Cisco Meraki

Pros

Meraki has left a positive mark in our company due to its benefits and the experience that supports it, we have a large number of access points MR distributed in different areas of the city in parks, educational institutions, hospitals and each of them is monitored easily and remotely from the web; thanks to this we can analyze the capacity of connections, radio frequency channel in use, current wifi standard 802. 11 b/g/n/ac, also thanks to the power and stability in the signal emission of each MR we guarantee to the users a clean connection without interruptions that for some of the cases a stable connection is vital.

Cons

With the continuous expansion of our network also demands the inclusion of more MR devices, these are notoriously more expensive although comparing the cost/benefit ratio is worth the investment, however, one of the limitations for this type of network is its close dependence on the internet connection to perform advanced technical configurations on the devices, everything related to ACS configuration, MAC filtering (black or white list) as it does not allow such configurations locally limiting it to communication with the central administration.

Pros

Setup of an enterprise MDM was made easy with Meraki SM. The web administration portal was easy to use, and offered us all of the functionality we needed initially, as well as has provided us the opportunity to increase our use over time. The platform is well designed, simple to use, and responsive.

The app management solutions provided through SM are excellent, as well as the user/device options for license assignment and updating.

Cons

We have found the location mapping to be unreliable in Meraki SM, despite having our mobile devices all GPS enabled and configured to make location information available to the SM app. The location tracking tends to use cellular location based on IP addressing and tower locations rather than GPS coordinates provided by the device.

Policy pushing over the air is hit or miss, and it can take multiple attempts to get a client device to receive the revised policies.

The greatest restrictions of the Meraki MDM seem to lie with Apple not making as many centralized management options available as they should, since enterprise use of iOS doesn't seem to be on their list of priorities.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Cisco Meraki

Pros

This is a beautiful MDM solution that supports all platforms which is great. There are some features not found elsewhere that make it easy to integrate security functionality with Meraki’s networking stack. Want WPA2 enterprise with TLS? Systems manager makes this seamless.

Cons

Feature set prioritizes integration with Meraki stack. Features introduced by Apple or Microsoft at the OS level can take months if not years to finally be implemented. This can cause quite a lag as your user base upgrades. No real features to manage the patch level of devices aside from manually pushing updates each time. Licensing cost fluctuates frequently (it’s free, it’s paid, it’s mostly free but sometimes paid).

Pros

A single one-stop location for remote management of iOS and other mobile devices and other assets. In particular, monitoring and administrating iOS devices is challenging and this tool has saved countless hours in configuring and deploying and maintaining iPhones in our business.

Cons

The features for updating Apps from the App Store needs improvement.

Pros

Combined a useable web interface with the power and reliability of Cisco hardware. It had an API that can be integrated for both inventory purposes and for monitoring, and for configuration. Mobile device management was straightforward, but still provided lots of options

Cons

Not really a network guy, so some of the more advanced stuff can be daunting.

Pros

It is very easy and intuitive to manage and support is always responsive and helpful

Cons

A lot of the needed log information is missing from the customer portal - you need to contact support for it. Does not play very nice with third-party firewalls for site-to-site VPNs

Pros

We can easily configure, manage and monitor our free WIFI networks from a single panel 100% in the cloud, it is easy to add wireless access points to the central panel and exercise control, cisco Meraki allows me to regulate the bandwidth to provide, either by SSID, IP, among others, I can restrict access to specific pages, encrypt networks (AES, WPA, WPA-PSK, etc); our company provides a free service of WiFi Zones located in different parts of the city in parks, shopping malls and other common areas through access point MR18. The support provided is timely and efficient in any circumstance, they respond in a very short time to our requests; I like the advanced security features provided, last but not least, Cisco Meraki provides a very intuitive and modern user interface, in which you can navigate smoothly.

Cons

The purchase price of the equipment and licenses is expensive compared to other competing products but it is well worth the investment as the benefits are many.

