7 ms·

It’s such a shame what Ubiquiti has become these past 3-5 years. Their product used to be fun and reliable. Nowadays, just feels like corporate greed and just a

It’s such a shame what Ubiquiti has become these past 3-5 years. Their product used to be fun and reliable. Nowadays, just feels like corporate greed and just another Cisco. I eventually switched out all my Ubiquiti stuff due to it.

alexose 3y ago
Out of curiosity, what brand(s) did you switch to?
- tekla 3y ago
  I switched from Unifi to Aruba
markus92 3y ago
So what's the go to brand for decent networking gear nowadays?
- accrual 3y ago
  It's not for everybody, but I run OpenBSD on an APU2 from PCEngines. The hardware is EOL but it's handy to be able to run my setup on virtual any modern commodity hardware, as long as I can fit a couple NICs inside. A couple years ago my parent's DSL line was accidentally severed, but our neighbors agreed to let us bridge through their WiFi. I setup an old Pentium MMX 200MHz box with a PCI NIC and PCI wireless card and got them online again. It was more of a fun exercise and an effort to put something between our network and theirs, but it was even fast enough for Netflix.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    any murmurs if PC Engines are thinking about a replacement platform yet? Maybe something like the N100/N300 series? I see quite a few firewall appliances with those. Or maybe the space is too saturated these days with competitors from aliexpress/etc.
    - jon-wood 3y ago
      The sense I’ve got from what they’ve published, and a few emails back and forth on final orders, is that the guy behind PC Engines has had enough and wants to go do something else with their life.
- asn007 3y ago
  Mikrotik is decent! While there is some lackluster hardware (and, to be honest, most of their wireless AP solutions kinda suck), I've ran Mikrotik on two small-scale networks (~60 devices each, not including WiFi) + my home network, and had no issues whatsoever. Love them
  - igetspam 3y ago
    I find the management software to be... lacking. That's where ubiquti does great, in my opinion. I have some Mikrotik wireless wires and they're great but I never look forward to having to touch them (which is extremely rare).
- dgroshev 3y ago
  Aruba Instant On. Same hardware as their enterprise offerings, much lower prices, zero hassle. VyOS on a passive Intel box for routing.
nkohari 3y ago
Can you say more about this? I have a bunch of Ubiquiti gear for years and have been really happy with it.
Spaced-Oddity 3y ago
Why do you say that Ubiquiti has gone the corporate greed route? I haven't been following this. Seems like they're still dramatically cheaper than Cisco, etc. But they've definitely had a few product flops that didn't make much sense to me.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
causi 3y ago
Can't stand Ubiquiti myself. The web interface breaks every convention and I remember constantly running into bizarre problems like not being able to change port forwarding assignments without the devices being online or download benchmarks being exactly half as fast as they should be.
dna_polymerase 3y ago
I only recently got into Ubiquiti gear, besides availability issues in their store, I have nothing to complain about, but I'm not a hardcore user. What issues do you have with them?
beej71 3y ago
I also found it was just overkill for my home network. And it was a hassle when my controller computer would die and I'd need to sort everything out. Went with a simpler solution with web and ssh interfaces.
flyinghamster 3y ago
They've had their rocky moments, to be sure - and I won't hesitate to ding them for making self-hosting obscure. But, you can do so, and they actually listened and walked back their egregious stuff, so I'll give them credit for that as well, and my APs and ERPoE-5 have been rock solid. I've also liked their latest controller software (I run a VM on a ZFS storage backend, so I can roll it back if an update goes sour). If anyone from Ubiquiti is listening, the fact that I can self-host is a major reason for my keeping my existing gear and being willing to buy more. I'm not keen on trusting my network administration to third-party server access.
- nicholasjarnold 3y ago
  I want to _strongly_ second this. After seeing some Ubiquiti gear in use in various enterprise settings almost a decade ago I personally investigated the brand for home use and bought into some of the WiFi gear for use in conjunction with the rest of my network hardware/software. If there were ever a requirement to allow public internet ingress or egress from this stuff directly I would immediately replace it. Self-hosting the controller is a base requirement for my use-cases as well.
graton 3y ago
My stuff just keeps on working. So for me I have no complaints. They aren't perfect but I haven't found anything out there that makes me want to switch to something else.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
3guk 3y ago
I think that some of their more recent decisions have been questionable (Unifi Video -> Protect) - but there is still no doubt in my mind that you get a lot for your money, even if you do have to troubleshoot a little bit more than more pro (Cisco et al) stuff... I'm not sure I love some of the more home automation based stuff as I've not used it - but at least with the Unifi Protect range and the switches / APs I've mostly been happy. Seems like some of the more vocal people in the Unifi community are angry as they have built businesses around supporting these sort of setups - where I totally understand that a broken firmware update can wreck havoc.
Vaslo 3y ago
Just don’t see this. I’ve bought a random piece of equipment from them each year over the past 6ish years. Never any issues.

