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Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers vs. HPE Networking Instant On Access Points

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AThe Cisco Catalyst 9800-80 is a modular wireless controller with optional 100 Gigabit Ethernet (G) modular uplinks boasting seamless software updates for large enterprises and campuses, and security with ETA and SD-Access.N/A

    HPE Networking Instant On Access Points

    Score9.6 out of 10
    N/AHPE Networking Instant On Access Points, formerly under the Aruba Networks brand, are presented as fast WLAN solutions for small to midsize businesses, supporting indoor and outdoor connectivity, in any environment and for any number of devices.

    $99

    one-time fee

    Pricing
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersHPE Networking Instant On Access Points
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    HPE Networking Instant On Access Points AP22
    Starting at $149.99
    one-time fee
    HPE Networking Instant On Access Points AP32
    Starting at $234.99
    one-time fee
    HPE Networking Instant On Access Points AP21
    Starting at $99.99
    one-time fee
    HPE Networking Instant On Access Points AP22D
    Starting at $184.99
    one-time fee
    HPE Networking Instant On Access Points AP27
    Starting at $209.99
    one-time fee
    HPE Networking Instant On Access Points AP25
    Starting at $239.99
    one-time fee
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersHPE Networking Instant On Access Points
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersHPE Networking Instant On Access Points
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers is more modern, looks better, supports newer access points. Using different tags - site tags, policy tags, etc. is a nice way to configure different access point groups or locations. Also Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers
    Better than the competitor but higher price
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers
    Compared to older Cisco WLC, Catalyst 9800s are easier to manage and SSO HA is more reliable. Compared to Aruba IAP, the number of features is greater. Meraki is easier to set up but having a central controller gives greater control.
    Incentivized
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    99%
    Would buy again
    97 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    88 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    95 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    71 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    85%
    Implementation went as expected
    77 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersHPE Networking Instant On Access Points
    Small Businesses
    WatchGuard Secure Wi-Fi Cloud
    Score9.5 out of 10
    WatchGuard Secure Wi-Fi Cloud
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Cisco Aironet 1800 Series Access Points (discontinued)
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Cisco Aironet 1800 Series Access Points (discontinued)
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersHPE Networking Instant On Access Points
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.7
    (88 ratings)
    9.6
    (17 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    6.4
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    9.1
    (87 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.1
    (88 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (4 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersHPE Networking Instant On Access Points
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    I think any size organization can benefit from them. The smaller "L" models work well for a smaller organization and of course, the same answer for the larger platforms. The failover/redundancy options are quite nice and the unified setup and UI is always nice for consistency.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    It is possible that we have a bad luck with the deployment. However, It is capable to perform enterprise-level security to fit some of the organization's standards. With Airwave and other tools, it's easy to manage and administrate your wireless environment. Make aware of the IPsec tunnel from each user to the controller if you are using Clearpass for NAC. If you have a remote office with local resources, you will need controller or IAP to route traffic locally. If you have many remote offices, you will need to deploy controllers or IAP in each office, which lead to additional cost and management.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • I think the updates are great. ISSU upgrading code is fantastic. I think the speed with which CAPWAP converges or reconverges, I think the redundancy mechanisms for roaming APs to other controllers is very good. I think overall, getting away from more of a monolithic processor where subprocesses handle what they call the WNCD tasks, I think fundamentally is an improvement in performance.
    • The radioactive tracing, all of the troubleshooting and all of the logging and all of the importing and exporting features for logging and analytics within the controller itself is really, really good compared to the predecessor AireOS.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • They offer both a controller-based and controller-less option. This allows customers of all sizes to deploy a wireless network without the upfront cost of controller hardware. A controller can be added later.
    • Aruba also offers Airwave which is a single management point for all AP swarms in the environment. It offers many reporting features as well as visual RF maps displaying heatmaps of the AP signals and client positioning.