Pros

There are several details for which Cisco Meraki has greatly facilitated our daily work in terms of installation, management and monitoring of access points deployed in remote sites of our customers and is the ease of implementation; it may sound routine but this work is as simple as plug and play, just physically connect the element and in a few minutes the autodiscovery function shows the element to be monitored and parameterized according to customer needs (SSID, Encryption, MAC Filtering, Content Policies, etc).

Cons

There are more benefits than negative points, although I can indicate that the implementation is expensive in its licensing, perhaps for small and medium organizations it would be complex due to the high cost of licenses and equipment.

Pros

I love how the firewall is very effective

Cons

configuring it was a bit difficult for me

Pros

Meraki is a great cloud tool for managing networking devices.Great dashboard for the administration (one sub-dashboard for every Enterprise).

Cons

Expensive if you look at the competitors.Lacking native log management, Syslog server needed.

Pros

I have been utilizing Meraki from before they were acquired by Cisco, and I believe the product has only gotten better. The ease of management and ability to oversee multiple locations, on top of a plethora of features any SMB would need has made me happy in my continued use of their products. The notifications of connection loss and the ability to remote configure devices is unparalleled in my experience.

Cons

I do believe their pricing is quiet high, along side a license model that would brick your device if you no longer pay for it does leave a sour taste in some mouths, I've also found it to be lacking in some granular firewall policies compared to more purpose built products such as Juniper's firewalls.

Pros

Remote Management and Bandwidth Control for users in seperate networks at enterprise and hospitality.

Cons

It was a Little expensive compared to othes but it is sometimes worth the money because of the features and reliability that it provides.

Pros

The access to the Dashboard that controls the network. I can push software installation, I can control the network from EVERYWHERE --- literally

Cons

I think they need to improve the SSID availability, a calendar will work.

Pros

the ease of use is great. Deployment is straight forward for Meraki devices. MDM management is not extremely intuitive, but in fairness this is our first MDM product. Consoles are easy to navigate. For the price it is an effective product.

Cons

Licensing is a bit confusing, Menu in the management console could use a little improvement, more streamlined, reporting is very lacking.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Cisco Meraki

Reasons for Switching to Cisco Meraki

Pros

It has a decent feature set - including remote management of profiles and security features, For both Macs and iOS. The ability to completely lock down and erase the entire device has been nice in a few extreme situations.

The UI is intuitive and easy to use with LOTS of information about the devices being managed.

Cons

Initially we enjoyed the fact that we were given a relatively high if not unlimited (I cannot recall) now, we are billed per device. Which is fine. But the process to obtain the licenses is absolutely ridiculous, takes way too long and they do not allow for our account for an upgrade process. IE client has 20 computers enrolled, and they replace all of them, well you have to get another 20 licenses (paying for 40 computers) and then remove the old computes when they are phased out. Then decrease the license count. There is zero flexibility here, and the vendor was borderline indignant when it was pointed out how this is a problem in the real world.

Pros

The tracking of devices worked well always was able to tell where devices were located at based on the IP of the device.

Cons

The updating of apps and controlling apps was difficult and did not find it very intuitive.

Pros

Meraki Systems Manager is a cloud based management system that grants you the ability to manage devices within your network. You can see a lot of information about device use, manufacturer and connectivity. You can apply user policies and utilize Meraki’s built in Mobile Device Management. You can manage PC, Mac, Chromebook, iOS, Android and more!

Cons

System Manager is a great tool and has great customer service, however Meraki licensing is pricey compared to other tools available.

Pros

Easy tool to use for remote work staff to stay connected to the network with ease.

Cons

We utilize Meraki Routers and some of that seems a bit tricky for remote staff to set up appropriately

Pros

It is very easy to setup and start using. It has a lot of functions that can you can see in more expensive products but all cloud based and managed. Having no on premise foot print is great and it has the same dashboard as our Meraki devices we manage. We do not need to switch to check or update the status of devices. This does device inventory and deployment of software. Can find where devices are and who is logged in to them.

