Cisco Meraki Go vs. UniFi WiFi Access Points

One of the better times Meraki Go has proven useful was when the Fresno Grizzlies have baseball games, and many people come to our brewery to watch it on our televisions or stream it on their phones. The quick internet service allows us to attract more patrons and also improves their day. Half of the time, people are coming into our bar just to use the internet and end up buying a few drinks! The business had shot up thanks to our switch from when the pandemic started in 2020.

Ubiquiti is well suited to not just indoor WLAN access, but also outdoors. In fact, the range of the outdoor applications, while maintaining throughput is astonishing. I would say this is not a solution for a 1-5 person small office, due to the costs.

Incentivized

• Cheap and fast hotspot supporting multiple simultaneous clients.
• Guest control through a Captive portal.
• They work with the 802.11ac Wave 2 protocol.
• They direct the WiFi signal directly to the client that is accessing the internet and increase the quality of the signal.
• Managed in the cloud and accessed via the web

Incentivized

• AP's are very affordable.
• Most of the AP's are highly reliable and can be used indoors or in covered outdoor spaces.
• Outdoor Mesh AP's with an external directional antenna can effectively cover outdoor spaces with dual band wifi better than much more expensive APs.
• Unifi Protect via the Cloud Key Gen2+ is probably the slickest, most affordable IP camera system on the market right now.
• Unifi controller is powerful yet simple to administrate.
• Remote management of entire networks through a single pane of glass is easy to accomplish with the Unifi controller.
• Cloud Key Gen2 solves problems with the first Cloud Key wiht a built-in battery backup.
• When you are "full stack" Unifi with wifi, network switches and gateways, the control you can wield over a network in just a few clicks and the amount of data you can glean from a quick glance in the controller is incredibly impressive. It makes an IT guy wish every product/service could be so tightly and well-integrated.
• Community support is excellent, Unifi staff monitors their official forums and responds to almost every thread.

Incentivized

• For big companies, use cases may be limited.
• When distance is increased, there may be a slight glitch in connectivity
• Can be a quite expensive for a growing business

Incentivized

• VLANs: They can make these work more smoothly. Setup can be more intuitive.
• Cloud Key: These need to be stabilized; they lose their programming a little too easily.
• Stop selling the Gen-1 cloud key: No battery means you need an external power source or you must be onsite to power it off before updating.
• Portal can be modernized.

Incentivized

It's just as easy to use as Meraki but a perfect fit for home and SMB. It's a no-brainer.

Incentivized

Ubiquiti makes great Access points at various tiers provided far better coverage and throughput than consumer-grade wireless repeaters and routers. We have not had any performance complaints from guests or from the administration who use the wifi on a daily basis.

Incentivized

It's good, it can be better, but it's good. We had problems with Outlook 365 disconnecting and their support wasn't able to help us. We spent a few hours on the phone and finally, one of our NOC guys decided to change the MTU. I'm sure their support is good, I just think that this time we didn't find the right person.

Incentivized

Ubiquiti support is minimal, which is said to help decrease the cost of the equipment. However, with many reports of emails going directly to the Ubiquiti support line taking days to hear a response, you're better off either engaging with the community forums for help from fellow UniFi users or reaching out to a reseller that has training on the equipment that can assist.

Incentivized

I would use Cisco Meraki Go for small business needs. I would rather use the full Cisco Meraki system for anything more than five people. Cisco Meraki Go is cheaper but regular Meraki is far more robust.

Incentivized

I've used Meraki AP and switches in a large-scale organization and Ubiquiti on a smaller scale. There is a big cost difference, and due to the different sizes and scope of the projects, it's difficult to compare or contrast. Both have worked great for each organization.

Incentivized

The ease of deployment can be moved from one site to another easily. There is no need for any source or managing controller and hence it can be easily moved with the same configuration. This type of solution is best for teams who work together and are on the move from one location to another and who rely on high performance and good security for their wifi network.

Incentivized

• Meraki has improved our business and our sales by a lot.
• Customers are always happy to enter our brewery and have a drink, even more, when their internet works to near perfection.
• I even catch myself watching an episode or two on netflix during my lunch break, considering the internet can support my 4k streaming.

• The solid reliability means we hardly ever have to solve 'Wi-Fi issues'. It's now just one of those things we used to have to do, and now have more time to devote to other tasks.
• The relatively long life support for Ubiquiti products, in terms of firmware updates, etc, has resulted in us not having to replace access points half as often as we used to. The Ubiquiti gear in our offices is approximately three years old now and the APs and the Controller keep getting regular updates with useful new features and bug fixes.
• Great overall coverage and seamless handover between APs keeps productivity high and allows people to stay connected no matter where they are in the building.

Incentivized