6 ms·

The problem from my end though is, who really competes with them? No one else offers the same level of control at the same (or even close) price point.

by xxpor 4y ago

beams_of_light 4y ago
The old adage "you get what you pay for" applies here. Yeah, it's cheaper than buying Meraki, Aruba, Fortinet, etc, but the IDS/IPS on their Dream Machine is awful, logging is awful, reliability of anything but wireless gear is awful, Protect storage equipment is awful...
- InTheArena 4y ago
  This is just getting silly. They use Suricata for the IDS/IPS. I have a UDMP, and I route 2.5GB a second across two load balanced connections (fiber and cable) on full IDS/IPS with no problems. I have logging going to greylog without any issues, but am looking to move to Loki. I have a UDMP, with a single 8TB disk for my camera, but you can grab a UNVR if you need more storage. If you need two, grab two UNVRs to cover a whole site. They pair now. And if you are a prosumer instead of a homelab / busoiness site grab a UDR, with a fast flash disk. You can pair that into Homekit secure with Homebridge (or even better, Scrypted). I have 5 Unifi 6 devices - zero problems with them in well over a year at this point. I get 800mb/s from any location on-site.
- vel0city 4y ago
  I don't really want to pay for support contracts which cost more than the upfront cost of the hardware after a couple of years to continue to receive software updates for my prosumer level home networking deployments. Does Meraki and Aruba provide free updates?
msh 4y ago
Mikrotik is in the same price range but not as polished.
- Arainach 4y ago
  "Not as polished" is an incredibly generous term. Unless something has radically changed, Mikrotik basically requires remoting in with a command line and understanding all the implementation details. It's like trying to run a FreeBSD box as a router. Ubiquiti's tooling for common workflows is generations ahead, not a coat of polish.
  - tonyarkles 4y ago
    I felt the same way and still kind of do, but I was really impressed the other day. My rural neighbour and I decided to share an Internet connection and I set a Mikrotik WAP in "CPE" mode (basically what you'd use if you were connecting to a WISP) and it was incredibly smooth to get going. WiFi radio in the WAP connects to my network, Ethernet coming out of it goes to his home network. They're incredibly powerful devices no doubt and I have ended up in configuration hell before, but they've definitely gotten better at some of the more common (and less common) workflows.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Once you realize that Mikrotik is NOT a small business router company but started as a WISP supply company for Eastern Europe it becomes much more clear. They've greatly enhanced the web interface in recent updates, but you still will probably need to find a recipe for what you want to do, but it can do it.
  - ikiris 4y ago
    Yeah mikrotik config is like trying to learn gregorian incantation spells and you have to be in the right 3rd harmonics.
  - kllrnohj 4y ago
    I have one Mikrotik switch and it's the only device on my network that just randomly decides it doesn't want to DHCP renewal and falls back to some random static IP until a power cycle. Since it's a switch that I rarely touch it's not a big deal, but "not polished" is putting it mildly for sure. Price & performance is still solid if you just treat it as a VLAN-aware "dumb" switch, though.
kevinmgranger 4y ago
I've heard good things about MikroTik?
- InTheArena 4y ago
  Better routing functionality (at least until the last bits of load balancing and policy based routing land), but MicroTik is hard to manage for anything but the simplest use cases. Plus you don't get the single pane of glass management across your WIFI / Switch / Routing ecosystem. In fact, you have to change the operating system you use on the switch depending on which features you want w/ Mikrotek. Aruba and TP-Link Omada did huge marketing pushes to take advantage when Ubiquiti got hit with this crap. Every person I have talked to that switched from Unifi gear to Arbua Instant-On has moved back off of it over the last year. There is some selection bias there, but you can see the same thing in the youtube tech blogger(s) as well. That said, I think if you are not going Unifi for WIFI, your best bet is either CISCO or alternatively go mesh. If you want to go down the more powerful path for routing I strongly suggest OPNSense / PFSense.
- fomine3 4y ago
  It's really cheap for hardware (maybe except Chinese whitebox), and software is flexible.
corndoge 4y ago
MikroTik
MartinCron 4y ago
I'm using the TP-Link Omada access points and router along with the software controller and it's pretty great.
OJFord 4y ago
Nobody competes with them as 'Apple for networking', but MikroTik is if anything a bit cheaper and better on the actual specs etc. - just without the snazzy UI and easy GUI (highly-G) config. There's probably a lot of people who'd love Ubiquiti gear ('gadget nerds', Linus Tech Tips viewers, gamers, etc.) to whom I wouldn't recommend MikroTik, but to anyone who's.. idk, heard of iptables, I would. All the gamer-marketed WAP/routers with a million antennae are somewhat competitors in the former category too I suppose.
- InTheArena 4y ago
  If you have heard of IPTables, go grab OPNSense. Mikrotek makes sense when you really really really care about having the cheapest possible 10g switch. AFAIK, there is nothing that competes apples to apples with the UDM in terms of a entry level managed switch / router / WAP offering (or the UDR, which does UDM + Telephony or distributed global management)
  - OJFord 4y ago
    Yeah OPN/pfSense make ..sense too I think, haven't used them personally though. But there's some hardware (primarily thinking non-router/firewalls) you couldn't have or wouldn't want them to run on, and so you might buy MikroTik, and then use them for everything so as to have only one config system to learn. I have the SXT for example (4G antenna/modem/router) so if I wanted a managed switch or another router or whatever I'd be more inclined to get a MikroTik one just to simplify my time configuring them, similarly to but even without Ubiquiti's snazzy auto discovery etc.
  - xxpor 4y ago
    I run OPNSense. They're not the same thing. I meant who competes in the WiFi HW space?
- hot_gril 4y ago
  > Nobody competes with them as 'Apple for networking' Apple used to ;_; I was still using my Airport Expresses until they gave out. Didn't care if they didn't have the latest wifi standards, they were way easier to manage than Ubiquiti or anything else.
beermonster 4y ago
No one. Sadly!

