We performed a comparison between Aruba Wireless and Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Of the two solutions, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is the more popular choice with PeerSpot users. While both have great features, users of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN seem to find fewer things lacking with it and are generally satisfied. In regards to service and support as well, Cisco users are happy with the service they receive. However, users do feel that it is an expensive solution.
"The most valuable feature of Juniper Wireless Access Points (AP Series) is the ability to troubleshoot ports on the network. Additionally, when there is an update on the APs they are able to reboot quickly reducing downtime. Other solutions have a longer downtime when updates are done."
"The solution is very secure."
"The most useful feature of Juniper Wireless AP is the reporting Marvis."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is Marvis, the AI-driven network management system."
"The artificial intelligence feature is very good."
"It provides private network access, helping us protect our company’s devices."
"With Mist, every Wednesday they roll out new features."
"You can easily monitor, manage, and cover all your IT equipment."
"Aruba is an industry leader. The hardware is on par, and its performance is also on par with anybody else. The Aruba brand really only focuses on wireless, so they're not competing their R&D for switching data center products and cloud security. They're really focused on that and their underlying key pieces. They provide a role-based authentication that is native to the controller. A lot of other systems don't do that. They won't provide you the ability to basically have everybody join the network, regardless of whether or not they share the same network space, the SSID, or the wireless LAN. You can segment it down to a specific user role based on any kind of attributes that you like. That's their differentiator. If you need per user, per device, or per port segmentation, you can get that with Aruba. There isn't another vendor who does it."
"Aruba Wireless does not have too many distinguishing feature sets. However, tunneling is more flexible in this solution than other solutions, such as Ruckus."
"AirWave is a valuable feature."
"I really like the user interface."
"Aruba Wireless is reliable, and the signal strength is pretty good."
"The most valuable feature is the client match."
"Aruba Wireless is stable and we plan to continue using it in the future."
"The feature that I love the most is being able to broadcast different SSIDs with different protocol requirements. "
"The solution is fast."
"The user interface is very simple and easy to use — our customers are very satisfied."
"What I liked about these is that they worked. I didn't touch them or do anything with them. They were up and running when I came here. Once they are set up and running, you don't have to worry about them."
"I really love their cloud-based dashboard which allows me to see all my locations from one location."
"With Cisco products and third-party products, integration of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is good."
"The most valuable features are the management tools, including monitoring and reporting."
"The settings of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN can be very granular. You can lock down and block devices with the controls. For example, we have four different wireless settings, such as guest, employee, security, and backup. For example, the settings for the employees, if they use laptops, they're required to have certain settings, such as an antivirus installed. If they do not then Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN will not let them connect. This is very good protection because the network works on the bringing your own device(BYOD) principle. It's a BYOD environment now, and you also don't want them to bring infection into the environment because these people are connecting to the LAN via wireless connections. We have to be careful because we're managing it, we have to be very strict with regards to the rules and policies."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is the single pane of glass management and reliability."
"The solution is expensive."
"Improving third-party integration is key for Juniper Mist's next release."
"Enrolling into the tool is a tedious process."
"The pricing should be made cheaper."
"If you want to do more specific stuff, it's a bit limited."
"The pricing is very high in the Indian market."
"Improvement is needed in the user-friendliness of Juniper Mist, particularly in enhancing the interaction with AI features."
"The price could be better."
"Because it's cloud-based, it takes time for the floor maps and the heat map to load."
"Aruba doesn't match some competitors in wireless signal strength. It isn't in the same class as Cisco Meraki, so I would use Cisco Meraki in situations where I need to cover a large open space. Meraki has more powerful signals going out."
"Improvements to the GUI, such as being able to search in the Mobility Master, would be nice."
"There has been a recent decrease in the level of support."
"They need to increase the number of routers on the controller."
"The logging is hard to read when troubleshooting issues."
"Needs improvement in point-to-point deployment products."
"Aruba Wireless is a good product, but it still has some issues, especially at the beginning, where there's inconsistent syncing between the cloud and the APs. Sometimes, there's also a little lag when accessing the query."
"The solution should be more secure."
"Unfortunately, we have to deal with European privacy laws and as far as we can see, the solution is not compliant with these. It's why we're not able to continue with Cisco Meraki. They need to become compliant with GDPR laws."
"The error logs need to be much more comprehensive."
"The logging sometimes doesn't give us the granularity needed. Some of the rules are a bit more complicated. The switch ports on the routers are not individually addressable, in the sense that with a switch you can tell what MAC address is on what port but with the security appliances, you can't, which would be beneficial for troubleshooting."
"In the future, I would like to see IP telephony in Saudi Arabia."
"The Meraki platform needs better on-premises management options."
"There is a processing limitation when you have multiple SSIDs, above three or four."
"They could also add some more controls for guest access. For example, when you have a captive portal, it would be nice to limit the amount of time users can stay connected per day. Right now, you can only configure the splash frequency. And you can set the connection for one hour, but you have to use the billing feature."
More Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points Pricing and Cost Advice →
Aruba Wireless is ranked 1st in Wireless LAN with 138 reviews while Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is ranked 4th in Wireless LAN with 115 reviews. Aruba Wireless is rated 8.4, while Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Aruba Wireless writes "The portal for centralized management and virtual controller for APs are very valuable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN writes "Offers good mobility, stability and scalability ". Aruba Wireless is most compared with Cisco Wireless, Ruckus Wireless, Ubiquiti WLAN, Huawei Wireless and Mist AI and Cloud, whereas Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is most compared with Ruckus Wireless, Ubiquiti Wireless, Mist AI and Cloud, Cisco Wireless and Huawei Wireless. See our Aruba Wireless vs. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN report.
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Pricing is different based on region; it depends on Aruba's and Cisco's strategy in the region. You must contact the respective partners to get an accurate price for comparison.
That being said, in MENA where I live, as of a few months ago (21H1), Aruba pricing was cheaper than Cisco.
Aruba licensing for the AP's is much cheaper compared to Meraki.
You can get a 1/3/5-year cloud license per AP.