Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Reviews

We resell it to our customers for networking, wifi, and security.

For some of our larger clients, it has enabled them to not need to grow staff in order to retain a large 13 access point network has needed a lot of reconfiguration because of the nature of our business. We are able to maintain that and the responses even after hours because we can usually make changes rapidly.

Its ability to be cloud-managed is the most valuable feature so if there's a reconfiguration or an issue, we have excellent visibility into the network and we can usually resolve the problem online without having to go onsite.

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.

I would like to see more information on what is plugged into each MX switch port. I would also like to be able to see that the templates would be able to be used because we're in MSP, so if I create a template, I have to recreate the template with each of our clients. I'd prefer to create one template and then personalize it for each client which is a little extra work that way. 

The dashboard security is not as good as it could be in terms of provision users. If I provision the user at the high level, I'd like to give them rights to our customers so if I have a new technician, I have to go and touch each customer and add that technician which is kind of silly. 

It's quite stable. There are relatively few issues we've had with the product. Compared to others, it's more stable than most.

It scales well up to the larger midsize enterprise. The MX appliances are less scalable than the wifi or the switches. They're a little underpowered and so that's the point where you'd move to a different solution if you needed more scalability if you had more bandwidth requirements. We currently have 150 users. 

Their technical support is good. It's really easy to get someone and they try to help and work to resolve the issue. I'm pleased with their support.

We've also used D-Link, Netgear, and other similar solutions and Cisco small business solutions as well. We found Meraki is easier to deploy and easier to maintain.

We also evaluated WatchGuard, SonicWall, and Ubiquiti but we found Meraki to be superior. 

The initial setup. The deployment was very quick. It takes under half an hour to fully deploy on site.

We've definitely had a good ROI. It helps our support resources as well as gives the customer a good product.

Meraki is certainly not the cheapest solution. The coterminous licensing that they do is a challenge with some of the sites where there's corporate and franchise sites. If a franchise is buying in and they want to put them on the same dashboard, it means that their license is going to expire earlier than it should. The fact that if you don't license it, it just stops working has been a challenge. It's not as friendly as would be ideal, where other solutions will not allow you to do any changes but it will keep working. If some of our clients are less organized at renewals this is a little bit adverse. MX appliances are a little overpriced for their power.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

The Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is hosted on the cloud. Users enjoy all the features available on the platform, and it facilitates seamless communication for our business operations. Integrating with the router, firewall, and Wireless Controller is advantageous.

The solution could be cheaper.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for more than 2 years.

The product is stable. It is working well.

The solution’s scalability is good.

Around 20 customers are using this solution.

Technical support is good.

The initial setup is easy and takes 10-30 minutes with zero IP deployment.

It also depends on the customer's requirements. Whether it's a small or large project, the system can accommodate various sizes. LAN configurations have been implemented for better connectivity. One employee can do the deployment.

There are two values, but the first one is that the network demands more. However, the current value lies in using advanced technology. Additionally, its ease of use and deployment facilitates creating a profile of a beneficial customer.

The market is competitive. Customers do not have much money to invest. However, we have a new solution. We are looking for McAfee share.

In Vietnam, the license policy is yearly, which could be one year, three years, or five years.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I haven't deployed it for myself. I have deployed it for customers. I work for a systems integrator.

We use it for Branch-type of installations where you have a small branch. You just need to manage it via the internet. You don't need a controller-type of environment there, for a small office-type of deployment.

It's a cheaper resource that helps manage a company's WiFi network.

The solution's ease of use is great.

The ease of management has been great.

The initial setup is easy.

The product has been very stable over the years. 

Technical support is okay.

The pricing is reasonable. 

Meraki is still very much a small office type of solution. It is not a fit for large enterprise networks, as it doesn't have tunneling functionalities. 

If you are configuring Meraki as a RADIUS client, you have to add individual 100 or whatever devices on the site as a RADIUS client. There is no RADIUS proxy option. Therefore, it is pretty much still a good use case for small networks, however, it's not a great use case for larger networks. 