The problem from my end though is, who really competes with them? No one else offers the same level of control at the same (or even close) price point.

by xxpor 4y ago

The problem from my end though is, who really competes with them? No one else offers the same level of control at the same (or even close) price point.

beams_of_light 4y ago

The old adage "you get what you pay for" applies here. Yeah, it's cheaper than buying Meraki, Aruba, Fortinet, etc, but the IDS/IPS on their Dream Machine is awful, logging is awful, reliability of anything but wireless gear is awful, Protect storage equipment is awful...

InTheArena 4y ago
This is just getting silly. They use Suricata for the IDS/IPS. I have a UDMP, and I route 2.5GB a second across two load balanced connections (fiber and cable) on full IDS/IPS with no problems. I have logging going to greylog without any issues, but am looking to move to Loki. I have a UDMP, with a single 8TB disk for my camera, but you can grab a UNVR if you need more storage. If you need two, grab two UNVRs to cover a whole site. They pair now. And if you are a prosumer instead of a homelab / busoiness site grab a UDR, with a fast flash disk. You can pair that into Homekit secure with Homebridge (or even better, Scrypted). I have 5 Unifi 6 devices - zero problems with them in well over a year at this point. I get 800mb/s from any location on-site.
vel0city 4y ago
I don't really want to pay for support contracts which cost more than the upfront cost of the hardware after a couple of years to continue to receive software updates for my prosumer level home networking deployments. Does Meraki and Aruba provide free updates?

msh 4y ago

Mikrotik is in the same price range but not as polished.

