Meraki vs Aerohive

[MerakiJockey505]

Our organization is Meraki exclusive when it comes to WAPs.  We've been pretty happy with their performance so far and only had a few hiccups.  I've heard a lot towards the discussion of AP Console based control versus Cloud Based Control.  One of the bigger players on the AP Console Based side is Aerohive.  We aren't planning on switching it up anytime soon but I'm interested to hear from anyone who has used them before.  I've heard of certain advantages on the Aerohive side such as seamless roaming and the ability to console from the device.  I personally am content with the wired.meraki.com style setup and feel the roaming capability on the Merakis works solid but I'm curious to hear from anyone who has used any alternatives.

[NFL0NR]

ubiquiti is also becoming a bigger player with their  Unifi line I believe it is... 

Kinda funny we stopped using some edge router lites to go to Meraki.

[MerakiJockey505]

Thanks @NFL0NR, those are some pretty cool looking WAPs.  I don't think we'll switch anytime soon as our Meraki's work extremely well for us, but always nice to know the other players in the field.

[kYutobi]

Tried aerohive and installed it at home. It really is Meraki like when you have to enroll and there is a lot of options. I guess you have to get used to it and learn their "way" but I haven't seen anything simpler than Meraki.

[Mr_IT_Guy]

I agree with @kYutobi.I demoed Aerohive in our environment and did not like their UI since I had been using Meraki by that point.

One thing I did like was their guide feature. There was a floating help button on every page and if you clicked on it, you could have it guide you through a process. For example: If you wanted to setup a RADIUS server, you would select "Setup a RADIUS server" and it would guide you through the process click by click.

[MerakiJockey505]

@Mr_IT_GuyThat is a pretty nifty feature.  I hated setting up the RADIUS server when we used one.  The Meraki side of it wasn't too bad, but the client set up was a tedious nightmare.  Any on-board help devices can offer is definitely a plus.

[MerakiJockey505]

Thanks @kYutobi, for the price and usability of the Merakis you really can't beat it.  I don't think we'll be switching anytime, but nice to know other Meraki users feel the same.

[The_Merk]

We had a bake off between Aerohive, Meraki, Aruba and Ruckus a little over 2 years ago.  When of the test that I ran was to see how many clients I could connect to each access while streaming a youtube video.  With Aerohive in a room next door behind a cider block wall I was able to connect 70 plus devices while streaming a video.  The Meraki was a different story while in the same room it stopped allowing connection of clients after 30 devices.  Probably another thing that through me off was the Meraki push of the dashboard instead of the APs.  Both Dashboards are pretty similar and the only feature I like what Meraki does is the SSID scheduling otherwise I can do most if not more with HiveManager NG, which is their cloud version.  Aerohive's newest APs I can go dual 5GHz which helps with density and increased client connections.