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Cisco Meraki vs Unifi
March 15, 2025 | Author: Michael Stromann
9★
Cisco Meraki is the leader in cloud controlled WiFi, routing, and security. Cisco Meraki offers the only solution that provides unified management of mobile devices, Macs, PCs, and the entire network from a centralized dashboard.
3★
Ubiquiti's Unifi provides full Surveillance Management and scalability. Offers customizable motion detection zones. Keep an eye on your property from any device, anywhere
Cisco Meraki and UniFi are, in essence, rather clever little boxes that make Wi-Fi happen. They both allow you to peer into the vast and mysterious workings of your network via a friendly web-based dashboard, which, much like a digital butler, does its best to pretend everything is fine even when it's clearly on fire. They excel at keeping vast numbers of people simultaneously connected to the internet, whether they are diligently working, diligently avoiding work or just streaming cat videos in glorious high definition. If you happen to be an IT administrator, both systems give you the supernatural ability to be omnipresent, omniscient, and, on particularly good days, even omnipotent—at least until the coffee runs out.
Cisco Meraki, birthed in 2006 and swiftly adopted into the great Cisco empire in 2012, is the sort of system that takes networking very seriously, much like a well-dressed accountant with an alarming enthusiasm for compliance regulations. It insists that you pay a licensing fee to keep using it, which may feel like renting your own Wi-Fi back from the gods of networking, but in return, you get enterprise-grade security, redundancy and support from people who probably use phrases like “zero-trust architecture” unironically. Governments, universities and large corporations adore it, mostly because it makes their lives easier while making their budgets cry softly into a spreadsheet.
UniFi, on the other hand, is the scrappy, cost-effective rebel born in 2005 under the Ubiquiti brand, determined to put high-performance networking into the hands of the masses without demanding monthly tributes. It lets you host your own controller if you fancy yourself a bit of a tech wizard and it’s just as happy in a high-tech office as it is in a nerd’s basement lair. Unlike its more corporate cousin, UniFi doesn’t badger you for ongoing payments, which makes it popular with small businesses, coffee shops and people who believe strongly in their right to control everything from their phone. It’s affordable, powerful, and, if you squint just right, ever so slightly anarchic.
See also: Top 10 Video Surveillance Systems
Cisco Meraki, birthed in 2006 and swiftly adopted into the great Cisco empire in 2012, is the sort of system that takes networking very seriously, much like a well-dressed accountant with an alarming enthusiasm for compliance regulations. It insists that you pay a licensing fee to keep using it, which may feel like renting your own Wi-Fi back from the gods of networking, but in return, you get enterprise-grade security, redundancy and support from people who probably use phrases like “zero-trust architecture” unironically. Governments, universities and large corporations adore it, mostly because it makes their lives easier while making their budgets cry softly into a spreadsheet.
UniFi, on the other hand, is the scrappy, cost-effective rebel born in 2005 under the Ubiquiti brand, determined to put high-performance networking into the hands of the masses without demanding monthly tributes. It lets you host your own controller if you fancy yourself a bit of a tech wizard and it’s just as happy in a high-tech office as it is in a nerd’s basement lair. Unlike its more corporate cousin, UniFi doesn’t badger you for ongoing payments, which makes it popular with small businesses, coffee shops and people who believe strongly in their right to control everything from their phone. It’s affordable, powerful, and, if you squint just right, ever so slightly anarchic.
See also: Top 10 Video Surveillance Systems
