Aruba Instant vs Aruba Wireless

Aruba Instant is ranked 11th in Wireless LAN with 1 review vs Aruba Wireless which is ranked 1st in Wireless LAN with 28 reviews. The top reviewer of Aruba Instant writes "Provides a built-in firewall, local radius, and application visibility and control". The top reviewer of Aruba Wireless writes "Some of the implementations or features do work as advertised. Urgent areas of improvement would be customer support, better tuned default settings, and documentation". Aruba Instant is most compared with . Aruba Wireless is most compared with Cisco Wireless, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN and Ruckus Wireless.

Aruba Instant

Aruba Wireless

31977

Aruba Instant

Based on 1 review.

29197

Aruba Wireless

Based on 28 reviews.

Most Helpful Review

Reviewer837531

User at a tech services company

Provides a built-in firewall, local radius, and application visibility and control

Wireless access is very reliable; once I install, it is solid and works very well.

Romal Amarkhail

Network Engineer

Gives us visibility into a user's speed, IP, MAC address, and daily bandwidth use

Before we used Aruba Wireless we had individual access points connected to our switches. We didn't actually have a centralized switch that could... Read more »

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Quotes From Members Comparing Aruba Instant vs Aruba Wireless

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros
Has many advanced features: Built-in firewall, local radius, application visibility and control, not locked into support agreements. Read more »	With Aruba Wireless Controller, all our access points are connected to one controller. Through that controller, we can actually handle each access point; we can disconnect or connect that access point, and then we can tell, or see, or allow how many users are, or should be, connected through that access point.The most important feature is all about the two wavelengths, the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz, and the access points which are connected to this wireless controller.If we really want to know where a specific user is connected, it gives us the ability to see that and how that user is actually receiving. We can know the speed and their IP, their MAC address and, most of the time, how much bandwidth they're using per day.The dashboard tells us who is using most of the bandwidth, and how many APs are not in good range, or that do not actually have good security. It shows us which users are trying to hack or how many users are trying to use BitTorrent. So it gives us very good visibility into the user.It provides superior WiFi access and RF management.The web interface to manage the APs is intuitive and makes managing the system easy. Firmware updates are quick and do not require much downtime.Scalability has been one of the easiest aspects of the Aruba Instant product line. As long as the models are compatible, you can simply connect it to your network and it will learn the settings from the other APs on the network and join the AP network.We have three wireless networks: One for employee use, one for guest use, and one for our warehouse use, which uses MAC authentication. These wireless networks just simply work, they do not fail. The IAP-205 devices are very strong with great range. Very durable equipment; it always works. Read more »
Cons
Although built-in troubleshooting tools are available, they are not at all intuitive to use. Aruba Instant lacks decent documentation to use for troubleshooting wireless issues (fortunately there aren’t many).The Central cloud management (optional) is far behind the competition in features, ease of use, and dependability. I have tried Aruba Central a few times over the years and, in my option, it is not where it needs to be for serious consideration in production environments. Read more »	The speed could be better. I heard that Aruba is trying to shape the speed inside the wireless controller, but that has not been adopted yet. If they put some kind of mechanism inside the wireless controller for the speed such that, "Okay, this many users will have 20 by 20 - 20 in the upload, 20 in the download. Just this many users. And this many users will have that type of speed." I think it would be very good if they actually bring that functionality inside the wireless controller.Every month Aruba has new firmware. I don't know if it's good or bad but it's not good in terms of production. We can't upgrade our firmware every month, especially an enterprise company, because if we upgrade our firmware based on the latest firmware that Aruba has, that firmware is not stable. They're not 100 percent sure about it.The new 8400 failed at Lab, plus its integration with Aruba Central.Customer service really needs to be improved. If the customer support was better, I would recommend it to others more than I do now. Considering that you have to pay yearly for support, I expect a higher level of support.The Aruba Central cloud portal needs a lot of work. It is complicated to navigate.I believe it would benefit from more reporting, other than just a dashboard. It needs some type of report builder so you can have PDFs to show upper management what is going on in the wireless network.Access point mounting options could be better.Some additional reporting features about the clients would be nice when not combined with the AirWave management package. Read more »

Pricing and Cost Advice

Avoid the Central cloud license if you can.

It's not expensive. That is the reason we switched to Aruba.Pricing is competitive. Licensing is needed to maintain access to the latest firmware, which wasn't made clear originally when we started with Arbua (or things changed, I'm not sure which). I would just say, make sure you budget for it.A recent change is that ClearPass licensing is superb. It counts user-based instead of device-based, for BYOD on-boarding.AP signal strength and price. I know this is a competitive market, but APs should not cost so much if they do not cover a large area. The system was very good, but we needed to upgrade in order to adapt for our needs, and doing so with Aruba would have been more expensive. Besides paying for the APs, you need to pay a license each year for their use. Therefore, watch out for that and do the best you can to keep costs down.I am aiding in transitioning my organization to a different wireless solution due to the cost. We need to expand our network and the cost of new APs and an upgraded controller have proved to be prohibitive compared to similar solutions on the market.The price point is pretty high compared to Ubiquiti and other equipment.

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Ranking
RANKING	11th out of 18 In Wireless LAN Views 16 Comparisons 6 Reviews 1 Followers 35 Avg. Rating 8.0	1st out of 18 In Wireless LAN Views 42,657 Comparisons 28,279 Reviews 25 Followers 1,338 Avg. Rating 8.4
Top Comparisons
Top Comparisons	See more Aruba Instant competitors »	Cisco Wireless vs. Aruba Wireless Compared 47% of the time. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. Aruba Wireless Compared 20% of the time. Ruckus Wireless vs. Aruba Wireless Compared 14% of the time. See more Aruba Wireless competitors »

Also Known As
Also Known As		Aruba WLAN, HP WLAN, HP Wireless
Website/Video
Website/Video	Aruba Networks	Aruba Networks
Overview
Overview	Aruba Instant delivers the only controllerless Wi-Fi solution that is easy to set-up, and loaded with security and smarts needed to accelerate your business without breaking your budget.	Aruba deliver superb Wireless performance and multi-user MIMO aware ClientMatch to boost network efficiency and support the growing device density and app demands on your network.
OFFER
Learn more about Aruba Instant Learn More	Learn more about Aruba Wireless Learn More
Sample Customers
Sample Customers	Purdue University, Orlando Magic, Brussels Airport Company, Molecaten Holiday Parks	Consulate Health Care, Los Angeles Unified School District, Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), San Diego State University, KFC, ACTS Retirement-Life Communities
Top Industries
Top Industries	No Data Available	REVIEWERS University 35% K 12 Educational Company Or School 12% Financial Services Firm 9% Healthcare Company 9% VISITORS READING REVIEWS Financial Services Firm 12% Comms Service Provider 12% University 12% Non Tech Company 9%
Company Size
Company Size	No Data Available	REVIEWERS Small Business 31% Midsize Enterprise 23% Large Enterprise 45% VISITORS READING REVIEWS Small Business 23% Midsize Enterprise 33% Large Enterprise 44%

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See also Aruba Instant Reviews, Aruba Wireless Reviews, and our list of Best Wireless LAN Companies.

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