The product needs to offer role-based access. 

I've been using the solution for more than ten years now. It's been a decade or so. I have quite a bit of experience with it.

The solution is very stable. As long as your internet links are stable, Meraki works perfectly fine. There are no bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

Meraki is not a very scalable solution. It has its own limitations on the number of devices you can deploy. I would say it's not a very scalable solution.

I've contacted technical support a couple of times. They were okay. I didn't have any issues with them; they are fine.

I've used Cisco EROs, Cisco Meraki, Catalyst 9800, Aruba, and Instant Aruba, controller-based.

The initial setup is not complex or difficult. It's very straightforward. 

The pricing is okay. However, they don't have a perpetual license option. Regardless of what type of functionality a customer is looking for, they have to go for subscription-based licensing.

I'm a Cisco partner.

Meraki is a public cloud. With Meraki, you don't have a private cloud solution.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

We are a reseller, and because we're doing mostly refreshes, we have its latest version.

Its interface is not as daunting as others, which makes customers a bit more at ease.

For Meraki, the ease of deployment and management is most valuable.

Meraki leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to the technical capabilities in terms of throughput, spectrum, management, higher-level functions, etc.

I have been using this solution for eight years or so.

Its stability is a five out of 10.

Its scalability is a five out of 10. 

I would probably rate them a six out of 10.

Meraki is probably the most straightforward. 

For its deployment and maintenance, just one engineer is required for a medium-sized company.

The return on the investment with Meraki isn't from scalability, rollout, or saving in hardware costs or software costs. The save is either in terms of the ability to keep the number of technicians that you hire or in terms of being able to outsource it all together to an organization that specializes in it. The higher costs of Meraki are offset by the cost of the people you may have to bring in, depending on your Wi-Fi airspace.

I would advise knowing your use case and matching it to the technology.

I would rate it a six out of 10. It provides ease of management to customers, but it is not for throughput and availability. 

We use it for wireless and our network. All our switches and our APs are Meraki.

We are using its latest version. The device is on-prem, but everything is on the cloud. Meraki has its own cloud.

It is easy to set up. You can do everything on the GUI. You don't need to trace cables. You don't need to connect to the switch. Everything is there, right in front of you.

They're great. If there's anything that they need to change, it is just simplifying the site to which you go to make changes on the admin side.

I have been using this solution for five years.

It is very stable.

I can add or remove without any issues. So, scalability is no issue. It is being extensively used in the organization at the moment.

I have never contacted their support. It has always been great.

We used to have just the plain Cisco, and we just switched to Meraki. We switched because in the past, for you to trace or change VLANs and all that, you actually needed to log into the actual switch and make the changes there. You had to run a lot of commands and all that, but with Meraki, you could just go to their portal and make the changes there. Everything is kind of right in front of you. So, it makes things so much easier.

It is easy to set up. It took weeks because we had to install it, but the setup itself only took an hour or two.

It was done in-house. In terms of maintenance, it is very lightweight. I'm the admin for it. We do have other IT staff, but they don't really have to do much.

I would advise others to go and get it now. If you don't have it, get it.

I would rate it a nine out of 10 for the ease of use.

I work for an elementary school and Meraki's used to cover the entire building with wifi. It's not just a specific location. We're a kindergarten through sixth-grade school — an elementary school.

In terms of the product, it's been very good for us. They don't have all of the tools built-in that we would like to have such as heat mapping, but when it comes to managing it, it is straightforward and easily operated. We're able to automate as well as manually control as necessary.

This solution could benefit from a heat mapping ability so that you can tell where the hotspots are, and where the good signals are. To have that be available from within the management software would be fantastic.

We've been using this solution for four years.

Stability-wise, it's excellent. However, the software cannot tell us where there are issues. It would be nice if it could point them out to us, but without that event's information, it's more of a challenge. In terms of when we see that it's working, we know that it will be working, period. It's simply reliable.