Cons

The MDM for managing the installation and whitelisting of software is poor. We would approve software for users but then when an update to the app happens we would need to approve the app again. We have used the setting to keep the app approved for all updates but it does not work. Force installing the software is not reliable at all.

Pros

Ease of deployment, best ROI in its class. One config can be applied to all devices in any site. site to site VPN is just few clicks. wifi handling is great, very low hardware failures.

Cons

Cannot integrate with Azure AD or ther AD providers for device auth. Limited protocol support for site to site vpn. client vpn connection setup is not clean , powershell required with admin access, else the anyconnect client with a license fee,

Pros

Management of multiple device on a single network with different OS
Simple and scalability and Artificial Intelligence and analytics feature
Claude bass services with central dashboard for management .

Cons

only few models have Wifi6 and those devices are to expensive.
Clean Air Advanced features only available with Cisco APs.
license procedure/methods is complicated.

Pros

THE EASE AND INTUITION OF ITS USE, AS A WEB PLATFORM IS ACCESSING ANYWHERE

Cons

COSTS ARE HIGH IN COMPARISON WITH COMPETITION IN THE MARKET

Pros

Our company recently moved from SonicWall devices to Meraki for firewalls. The cloud software that runs the system is pretty user-friendly and straightforward to use. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to configure the standard settings in the device. If you need help with something that is beyond your personal knowledge level, the support team is great! They are in SanFrancisco, so there isn't a language barrier. They are extremely helpful, and never make you feel like an idiot. The smartphone app for monitoring is also pretty nice. The hardware and licensing are a little more expensive, but I find enough value in the product that this isn't an issue.

Cons

I wish that the smartphone app came with a little more functionality for changing settings on the devices, but this certainly isn't a deal breaker. Most internet browsers that I have tried on smartphones will work just fine anyway.

Pros

We liked that it was a breeze to setup and managing devices can occur the same day you have a license to use it. We had a free trial and got to test all features of the tool before committing.

Cons

It could use a customizable dashboard. The reporting side needs to be a bit more robust as well.

Pros

I use this to monitor our WiFi network, it makes it tremendously easy to spot issues with in the network and to trouble shoot things.

Cons

The price of meraki over other products is a bit steep, but you get what you pay for a really high quality product with a great software management package

Pros

Cisco Meraki allows us complete visibility into our network at all times. I can manage 95% of my network tasks from anywhere at any time. This has allowed us to keep network management in-house with a 3 person IT team for a large campus environment with almost 1,000 users daily. Adding new devices is simple and the support is immediate and on point. I do not have to wait for a response and escalation. The agent who responds first is the one who resolves the issue in a professional and friendly manner.

Cons

The annual license renewal is costly. If you decide to co-term your licensing, it is not immediately obvious what the yearly licensing costs will be so it is important to consider this factor when forecasting your budget. For us, using Meraki offsets the cost of MSPs or another FTE for a network admin role so it is well worth the annual license costs to have the peace of mind that your network is always up to date and accessible to you from anywhere on any device.

Pros

It is easier to install and maintain than most similar products. You can easily establish vpn's between owned devices with dynamic ip addresses.

Cons

Ran into an issue recently where you can not define access for Software VPN clients to networks that are vpn connected that are not Meraki.

Pros

Ability to manage devices from anywhere. Creating and copying configs among other devices is simple and convenient.

Cons

Cost is a little high compared to other similar products.

Pros

I appreciated the ease of deployment and management of Meraki Products, user monitoring, and user-friendly interfaces.

Cons

Some features such as NAT(Static and Dynamic) and Link Aggregation are lacking in Meraki MX Firewalls. This limitation has posed challenges for me in network design and deployment scenarios.

Pros

Ease of setup, Very reliable WIFI solution. Configuration are all saved in the cloud.

