We compared Auvik and Meraki Dashboard across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Auvik excels in SNMP and WMI communication, syslog centralization, and live topology mapping. The solution offers NetFlow monitoring as well as backup and configuration management. 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.
Room for Improvement: Auvik users would like more flexibility to customize reporting and dashboards. Reviews also suggested improvements in probe deployment and integration with third-party products. 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.
Service and Support: Auvik's customer service is highly rated. Users said it’s convenient to contact support through the platform, and responses are fast. Some noted that problems are typically resolved in a single phone call without the need to escalate. 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.
Ease of Deployment: Auvik's setup is simple, fast, and customizable, with clear instructions. Users said Meraki Dashboard was effortless and intuitive to set up, noting that features like templates and configuration cloning saved time during deployment.
Pricing: Auvik’s pricing structure is considered reasonable and competitive. Licensing is based on the number of billable devices, and users have control over which devices are billed. Opinions on Meraki Dashboard's pricing varied, with some users finding it pricey and others deeming it fair.
ROI: Auvik users said the solution saves time, improves efficiency, and reduces costs through automation and better insights. Meraki Dashboard simplifies IT operations, and some users expect returns within a few years.
Comparison Results: Auvik is a user-friendly option for network monitoring and troubleshooting. The solution stands out for its support and ease of navigation. Users like its topology maps and centralized log information. Some users noted that Auvik’s dashboard could be more customizable and suggested that it could improve probe deployment. 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.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"I like the information Auvik provides you about switches that helps you troubleshoot connectivity issues between clients and switches. It's much easier to locate where the problem is on the network. We were using N-central for our RMM. Unfortunately, that doesn't map out the switches. It tells us what is up or down but doesn't do a good job of network troubleshooting like Auvik does."
"The topology map is good. It shows each device and whether it has a safe connection, how long it has been connected, and its activities. That's really helpful. Knowing the map helps our efficiency."
"The most valuable feature is the notification that alerts us to an offline server, whether the server is rebooting, resetting, or if we have network issues with the internet service provider."
"The biggest draw for me is the flexibility of being alerted. If something happens with my critical infrastructure, I get real-time alerts on it in Teams."
"The monitoring and management functions of Auvik are as easy as they can be for the functions they do. It's definitely the easiest product I've ever used."
"Auvik's features for monitoring device availability and bandwidth utilization have greatly helped us. From a cybersecurity perspective, bandwidth utilization tells us if we have a potential data exfiltration incident. It also helps us decide whether to increase the bandwidth for one of the links or if the current bandwidth is sufficient."
"The solution allows us to spend less time on setup and maintenance and less time on issue resolution."
"Auvik's cloud SaaS model saves money because we don't need to maintain devices or pay for overhead on our end."
"The most valuable feature is their support, they get better every day."
"Meraki Dashboard does not require a lot of maintenance. Cisco tells communicates through the Meraki Dashboard web client, it will automatically send updates to the equipment. They will send you an email on what day the updates will take place. If you want to proceed, you can click on accept, or you can decline them and schedule the updates at another time."
"The most valuable features are the ease of use and a single-pane-of-glass that allows us to identify issues across the entire network from one dashboard."
"Everything is in a single pane and you can look at your network in one centralized place."
"There are some whitelist blacklist capabilities in the MX dashboard, which is very helpful."
"The initial setup process is quite simple."
"What I found most valuable in Meraki Dashboard is that it's well-organized, easy to use, and practical."
"I like that Meraki Dashboard is a user-friendly product."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"One thing I would like to see is more functionality designed for managed services, such as multi-tenancy, to better manage things from an MSP perspective."
"The logging features could be a little bit better polished, although that aspect is relatively new. It comes in as raw data, with different formats for different vendors. It's not immediately clear to people what's going on with some of that and you have to read through the codes. Some of the higher-end logging solutions, like Splunk, which is very expensive, can parse through it and correlate items better. Improvement to the logging features would be a value-add, but I'm still very happy that it exists."
"I would relegate the network map to its area instead of being the focus of every page. The network map is in the front and center of the UI. I would rather have the option to look at it when I need it instead of having it on every single page. It's beautiful, but I don't need it on every page."
"The automation side needs improvement... A really important one was about a SonicWall firewall that needs to be rebooted every single month. You can do that in the SonicWall GUI, but you can't do it in Auvik. Hundreds of people have endorsed the idea of having an automated command line interface command run on any device that supports it."
"Recently, the map performance has become incredibly slow, even for small maps. For example, simply changing a device type can take up to five or ten minutes to reflect the change."
"More capabilities in terms of default OIDs, so we can leverage more of the information from SNMP would be good to see. It's been a while since I messed with the OIDs, but the last time I was trying to get additional information from printers, such as the model number. I was able to find that information, but it took a good amount of research to figure out how. I want to see more default capability regarding what information gets spit out from SNMP."
"I don't know that there are any remote tools for directly connecting to workstations through Auvik. If there is, I have not used them, so adding a remote tool would be helpful."
"It needs flexibility for the pooling of information. Because it is fully automated, it is pooling everything from the device from a given category. There is no way to exclude things that are not important or if you want to temporarily remove them to see statistics of other things. For example, we get about 100 MB from Auvik. We are unable to limit this. We would rather stop monitoring something, since some features will always give you alerts, because they shouldn't be monitored. However, it is impossible to exclude them, e.g., the internal interface. If somebody disconnects the device from the internal interface, we get an alert. So, this is something that is really painful for us. More flexibility would solve most of our issues."
"One area that could use improvement in the Meraki Dashboard is user-friendliness when navigating to port configurations."
"We would like to be able to test the health of WAN connections."
"It is not appropriate for large, enterprise businesses."
"It's a very complex system. Customers have told me that sometimes there are lots of advanced features that are available and that you can change in the dashboard, but sometimes it's very hard to know what they are."
"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."
"You can't really clone or replicate a device, that sort of feature would be useful. You can clone the site but you cannot clone the device."
"More integration would be an improvement."
"Meraki Dashboard could improve the user interface by making it more user-friendly. The configuring can at times be difficult."
More Auvik Network Management (ANM) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Auvik Network Management (ANM) is ranked 3rd in Network Monitoring Software with 133 reviews while Meraki Dashboard is ranked 9th in Network Monitoring Software with 51 reviews. Auvik Network Management (ANM) is rated 8.8, while Meraki Dashboard is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Auvik Network Management (ANM) writes "Enables us to get on top of issues before they become an outage". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Meraki Dashboard writes "Incredibly easy to use, great troubleshooting and prevention of malicious events". Auvik Network Management (ANM) is most compared with PRTG Network Monitor, LogicMonitor, SolarWinds NPM, Zabbix and Domotz, whereas Meraki Dashboard is most compared with Cisco DNA Center, SolarWinds NPM, ThousandEyes, Mist AI and Cloud and Fortinet FortiSIEM. See our Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs. Meraki Dashboard report.
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