Arainach 4y ago
"Not as polished" is an incredibly generous term. Unless something has radically changed, Mikrotik basically requires remoting in with a command line and understanding all the implementation details. It's like trying to run a FreeBSD box as a router. Ubiquiti's tooling for common workflows is generations ahead, not a coat of polish.
- tonyarkles 4y ago
  I felt the same way and still kind of do, but I was really impressed the other day. My rural neighbour and I decided to share an Internet connection and I set a Mikrotik WAP in "CPE" mode (basically what you'd use if you were connecting to a WISP) and it was incredibly smooth to get going. WiFi radio in the WAP connects to my network, Ethernet coming out of it goes to his home network. They're incredibly powerful devices no doubt and I have ended up in configuration hell before, but they've definitely gotten better at some of the more common (and less common) workflows.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Once you realize that Mikrotik is NOT a small business router company but started as a WISP supply company for Eastern Europe it becomes much more clear. They've greatly enhanced the web interface in recent updates, but you still will probably need to find a recipe for what you want to do, but it can do it.
- ikiris 4y ago
  Yeah mikrotik config is like trying to learn gregorian incantation spells and you have to be in the right 3rd harmonics.
- kllrnohj 4y ago
  I have one Mikrotik switch and it's the only device on my network that just randomly decides it doesn't want to DHCP renewal and falls back to some random static IP until a power cycle. Since it's a switch that I rarely touch it's not a big deal, but "not polished" is putting it mildly for sure. Price & performance is still solid if you just treat it as a VLAN-aware "dumb" switch, though.

kevinmgranger 4y ago

I've heard good things about MikroTik?

InTheArena 4y ago
Better routing functionality (at least until the last bits of load balancing and policy based routing land), but MicroTik is hard to manage for anything but the simplest use cases. Plus you don't get the single pane of glass management across your WIFI / Switch / Routing ecosystem. In fact, you have to change the operating system you use on the switch depending on which features you want w/ Mikrotek. Aruba and TP-Link Omada did huge marketing pushes to take advantage when Ubiquiti got hit with this crap. Every person I have talked to that switched from Unifi gear to Arbua Instant-On has moved back off of it over the last year. There is some selection bias there, but you can see the same thing in the youtube tech blogger(s) as well. That said, I think if you are not going Unifi for WIFI, your best bet is either CISCO or alternatively go mesh. If you want to go down the more powerful path for routing I strongly suggest OPNSense / PFSense.
fomine3 4y ago
It's really cheap for hardware (maybe except Chinese whitebox), and software is flexible.

corndoge 4y ago

MikroTik

MartinCron 4y ago

I'm using the TP-Link Omada access points and router along with the software controller and it's pretty great.

OJFord 4y ago

Nobody competes with them as 'Apple for networking', but MikroTik is if anything a bit cheaper and better on the actual specs etc. - just without the snazzy UI and easy GUI (highly-G) config. There's probably a lot of people who'd love Ubiquiti gear ('gadget nerds', Linus Tech Tips viewers, gamers, etc.) to whom I wouldn't recommend MikroTik, but to anyone who's.. idk, heard of iptables, I would. All the gamer-marketed WAP/routers with a million antennae are somewhat competitors in the former category too I suppose.

InTheArena 4y ago
If you have heard of IPTables, go grab OPNSense. Mikrotek makes sense when you really really really care about having the cheapest possible 10g switch. AFAIK, there is nothing that competes apples to apples with the UDM in terms of a entry level managed switch / router / WAP offering (or the UDR, which does UDM + Telephony or distributed global management)
- OJFord 4y ago
  Yeah OPN/pfSense make ..sense too I think, haven't used them personally though. But there's some hardware (primarily thinking non-router/firewalls) you couldn't have or wouldn't want them to run on, and so you might buy MikroTik, and then use them for everything so as to have only one config system to learn. I have the SXT for example (4G antenna/modem/router) so if I wanted a managed switch or another router or whatever I'd be more inclined to get a MikroTik one just to simplify my time configuring them, similarly to but even without Ubiquiti's snazzy auto discovery etc.
- xxpor 4y ago
  I run OPNSense. They're not the same thing. I meant who competes in the WiFi HW space?
hot_gril 4y ago
> Nobody competes with them as 'Apple for networking' Apple used to ;_; I was still using my Airport Expresses until they gave out. Didn't care if they didn't have the latest wifi standards, they were way easier to manage than Ubiquiti or anything else.

beermonster 4y ago

No one. Sadly!