Cons

Cost of annual licensing. If customer choose not to renew, the product will be unusable

Pros

Automation of updates and remote management

Cons

Licensing fees (although we're aware of Meraki Go model which is license free)

Pros

Very easy to user interface and mobile ability is great.

Cons

Like anything with Cisco it's expensive and this is the mid tier option for business users, if you want anything more specialized, you're going to have to pay up higher.

Pros

Cloud config is obviously huge. Being able to have a site set up and ready to go in the cloud before anything is plugged in make acquisitions and new stores so easy to stand up. Most new features are software based so it's only getting better.

Cons

Pricing could be easier to understand. There are some features that a more advanced network might need but it works great for us. It definitely should have better monitoring built in.

Pros

Cisco Meraki has reputable monitoring and firewall assistance.

Cons

Cisco Meraki makes defined security without compromise.

Pros

Meraki has been a product that we have been using for quite some time to manage our iOS and some of our Android devices. For the purposes that we use an MDM which is primarily just the pushing of apps and ensuring that specific settings are on, it does just that. The UI has been overhauled from its previous outdated design making it easier on the eyes.

Cons

They have recently changed the usage agreement which now does not include the first 100 devices for free. Since this change, they no longer allow for devices to be added or removed but do allow the management of pre-existing devices. However, due to our usage case and the pricing we have begun migrating away from Meraki.

Pros

Really good for AP deployment and monitoring

Cons

Appliances can be really expensive like for example the MR44

Pros

The easiest way manage to Network Device from the cloud and control the user with Group policies. One of my favorite feature is Group policies that is controlled the specific user with specific firewall rule, traffic shaping and security policies (like URL filtering, YouTube restriction level).

Cons

If you have multiple public IP addresses, it is not possible to separate the outbound PAT configuration for each user network.

Pros

I can't say enough that I love at Meraki. The ease of use of the dashboard or being able to make multiple changes on multiple switches across any of the sites within an organization. It cuts down on management tasks immensely.

Cons

I wish they had a blended consumer product that allowed tech savvy home users to be able to setup or protect their home networks without the annual licensing cost.

Pros

Cisco Meraki has allowed us to evolve our network infrastructure and the way we interact with this, there are clear details that make this a highly balanced, sustainable and accessible network, due to its on cloud environment has reduced locative, operational and maintenance costs associated with the equipment installed on these sites; aspects to highlight within the Meraki environment I can mention their equipment (Access Point) in our case, these are robust equipment, resistant to different outdoor environments, easy configuration (plug and play) and administration in the remote console, in addition, provides a wide range of data and metrics that are a very detailed basis for the management by our IT team in all the deployment of the infrastructure, Its clear and intuitive console has the functions at hand offering very fast possibilities to configure parameters such as SSID, MAC filtering (white and black list), bandwidth management either by SSID or by users, WEB content filtering, among others, possibilities like these make Cisco Meraki a very strong ally in our organization.

Cons

It should take into account the number of devices implemented in the network as it depends on the number of licenses to hire, although their individual cost is a bit high if you must take into account that this value is associated with some benefits of great help as some devices have a lifetime warranty while licensing is active, although in our cases the Access Point does not have this benefit I can guarantee that such equipment have a very striking performance in addition to withstand extreme operating conditions, so no negative comments so far I do not have.

Pros

Ease of use, simplicity in it's design, tech support and warranty

Cons

It can be pricey and some customers don't have the budget.

Pros

I like opening up my Meraki Dashboard every time I am handling network issues. It is like an extension of my view to pin point exactly where the issue is coming from. Even if the people I am helping are on other location, Meraki let me help them on what steps should be taken next. It helps me pin point what equipment are causing the issue.

Cons

Sometimes it is not real time, you would need to wait for days for the client/equipment to show it's real time status, which is very confusing sometimes.

Pros

Very easy to use and manage, cloud portal is good

Cons

Expensive and not very customizable, but still worth

Pros

The clean dashboard, ability to view connected devices, and just overall reliability.

Cons

So far nothing, all works good and is easy to manage.

Pros

Our company focused its eyes on Cisco Meraki for several important reasons such as: minimum infrastructure costs since the implementation does not require the physical installation of advanced equipment or data centers since all the infrastructure is in the cloud, this also eliminates maintenance costs that operationally demanded a considerable investment, secure and highly reliable wireless networks capable of supporting connections under the 802.11 ac standard in the order of Gbps, management from a single central platform and accessible from anywhere in the world.

Cons

The total dependence of the MR devices to the internet connection limits a little the management of our operative personnel that performs the repairs in all the zones, it is clear that for the cases where the internet connection fails, the local access to the access point is operative but when it is required to implement some access policy or special configurations in some points, the access through the central console by an administrator is obligatorily required.

Pros

Ease of deployment was minimal. Gear to ship and have users install

Cons

Cost was too high to the overall features

Pros

Cisco meraki allowed us to deploy and management the network and security devices from cloud access portal easily for the implementation engineer.This is the most I like in cisco meraki.

Cons

The cost of Cisco Meraki devices and license is too expensive for the most small business companies.

Pros

Cisco Meraki offers a GUI that can be operated in a simple way, it is easy to implement, it is scalable which allows us to meet the needs of the company; it has excellent capabilities for monitoring, supervision and management of wireless networks in the cloud, does not require much technical knowledge for the initial configuration of the Access Point, with Cisco Meraki we can manage and configure securely and simplified way all from the central control panel regardless of location or time (we can distribute the bandwidth as we wish, by network name, page or IP among others).

Cons

Functionally I have not found anything I dislike about Cisco Meraki, the only downside of Cisco Meraki is the high cost of licenses and equipment.

Pros

One of the main advantages of Cisco Meraki is its ease of use. The platform offers a simple and intuitive interface that makes it easy for businesses to manage their network devices, even if they don't have extensive technical expertise. This can be especially beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses that may not have dedicated IT staff.

Cons

the cost of the devices and subscriptions, which can be relatively high compared to other networking solutions. This may make it less suitable for small businesses or those with limited budgets.Another potential issue is the reliance on cloud-based management. While the cloud-based management can be convenient, it also means that businesses need a reliable internet connection to manage their devices. This can be a challenge in areas with poor connectivity or when there are network disruptions.

Pros

Cloud-based management: Cisco Meraki is cloud-based, which makes it easier to manage networks remotely and provides real-time insights into network performance.Scalability: Cisco Meraki can scale to meet the needs of small businesses, large enterprises, and everything in between.Easy setup and deployment: Cisco Meraki has a straightforward setup and deployment process, which makes it easy to get up and running quickly.Integration with other Cisco products: Cisco Meraki integrates well with other Cisco products, such as Cisco security solutions and Cisco collaboration tools, providing a more seamless experience for users.Advanced security features: Cisco Meraki offers advanced security features, such as firewalls, VPNs, and wireless security, to help protect networks and data.Comprehensive reporting and analytics: Cisco Meraki provides detailed reporting and analytics, making it easier to understand network performance and identify potential issues.

Cons

Cost: Cisco Meraki can be expensive compared to other network management solutions.Limited customization options: Some users may find that the customization options in Cisco Meraki are limited, making it difficult to tailor the solution to specific needs.Complexity: Some users may find the interface and features of Cisco Meraki to be complex, which could make it challenging to use for less experienced users.Dependence on cloud connectivity: As a cloud-based solution, Cisco Meraki requires a stable and reliable internet connection to function properly, which could be a concern for some users.Limited support for older hardware: Cisco Meraki may not support older hardware, which could be a concern for users with large fleets of older devices.

Pros

Overall control over the sites where it was implemented made it easy to manage.

Cons

Some client versions were not fully compatible with the most recent OS like Mac is.