It's very scalable. We could increase the system we have, but because of its age, we actually need to replace the entire thing at once. So instead of doing it piecemeal and having some of the older products remain while we put in a new product, we would rather replace the whole system. 

We have not used Meraki support directly. We haven't had any problems that were so horrible that we needed their assistance.

We're looking at whether to replace Meraki or go with ruckus or Aruba. There are all sorts of options for us. The signal coverage has been quite good with Meraki, but we just simply are in need of a stronger system than what we have now. 

I was very surprised. The initial setup was very straightforward. 

We had a company (reseller) install this solution because we needed so many access points. Once they put it in place and did the initial configuration, everything was straightforward and easily managed.

I don't recall the licensing cost. There is a hardware cost and separate licensing. We did buy the free lessons, but I can't recall how much it cost.

In terms of caution, I don't have any advice. In terms of a recommendation, it's been a very stable system for us. However, because our needs grew exponentially when we had to go one-to-one for students, this has made things too complicated. That's why we're looking into upgrading and replacing the whole system. Still, Meraki is not off of our list while we're considering new solutions.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of ten.

The dashboard is the solution's most valuable feature. It's very user-friendly. It's a good solution for people that don't have a big technical team.

In many wireless solutions, there are a lot of things that can be added, like WiFi 6. 

Meraki should share its viability roadmap. It is really hard to know which functionality will appear or when they will be available. It is also hard to know which features are available now but are not visible on the dashboard.

In France, there's a law that requires we should keep a log of connection for 1 year, so it would be really nice to have a solution or feature that allows us to keep a log in the cloud during the year with log rotations and secure log authorizations. Right now, in France, it is not possible.

So far, we haven't had issues with stability. 

The solution is easily scalable. There are not really any limits for the customer in terms of expanding if they need to.

The technical support of Meraki is very good. They're always quick to answer. You can create a case on your dashboard and after a maximum of 30 minutes, they contact you. This is a great process. Many other solutions should copy their support model. 

The initial setup is easy; it's not complex at all.

In terms of deployment, depending on the customer, it can be installed rather quickly. A customer can even handle the installation themselves.  Some may need more help with design, and it can take a bit more time to do that, but overall it's rather simple. 

We're a partner with Cisco. We create architecture for customers and design solutions for surveillance products. We also deploy WiFi production engineers from our company.

My advice to others considering implementation is to be aware of Meraki limitations. If you are not sure if the features you need are available, you should verify that with Meraki. It will keep you from having any surprises down the road.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It's a really good product.

The dashboard to keep track of 30 or so APs, switches, routers and logs, is invaluable. I liked the UX on this.

Notifications (minus the techno-speak so it's obvious what the problem is) help us respond to access points down or rogue access points attempting connections.

Tracking the usage of staff, access points, switches and routers becomes an insanely easy thing and so do producing reports for your Exec team.

Splash screens for T&C sign off by users are very easy to implement - it takes about 30 seconds to put a splash screen up. RADIUS and SSO are possible with similar ease.

Networks can be segmented into SSIDs very easily for those needing to provided users, office, POS, Events, etc, with seperated access. You can then monitor the usage down to a single MAC address for great granularity.

Reporting is easy - press two buttons et viola!

It's cut down the amount of time administering an expansive WiFi network spread over 43 acres.

We can easily monitor the up/down time so establishing KPIs and SLAs for the IT department becomes something attainable.

Adding APs is a very simple process. Plug in. Turn on. Meshes with the existing network. In an emergency, almost anyone can do it.

The error logs need to be much more comprehensive.

4 years

There can be problems if using older POS devices, WiFi APs, and you have a lot of people with mobiles around. So, say, a large event. The mix of signals can kill the WiFi APs and then you are left hard wiring "mobile" tills. Be aware if you're carrying old equipment.

Good.

Very good. Some times the odd problem may drag and require a dog-with-a-bone approach but that's the same everywhere.

Negotiate the deal put in front of you!