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Aruba Wireless vs WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Aruba Wireless
Ranking in Wireless LAN
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
149
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi
Ranking in Wireless LAN
24th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Wireless LAN category, the mindshare of Aruba Wireless is 15.4%, down from 21.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Wireless LAN Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Aruba Wireless15.4%
WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi0.5%
Other84.1%
Wireless LAN
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad_Faisal - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience seamless connectivity with top-notch roaming capabilities
The Aruba Wireless solution has excellent roaming capabilities, ensuring seamless connectivity. Once installed, Aruba Wireless works robustly without overheating issues. This is particularly effective compared to other products I've used, like FortiMonitor and FortiAPs, which sometimes heat up. I am very satisfied with the roaming feature, as it ensures connectivity when moving from one location to another. The product's stability, after setting it up, adds to its value.
WarrenWilliams - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution that offers excellent support and makes it easy to manage networks
To utilize the solution properly, you need some training and guidance on that. Getting it working is easy, but if you're going to use it with feature sets that make WatchGuard worthwhile to use, it's probably not the easiest to set up. I'd rate the initial setup a seven out of ten. The time taken to deploy the solution depends on the project scope you're doing. Do you need ten WiFi access points or one? You could deploy the solution in an hour. We need one person to deploy the solution. But the number of people required for deployment depends on where the access points are deployed. Like, if it's the ceiling or whatever. The way we do it, we usually have an on-site technician who sets up the backend. We usually have two people when deploying the solution, but you can do it with one person. We have a team that manages the solution. But if you have ten people on a site to manage the solution, 15 minutes daily is enough.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The technical support is 24/7 from the UA."
"​Stability and its ability to handle more devices has been an improvement for our organization.​"
"It's a very stable system."
"Aruba Wireless has been straightforward to set up."
"AirWave is a valuable feature."
"For my organization, the most critical feature of Aruba Wireless is guest management."
"The initial setup is straightforward. Configure one IAP and all the rest self-configure to that one.​"
"​It has improved overall IT efficiency across the board."
"The Wi-Fi security features of this solution have been great for our customers who need to strictly control access to their network."
"They're very easy to set up and get running."
"It makes it easy to obtain all information about the client experience."
"Cloud analytics that provide all its attributes."
"We like that WatchGuard works and integrates directly with the firewalls we use."
"The solution has been stable."
"The configuration part of WatchGuard is very flexible."
 

Cons

"They need to increase the number of routers on the controller."
"Lacks a heat map analysis and a cloud-based wireless controller."
"The solution needs to add features and enhance security."
"The urgent areas of improvement would be customer support, better tuned default settings, and documentation."
"Zero-touch provisioning is needed."
"The speed could be better. I heard that Aruba is trying to shape the speed inside the wireless controller, but that has not been adopted yet. If they put some kind of mechanism inside the wireless controller for the speed such that, "Okay, this many users will have 20 by 20 - 20 in the upload, 20 in the download. Just this many users. And this many users will have that type of speed." I think it would be very good if they actually bring that functionality inside the wireless controller."
"The solution's documentation could be better organized in an information portal."
"Aruba is missing some features that are available in other solutions, such as the email notifications. It's a bit complex to configure the notification part. Mainly I'm talking about the rogue WiFi detection. This email notification is crucial for us, but it isn't possible to configure with the built-in software. You need something else, like an external system log collector or another Aruba software. These notifications are essential in hospitality for PCI compliance. My colleagues in famous luxury hotel chains need that report."
"If a client device had issues with authentication due to out of date browser or similar difficulties, it would be nice to have the ability to migrate the client onto the portal via one click."
"The support response can be time-consuming because sometimes issues are very sensitive and require instant attention."
"The solution can be scaled but it has limitations from my experience."
"One of the things is if you buy it with a certain subscription, you can't easily change the subscription level."
"Inability to import a user with one click."
"The price of this solution needs to reviewed, as it is currently high enough to deter customers from trying it."
"I don't think they're available at the best price."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Aruba Wireless is reasonable."
"Aruba Wireless is very attractive cost-wise."
"We have some licenses for the solution, and we need not renew licenses. But we need to pay a hundred thousand if you want to renew our subscription and renew the hardware."
"I am aiding in transitioning my organization to a different wireless solution due to the cost. We need to expand our network and the cost of new APs and an upgraded controller have proved to be prohibitive compared to similar solutions on the market.​"
"The system was very good, but we needed to upgrade in order to adapt for our needs, and doing so with Aruba would have been more expensive. ​"
"The product is expensive."
"I think it would be better if they lowered the price."
"Aruba Wireless is the best for the price. Aruba Wireless is the least expensive, the second is Huawei, and the most expensive is Cisco."
"WatchGuard is on the upper scale for pricing."
"Your licensing and cost, as would be required for many other solutions, being considered for eighty to two hundred and eighty different physical locations, is just about the same amount per access point."
"The solution is priced high compared to competitors. However, for the features that are included in the solution, the price becomes more reasonable."
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Comparison Review

it_user212721 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 24, 2015
Cisco vs. Aruba Wireless Solutions
Cisco or Aruba Networks? If you are considering wireless access solutions, this is a common question that you are probably asking. You probably have sales people knocking at your door. How do you make sense of all the stories that you are presented with. If you have done any research, you are…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Non Profit
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business76
Midsize Enterprise46
Large Enterprise73
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What are pros and cons of Aruba 515 Series AP vs. Cisco Meraki or Extreme Networks?
Depends. I have personally used both Cisco and Aruba so I am familiar with them. Extreme I am not, so unless they have some feature that I need or want, I wouldn't consider them. Do you have expe...
Aruba Wireless or Ruckus Wireless?
At my organization, we researched Ruckus Wireless among other solutions but ultimately chose Aruba wireless. What did we like about Ruckus? First, it was very easy to use, and anybody with minimal...
How does Cisco Wireless compare with Aruba Wireless?
On the most basic level, Cisco Wireless can offer a rather straightforward initial setup. In the span of about three hours, the basic framework can be set up. Step-by-step instructions are availabl...
What needs improvement with WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi?
The support response can be time-consuming because sometimes issues are very sensitive and require instant attention. Also, when an incident occurs, the impact can be significantly huge. A recent p...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi?
We use WatchGuard Secure Wi-Fi because we have used different tools as well, like Ubiquiti. The complexity of Ubiquiti is much more compared to WatchGuard, which provides more flexibility and is ea...
What advice do you have for others considering WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi?
We recommend using WatchGuard Secure Wi-Fi, but when incidents occur, it can be very difficult to identify why they happen. Normally, the issues are simple to fix, but we recently faced a major inc...
 

Also Known As

Aruba WLAN, HP WLAN, HP Wireless, Aruba Instant On AP Series Access Point
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Consulate Health Care, Los Angeles Unified School District, Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), San Diego State University, KFC, ACTS Retirement-Life Communities
Portsmouth Grammar School, HILOTEC
Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba Wireless vs. WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.