Small blog post we put together for some of our education customers. Thought I'd share here as its a question we're asked over and over again - Meraki or Ubiquiti:
Working within the education sector we always hear the same question…."Ubiquiti is cheaper why should I consider Cisco Meraki"? This is understandable given the tight budgetary constraints within the sector but cheaper isn't always better.
Below are some of the key differences we feel are important between both platforms:
Vendor support – this simply doesn’t exist for the Ubiquiti product range. Admins/users are reliant on a support forum or webchat for technical issues. The Cisco Meraki solution includes 24/7/365 support with direct access to Meraki technical engineers. You’re guaranteed hardware replacements for equipment failures across the lifecycle of your licence. So with education pricing your solution could be supported for 10 years. This is important for a sector that will sweat its assets for as long as possible. This also provides time to budget for future refreshes.
Technical documentation – as above, this is hit and miss for Ubiquiti and what is in supply is of poor quality. We can point you in the direction of numerous solution design guides and configuration guides for Meraki from design, implementation etc but these don't exist for the Ubiquiti product range.
Feature Enhancements – All new features are available for Meraki customers as they’re released into the dashboard. Features are deployed continuously at no additional cost to the end user so your solution is future proof for the life cycle of the hardware
Cloud management – Meraki is a true cloud solution with no on-prem controller or “cloud-plugin” required to configure devices on site. You can monitor your network from any device and from any location from a single dashboard. Ubiquiti cite similar features but an additional man-in-the-middle server is required which in our opinion isn't a cloud solution.