alexose 3y ago

Out of curiosity, what brand(s) did you switch to?

tekla 3y ago
I switched from Unifi to Aruba

markus92 3y ago

So what's the go to brand for decent networking gear nowadays?

accrual 3y ago
It's not for everybody, but I run OpenBSD on an APU2 from PCEngines. The hardware is EOL but it's handy to be able to run my setup on virtual any modern commodity hardware, as long as I can fit a couple NICs inside. A couple years ago my parent's DSL line was accidentally severed, but our neighbors agreed to let us bridge through their WiFi. I setup an old Pentium MMX 200MHz box with a PCI NIC and PCI wireless card and got them online again. It was more of a fun exercise and an effort to put something between our network and theirs, but it was even fast enough for Netflix.
- paulmd 3y ago
  any murmurs if PC Engines are thinking about a replacement platform yet? Maybe something like the N100/N300 series? I see quite a few firewall appliances with those. Or maybe the space is too saturated these days with competitors from aliexpress/etc.
  - jon-wood 3y ago
    The sense I’ve got from what they’ve published, and a few emails back and forth on final orders, is that the guy behind PC Engines has had enough and wants to go do something else with their life.
asn007 3y ago
Mikrotik is decent! While there is some lackluster hardware (and, to be honest, most of their wireless AP solutions kinda suck), I've ran Mikrotik on two small-scale networks (~60 devices each, not including WiFi) + my home network, and had no issues whatsoever. Love them
- igetspam 3y ago
  I find the management software to be... lacking. That's where ubiquti does great, in my opinion. I have some Mikrotik wireless wires and they're great but I never look forward to having to touch them (which is extremely rare).
dgroshev 3y ago
Aruba Instant On. Same hardware as their enterprise offerings, much lower prices, zero hassle. VyOS on a passive Intel box for routing.

nkohari 3y ago

Can you say more about this? I have a bunch of Ubiquiti gear for years and have been really happy with it.

Spaced-Oddity 3y ago

Why do you say that Ubiquiti has gone the corporate greed route? I haven't been following this. Seems like they're still dramatically cheaper than Cisco, etc. But they've definitely had a few product flops that didn't make much sense to me.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

causi 3y ago

Can't stand Ubiquiti myself. The web interface breaks every convention and I remember constantly running into bizarre problems like not being able to change port forwarding assignments without the devices being online or download benchmarks being exactly half as fast as they should be.

dna_polymerase 3y ago

I only recently got into Ubiquiti gear, besides availability issues in their store, I have nothing to complain about, but I'm not a hardcore user. What issues do you have with them?

beej71 3y ago

I also found it was just overkill for my home network. And it was a hassle when my controller computer would die and I'd need to sort everything out. Went with a simpler solution with web and ssh interfaces.

flyinghamster 3y ago

They've had their rocky moments, to be sure - and I won't hesitate to ding them for making self-hosting obscure. But, you can do so, and they actually listened and walked back their egregious stuff, so I'll give them credit for that as well, and my APs and ERPoE-5 have been rock solid. I've also liked their latest controller software (I run a VM on a ZFS storage backend, so I can roll it back if an update goes sour). If anyone from Ubiquiti is listening, the fact that I can self-host is a major reason for my keeping my existing gear and being willing to buy more. I'm not keen on trusting my network administration to third-party server access.

nicholasjarnold 3y ago
I want to _strongly_ second this. After seeing some Ubiquiti gear in use in various enterprise settings almost a decade ago I personally investigated the brand for home use and bought into some of the WiFi gear for use in conjunction with the rest of my network hardware/software. If there were ever a requirement to allow public internet ingress or egress from this stuff directly I would immediately replace it. Self-hosting the controller is a base requirement for my use-cases as well.

graton 3y ago

My stuff just keeps on working. So for me I have no complaints. They aren't perfect but I haven't found anything out there that makes me want to switch to something else.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

3guk 3y ago

I think that some of their more recent decisions have been questionable (Unifi Video -> Protect) - but there is still no doubt in my mind that you get a lot for your money, even if you do have to troubleshoot a little bit more than more pro (Cisco et al) stuff... I'm not sure I love some of the more home automation based stuff as I've not used it - but at least with the Unifi Protect range and the switches / APs I've mostly been happy. Seems like some of the more vocal people in the Unifi community are angry as they have built businesses around supporting these sort of setups - where I totally understand that a broken firmware update can wreck havoc.

Vaslo 3y ago

Just don’t see this. I’ve bought a random piece of equipment from them each year over the past 6ish years. Never any issues.