    • The Aruba Access Point we have (224s and 225s) also offer both PoE and external power supplies for those smaller deployments that may not have PoE capable switches.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • The only downside I would say is the GUI performance is a little bit slow, even with a newer 9800, performance still lags a bit even compared to the previous generations. So I would like to see that improved. But aside from that, that's really the only issue that we have with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • We have had a bunch of these stop working after a power outages. We are guessing a surge or something caused them to stop working.
    • Some of the documentation is outdated. It seems they like to make changes to how things work and it usually mean less access and insight into the devices you manage.
    • The auto signal strength feature could use a little work. It seems like even when we turn it down all the way it tries ot increases the signal strength.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    Despite common software and hardware issues this is still the best product on the market for large scale enterprise deployments. Cisco has worked with us extensively to reduce the amount of bugs in every iteration however new bugs are introduced or new incompatibilities always arise with major releases. Thus, while I'm hesitant to recommend the product it's still much better than all the other competitors such as Aruba and Juniper in the WIFi space. There is also extensive integration with DNAC/Catalyst Center and ISE in an SDA deployment. Recently there has been a number of critical issues with the controller software and Cisco has proved themselves to be incapable of timely troubleshooting and diagnosis. This has reduced our confidence in the product and it's current and future stability and maintainability. At it's current state the product is taking up too much of our engineering resources to maintain despite also paying for premium support from Cisco. As such I have reduced by rating as we are likely to look at alternative vendors for our long-term wireless management solution
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Cisco
    It's not simple, but this is the result of being very deeply configurable
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    It is a good and stable product, and does exactly what it is intended for. It provides a good wifi connection, and ensures that the users on the work floor can do their work well. In addition, there are so many technical possibilities, that you can configure the wifi network completely to the specific wishes of the work floor.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    Due to our HA set up we have always managed to access our wireless networks without problems, when issues occur. When we have lost access to the GUI, due to internal network problems, console access is always welcomed and brings with it the normal Cisco CLI syntax. From previous versions of CLI, it is now a lot simpler and reflects other Cisco products, making it easier to troubleshoot and navigate when necessary.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Cisco
    Monitoring is very good Seamless integration with Cisco ISE RRM configuration very easy. It has REST API support IOS-XE is very powerful operation system. Multicasting and mDNS features are really good and very easy to configure. It supports Pyats and Genie so getting constructed data from python script calls very helpful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    When it's a config issue, TAC is usually useful. If it's some bug and BU needs to be involved, it might take forever.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    Aruba Wireless Network support has always been reliable and great to work with. There was a period during the HPE acquisition of Aruba Wireless where getting in touch with an engineer took somewhat longer than usual, but it still was not a huge issue. The most difficult part of the merger was getting an accurate view of our inventory according to HPE Aruba as they were merging/choosing a system to host all of that information.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    You need to understand wifi basics
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Ubiquiti WLAN is very much a consumer platform. It is not production ready, it is buggy, it has issues. It is cheaper than Cisco, but you get what you pay for. Aruba doesn't integrate nicely with our existing largely Cisco based networks, so when time came to replace AireOS, the Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers came out on top.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    When comparing Aruba Instant Wi-Fi Access Points to Cisco Meraki MR the most significant factors are pricing and license fees. At the current cost of one Meraki MR AP, we can deploy three Aruba Instant Wi-Fi Access Points, providing equivalent functionality, coverage, and performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cisco
    There are different vesrions for different requirements, there's HA as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • Positive impacts, yeah, is good to have a central location to control all these profiles for different countries and locations. And the drawback, like I said to you really because of the too many integrations that have a dependency on the software version. For example, Cisco ONE for Access have certain software that can run through and then this scatter center need to make sure it's working with the others APS version that is currently working. And we also, the Cisco Catalyst Center also have some kind another version of software that you need to support this controller. So it's like two tier three tiers of the software version that we need to match. Then only it can work.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • Excellent uptime and reliability
    • If licensed properly, failover is easy
    • The newest version upgrade is somewhat cumbersome as they want us to replace hardware, which seems silly, so we are on the most current legacy supported version. Once unsupported, we will need to replace hardware.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots