulture areas.

This solution is built more for small to medium-sized businesses. The bigger the network gets, the more instability. You have to be there going through the enterprise with the edge line. 

That said, it's very scalable. I have seen no blocks. You can build this as big as you want it. And we've done everything from basic switches to large point to point and a point to multi-point. So we pushed the envelope as much as we can.

However, then you get cases like switch age where it's way over the edge of the network, and then you see problems every day, that device old, but even before it got old, it seems like it had this issue.

We have clients that have hundreds of employees on the system, so there are probably users in the low hundreds at any given point of time. We also have about 80 cameras which make up endpoints as well. Most of the people using it are data entry (sales, administration, and procurement) and a few accountants. That said, it's all network-centric. Our security systems and our surveillance systems are all on the network. It's a busy place. We've got a fiber backbone between our main greenhouse and our administrative headquarters.

We do plan to expand. The site that we're bringing online is between 600,000 and 700,000 square feet of greenhouse with a 20,000 square foot building that will have processing, offices, and IT in it. It will double our capacity as far as production. We're going to grow big in 2021.

We're never able to get help from technical support. We don't use them due to this. You've got to be self-reliant. That is one area that I think that they're really lacking in. They need to beef up the level of support that they offer to clients.

That said, the actual factory technical support may be weak, but the forums and the available information is humongous. You could go online and you can get an answer and that's what we do.

The company was using the Ubiquiti Edge product initially, however, they transitioned to UniFi as they started to grow. The gentleman that made that decision is no longer here, therefore, I really don't know what the driving factor was, however, if I were to guess it had to do with the simplicity. 

The initial setup was mostly straightforward. 

That's one of the key features because you don't have to do any deep thinking trying to get a complex configuration. It's by the numbers. You know if you messed up in a heartbeat. You don't have to guess. Sometimes you have to do a little digging to determine what got messed up. However, even if you have to backtrack a bit, it's very easy to deploy.

Deployment takes a couple of hours typically, from design to final implementation.

We have about 13 maintenance people that cover the entire operation of the organization and this solution.

We didn't need an integrator or consultant. It was all done in-house. I've been an integrator for 40 years, and therefore I have a depth of knowledge. That is not very common in the industry. Usually, I'm the one that is out on accounts, however, I have been making smart systems talk to one another for many, many years. 

We don't have any metrics to really analyze. It's difficult to answer a question on ROI. I'm creating something right now to asset track and service track every piece of gear that goes in. That's one of my goals by Q1. I want to have something in place so that when we start hanging this stuff, it's got a QR code on it. We know when it was installed, we know what it's comprised of, and we know when somebody touches it or has anything to do with it. We plan to create a virtual service record. 

A year from now, I'd probably be able to give a lot of information about ROI, however, at this point, all I can say is, for the most part, the gear does have a good life cycle. The parts that we've had to replace have often been on us because when they get hosed down with water, they don't seem to work very well. And when they're PoE and they short out the switch we have to blame ourselves. We can't blame the hardware.

We don't have any visibility on pricing, therefore I wouldn't be able to speculate. It's my understanding that there aren't any extra costs above the standard licensing fee.

We're just customers. We like using the solution. We didn't want to change horses in midstream, even though a lot of people have attempted to convince us to do so.

We try to use the latest version of the solution. We update the firmware on a regular basis and so most of the time, it's maybe one version behind at the most.

We're going to basically start some life cycle management too. We're using the solution on-premise with a cloud key.

I would advise other users to take training before transitioning from the physical. You can get pretty lost in the process. Take any training you can on the system so that you understand it before you begin. 

I had a friend who was Cisco certified. He taught IT and he wasn't aware of Ubiquiti and I showed it to him and he said, ''Wow, this is easy.'' It is also very powerful, they didn't skim. The only thing that I have concerns about and everyone does is cybersecurity. Especially since the pandemic hit, there's a lot of activity on the web and there's a lot of malicious stuff going on, and people are looking for the antidote.

For me, the biggest lesson I took from working with this solution has to do with understanding the product and planning. Don't go in cold and try and, you know, find the fit for a job. If it's an emergency that's one thing, however, the better you plan, the better result you're going to have. 

On a scale from one to ten, it's a high 8. I don't really see any major glaring issues other than the support. They do make made a hardened version of the product for harsh environments. It's been all-around a pretty positive experience. 

We use the product for accessing controls for video conferencing.

The product’s most valuable features are stability and scalability.

Ubiquiti UniFi Switches’s pricing could be less expensive.

We have been using Ubiquiti UniFi Switches for two years.

I rate the product’s stability a nine out of ten.

The product has good scalability.

The technical support services are good.

The initial setup is straightforward. It takes less than 30 minutes and requires a manager and an engineer to execute the process.

Ubiquiti UniFi Switches are more expensive than HP and Aruba. We purchase its yearly license.

I rate Ubiquiti UniFi Switches a nine out of ten.

One of the primary use cases we have for this solution is integration with UDM/and WIFI access point.

The integration with the controller is one of the most valuable features of these switches. They are also very stable. For example, we have some equipment that we haven't touched for four years that is still reliable.

Firmware stability and accurate documentation regarding advanced networking. 

I have been using Ubiquiti UniFi switches for five years.

We were not having any issues.

Having a range of customers with moderate needs, I'm not sure I can comment on the scalability.

We have never needed to contact tech support. 

At my previous place of employment, we used NETGEAR. I'm not sure what my current employer was using before this solution.

The initial setup was easy. We did run into a few funny bumps, but we got over them.

Their pricing is reasonable and fair.

I would say: first read about networking, second, read about the hardware scope. Some people expect the machines to do magic by themselves; a little touch and knowledge should make a difference.

UniFi is marketing a wide range of special purpose products to choose from. 

It's been working fine, it's been stable, and there are no interruptions. It's been there doing its job and has not required any work to keep alive, so that's been positive.

I had some initial problems with the configuration that necessitated contacting technical support.

I have been working with Ubiquiti UniFi Switches for five years.

I have not scaled since the initial setup but it seems to be fine. I think that includes what you need to scale it.

I don't fully remember my experience with them, but I think that it was relatively good.

My initial setup needed some kind of reconfiguration to work, which is why it took some time to get it set up and running. The support was deferred, and I'm not sure if it was related to the skills of the technical support people. Overall, I would say that it's fair.

I have experience with NETGEAR products as well.

The initial setup is a little complex. I can't recall exactly how it was or what happened, but I contacted technical support and we tried some different configurations. On that level, it was not very easy.

The price is reasonable.

I am currently looking for a new solution and am looking at NETGEAR as well as Ubiquiti, but there is nothing that has been decided yet. One of the things that I've been looking at is the combined switch and firewall in one. From the reviews I have read, it seems like people have had initial issues with it that dwell on the configuration.

My advice for anybody who is looking into implementing this product is to go ahead and buy it. This is a good switch; the functionality is there and the design is nice too. I think that it's a good buy.

So far, this product has had what we've needed. Even though I'm an engineer, I have not done a deep dive into this switch. As such, I haven't paid so much attention to it or the initial setup, so I'm not sure that if I am missing anything or not.

Other than the configuration problems, I haven't had any issues.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Ubiquiti UniFi Switches are stable and support Layer 3. They come with a user-friendly interface. If you're not familiar with the command-line interface or you wouldn't like to configure it by using the command line, they have a user-friendly interface that you can use. They also have good documentation about how to use these switches.

They can improve the visibility of networks to match Meraki switches, which have good visibility tools to go through the network. In a Meraki device, you get a clear picture when using the bug interface. You can also see its neighbors and have a clear picture of all connected devices. Ubiquiti UniFi Switches do not have such features that Meraki switches provide.

Ubiquiti UniFi Switches are stable. If you configure them properly, and they are in a proper server room with good cooling, they work fine.

Scalability is probably possible, but it is not common to scale these. Ubiquiti UniFi Switches are more suitable if you don't need to create a really big, scalable solution at an enterprise level, and you have two or three switches with a firewall. For a big company, in terms of scalability, Cisco or F5 switches work better than Ubiquiti switches. If you have a good budget, Cisco or F5 would be better.

If you would like to scale Ubiquiti UniFi Switches, you probably can. They are probably not difficult to scale. It depends on your skills. I have not scaled them before.

They are good. In the last year, we did not have any issues with their switches.

They just give you a small card. You can scan the code on the card and go to the web page. You can also directly go to the web page to see the documents. They do not provide any documents with the box. You need to go to the internet to see how to do the initial setup, that is, how to set the login ID, password, default IP (if it exists), and other options.

As compared to Ubiquiti, Cisco provides exact communication about whether the IP address needs to be configured on the device or whether it is pre-configured.

The price of Ubiquiti UniFi Switches is really good. We have deployed a few Ubiquiti UniFi Switches in New Zealand, and they are a value for money. They are cheaper and stable, but if you have the budget, I would recommend Meraki switches. 

Ubiquiti UniFi Switches are suitable for small companies. I don't know any company that uses these at the enterprise level. If Ubiquiti wants to brand it as a big enterprise solution, it needs to advertise and promote these switches accordingly.

I would rate Ubiquiti UniFi Switches an eight out of ten.

We use Ubiquiti UniFi Switches for our Wi-Fi solution to support wireless devices.

This product is very reasonably priced.

I have not found any of the technical features to be particularly valuable.

The management of this product needs to be improved.

Cloud-based management would be a helpful feature.

I would like to be able to customize the SSID.

For now, I'm not able to manage my device via the Application installed on my server. I'm not able to manage the devices (lost of connection with the devices).

The installation is more a familial installation instead of a professional installation.

Need to be improve on my company side.

My company has been using these switches for about one year, but I have only been working with them for three months.

Sometimes this solution works, and sometimes it doesn't. What I have found is that for two access points, it seems to be stable. Beyond that, with three or four access points, it doesn't work.

We have 10 sites that use these switches. In my site, we have 20 users but they are not all connected via Wi-Fi. Some are instead connected using an ethernet cable.

In some sites, they have between 20 and 30 staff, and maybe 50% or 60% of them use Wi-Fi. Most of our devices are Android tablets. Also, some of the clients connect to the Wi-Fi as well.

It works well for small companies with open space. However, it is not viable for businesses with 500 or more people.

I have not been in contact with technical support.

Prior to Ubiquiti UniFi, we did not use another Wi-Fi switch.

The implementation was completed by the IT staff before me.

I don't know for now.

The price is very low and a good approach for a smaller company, with 10 to 15 people. 

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

We are a solution provider and Ubiquiti UniFi switches are one of the products that we implement for our customers.

The use case for this solution depends on the size of the infrastructure. Normally, for smaller installations, we use the routing functionality because they are layer three switches. In larger organizations, we use it as a layer two switch and we use Compass routers to handle 10-gigabit bandwidth. We have one customer using this configuration who does 3D modeling and 3D printing, which requires a lot of bandwidth.

We have several offices in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, and we can manage this solution, as well as for our customers, remotely.

These switches are very simple to use and the GUI is very nice. They have made administration much easier. Optionally, if you have a very advanced requirement then you can do it less comfortably using the GUI, or instead use SSH to program it. If you have experience in Linux and bash scripting then it is very easy to do.

The most valuable feature is that the technology is open. If there's a new technology then you can implement it yourself. For example, WireGuard is a very nice VLAN framework that is available on Linux and you can implement it on the Ubiquiti switches. With Cisco or other commercial products, you'll have to wait until the manufacturer starts to provide it for you. Sometimes, they need quite a long time before this will happen. It is for this same reason that we don't use macOS or Windows because they are always about five years behind current technologies.

The UniFi switches are for people who are not very into technology and if you have a big deployment with special configurations then this line of switches is very limited.

It would be nice to have a single, unique management console or a GUI because as it is now, Ubiquiti switches have two management systems and it is annoying.

The VPN technology in Ubiquiti products is really difficult for beginners who do not have the right skills. It would be very nice if they had a simple way to manage all of the VPN connections from a GUI. This would include from location to location, or from location to computer.

We have about two years of experience with Ubiquiti UniFi switches.

So far, this solution has been completely stable. We have had issues with hardware and needed to exchange it at times, although we had the same issues with Cisco.

We are operating in Germany, and the rules here for when things fail are quite nice. We normally have a two-year warranty, and it is quite easy to exchange hardware with the dealers. Normally, if something is not going to function well, then it gives up within three months. There is no difference between Cisco and Ubiquiti in this regard.

Ubiquiti UniFi has been scalable enough for our use cases. The throughput is ok. We have used it in cases with a gigabit backbone and it worked fine.

We have deployments with only five users and we have deployments with up to 500 users.

We have not been in touch with official technical support from Ubiquiti. There's a big community that supports you if you have issues, which is the only support we have used.

We used to use Cisco switches but we had a lot of trouble with them. They are not easy to handle, which is why we switched to Ubiquiti. Cisco switches have the same capability but you have to have knowledge of Cisco IOS.

Ubiquiti is known for its access points, but the ER and ES switches are quite nice. We primarily use the Ubiquiti Edge switches and routers. The overall administration is very easy because we are able to write scripts in the same language that we use for our common operating systems. This was a great step forward from our Cisco solution.

The Cisco switches allow you do do everything because they are the standard-makers, but it is a closed community. If they don't do it then you can't do it, whereas with Ubiquiti, there is always somebody who is doing something crazy and you can get advice for your project. It is very nice.

With Cisco, normally after six years, they stop support and you have to buy completely new infrastructure. It is really awful. 

It is a complex product so, of course, the setup is complex. However, it is straightforward in that you have the freedom to do what you want to do, without any limitations. There is a big community that supports you if you have issues with the configuration.

The deployment is quite fast. We took about two weeks to get the switches running exactly the way we wanted them to, but for simple tasks, you can do it in just two days. It's really easy.

Personally, I think that it is much easier to do if you are already familiar with the command line and the terminology from Cisco. 

If our customer is large enough to have their own IT department and host the switch on their site then we do consultancy for them. There are cases where we conduct a PoC and then when the customer is satisfied, we implement it on their site and they take it over. Finally, if they have insufficient knowledge on their end, we sometimes implement and manage the entire solution on their site. In most cases, we handle the implementation for our customers.

Beyond what our technical department does, the economic department will discuss things with the client such as what new services or products are available. This can include things like monitoring, data aggregation, and providing information.

Ubiquiti switches are quite affordable and you don't have to pay extra for support.

We are focused on open software and manufacturer-independent solutions, so Ubiquiti fits our strategy well because they operate on the Linux operating system. 

We have had no problems where this product did not do what it was supposed to do, either from the hardware side or the software side.

This is a solution that I recommend for normal operations. The suitability of these switches depends on what you want to do, what your tasks are, and what the application is. Ubiquiti is not always the manufacturer of choice. If you need really high-speed networks or have special requirements then it is important to test things out in the lab beforehand.

I have a lot of experience with different switches that are on the market and my favorite are those by Ubiquiti. They are affordable, they do what they should do, they are open, and you don't have to pay extra for support.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.