We compared Meraki Dashboard and PRTG Network Monitor across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Meraki Dashboard users like its centralized console, cable testing, firmware updates, and group policy features. The solution is also praised as user-friendly, stable, and scalable. PRTG Network Monitor customers like its user-centric approach, straightforward reporting, and customizability.
Room for Improvement: Users say Meraki Dashboard could improve its client VPN, hardware discovery, and integration with external solutions, Some users mentioned a need for more comprehensive documentation and granular control. PRTG Network Monitor could improve its performance and resource efficiency. Other pain points include usability and cross-platform compatibility.
Service and Support: Meraki Dashboard's customer service receives mixed feedback. Some users spoke fondly of the technical support they received, while others expressed frustration over long wait times and had a hard time finding the right person to help them. PRTG Network Monitor received mixed reviews for its customer service. Some users commended the support team’s prompt service, while others reported slow response times and noted the lack of remote session support.
Ease of Deployment: Users said Meraki Dashboard was effortless and intuitive to set up, noting that features like templates and configuration cloning saved time during deployment. PRTG Network Monitor’s setup isn’t considered to be overly complex. Deployment times may vary depending on the environment's complexity and device count.
Pricing: Opinions on Meraki Dashboard's pricing varied, with some users finding it pricey and others deeming it fair. PRTG Network Monitor is deemed reasonably priced and cheaper than its competitors.
ROI: Meraki Dashboard simplifies IT operations, and some users expect returns within a few years. Users said that PRTG Network Monitor has proven to save time and money through automation and proactive support.
Comparison Results: Meraki Dashboard is a scalable, user-friendly solution with a smooth, painless setup made easy by built-in templates and features like configuration cloning. However, some users complained that the solution is too expensive and needs better integration with non-Cisco platforms. PRTG Network Monitor is regarded as a simple, user-friendly, and cost-effective solution, but users would like to see improvements in performance, documentation, integration, and technical support.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"We greatly utilize the network because we can plug it into the DNS, VPN, or equipment. It's very good. Meraki Dashboard enhances wireless network management. We appreciate its flexibility, as it allows for easy suite configuration. We can handle everything on there when there's a policy or any other requirement."
"The most valuable features are that it's easy to use and technically very complete. I can configure, do advanced troubleshooting in the dashboard, and reboot access points remotely."
"It is very easy to manage. It has good security, and it is working well with our firewall."
"The most valuable feature of Meraki Dashboard is we can manage our switches and access point in one place."
"Some of the features I have found valuable are the ease of access, simple configuration, and monitoring."
"It has improved my organization in the way that we've got a much better wireless coverage than we had before, and secondly, we have the visibility of all the users."
"The most valuable feature is knowing the wireless and switch are healthy."
"The ability of the product to perform with simplicity of deployment make it a valuable solution."
"The bandwidth monitoring is a very attractive feature, it can tell you the bandwidth utilization while it is attempting to connect to the host for feedback."
"My opinion is that this solution is not very expensive."
"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is the different monitoring probes available."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to span multiple technologies and multiple vendors."
"I really love the activity library. It gives the flexibility to discover data and metrics about my interface and data server."
"The most valuable feature of PRTG Network Monitor is the dashboards. We can check to see the resources and the uptime."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"The tool is integrated with our email for the alerts."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"What we would like from the IT perspective is a lot more granular control, more visibility into the packets, into the routing, and things of that nature."
"The tool needs to incorporate more integration platforms. Integrating technical support features directly into the dashboard would be highly beneficial. This would allow technicians to troubleshoot issues more efficiently."
"I would like to receive decent notification alerts regarding the license's expiry. Or any help on correcting or optimizing licenses, because in certain circumstances you can add a license but it's the wrong licensing. However, the Dashboard adds the license in some way, and you do not utilize it. You can simply extend the license's expiration date."
"Some features could be added."
"Something that needs to be improved, is the fact that you if you don't renew the subscription license, it stops working. I would also like to see SSL BPM support for anything else."
"Meraki Dashboard's pricing could be improved."
"I would like to see an alert event feature to monitor what users are downloading and how to block some applications."
"Meraki Dashboard could improve the user interface by making it more user-friendly. The configuring can at times be difficult."
"In our organization, we encounter performance issues with our PRTG probe service. I saw documentation from the vendor or Paessler mentioning that there are limitations for WMI sensors. Other than that, we are okay with PRTG."
"We need something that is more predictive. We would prefer if it wasn't a solution that was corrective and instead offered predictive insights so that we can handle problems before they even occur."
"Can be slow in the way it polls the different engines."
"I know we're going to move to Docker applications and I understand that PRTG does some monitoring regarding this. I do not know if it is complete. If it's not yet complete, it's something they should consider improving."
"The only sort of limitation is the actual probes. So, if you don't have enough probes on there, you can over flip them and cause the WMI sensors and SNMP sensors to sort of overload. Sometimes, they might timeout for a minute, but they do come back."
"The icons on PRTG's network diagram are hard to find. For example, finding the icons for firewalls and servers is difficult, so we're struggling to create the network topology."
"We would like more cloud native sensors for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, etc. A lot of businesses are moving in that direction, so having something where we can pull performance stats out of these cloud services would be great for us."
"It would be nice if it gave us alerts via Gmail or SMS message."
Meraki Dashboard is ranked 9th in Network Monitoring Software with 51 reviews while PRTG Network Monitor is ranked 5th in Network Monitoring Software with 96 reviews. Meraki Dashboard is rated 8.6, while PRTG Network Monitor is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Meraki Dashboard writes "Incredibly easy to use, great troubleshooting and prevention of malicious events". On the other hand, the top reviewer of PRTG Network Monitor writes "It's an all-in-one solution, and net flow is included in the licensing ". Meraki Dashboard is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, SolarWinds NPM, ThousandEyes, Mist AI and Cloud and Nagios XI, whereas PRTG Network Monitor is most compared with Zabbix, Centreon, Nagios XI, SolarWinds NPM and ManageEngine OpManager. See our Meraki Dashboard vs. PRTG Network Monitor report.
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