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Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs Juniper WLC Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

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

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN
Ranking in Wireless LAN
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.7
Number of Reviews
123
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Juniper WLC Series
Ranking in Wireless LAN
19th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Wireless LAN category, the mindshare of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is 10.2%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Juniper WLC Series is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Wireless LAN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN10.2%
Juniper WLC Series1.6%
Other88.2%
Wireless LAN
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2847906 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Wireless management has become efficient with rich client visibility for troubleshooting
In terms of specific challenges with hybrid environments, I face no issues. I assess the operational efficiency of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN in my IT environment as pretty efficient for the most part. I would rate it at approximately 80%. I have had some issues with the dashboard itself and as far as switch management goes, but that is not necessarily on the wireless side of things. The wireless side has been quite good. Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN optimizes the experience in a hybrid or distributed enterprise setup. My impression of the end-to-end visibility offered by Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is that it is quite good. I function as an admin. What stood out to make me choose Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is that I already leverage many products with Cisco. I have Catalyst switching, ACI infrastructure, and use them for my core and edge routers. I would give this review an overall rating of 8 out of 10.
RN
National Marketing Manager at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
AI-driven optimization enhances network management and reduces hardware needs
In my region, access to the product is very difficult and presents a logistical nightmare. Also, pricing is a big problem and a barrier to entry when selling Juniper against competitors. Furthermore, the knowledge of the product's capabilities is not understood properly by those selling it, leading to overselling and overquoting.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are many valuable features of Cisco Meraki, including the switches, stacking, and layer 3 routing."
"Cloud managed wireless LAN product that's stable and scalable. It's an easy to deploy and easy to troubleshoot solution."
"What I liked about these is that they worked. I didn't touch them or do anything with them. They were up and running when I came here. Once they are set up and running, you don't have to worry about them."
"The most valuable features are the multiple types of user groupings and access management."
"The product has been very stable over the years."
"Tracking the usage of staff, access points, switches and routers becomes an insanely easy thing and so do producing reports for your Exec team."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...The solution's initial setup process was straightforward."
"The automatic VMware update is very useful because you don't have to worry about outages and planning for VMware updates. It is very advantageous from a management point of view. The ability to restrict and review the clients connected to each of our segments. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
"It prevents a large number of unauthorized modifications of access point devices."
"Its cloud machine has AI and machine learning, and therefore, it can help ensure IT has good monitoring and quicker response time as well as good troubleshooting capabilities."
"It is a very stable solution."
"The tool has given us more visibility, but I'm not very technical, so I can't comment on specific features. However, the diagnostic tools for identifying system issues have greatly improved, which we appreciate. We still use Cisco ICE for authentication on the Juniper network, as we did before. We've seen cost benefits with the Juniper WLC Series, which was a key factor in our decision-making during the proof of concept. Besides cost improvements, we've also noticed better resolution of issues and faults in our help desk, thanks to the enhanced features."
"Juniper WLC Series is a very high-performance device designed for indoor wireless deployment."
"Customer service is very good, and they have very experienced engineers on the site I worked on."
"The AI integration with Marvis is very valuable."
"Allows end users to roam the office and be productive wireless without being plugged into an Ethernet cable."
 

Cons

"Licensing is, in my opinion, the least appealing component. It can be difficult to keep licenses up to date in order for the system to function properly."
"Its pricing could be better."
"The solution's mobile application and management of dashboards are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."
"Technical support can be improved, as well as having more detailed capabilities to go without using an API."
"The biggest pain point is that they limit you through firewall throughput. I understand why they do it, but that really grates me. For instance, for 450 Mbps throughput, you're looking at £800 for a router, whereas if you look at the one gig connection, for some of us are lucky enough to have a gig connection, you could almost be spending £3,000 for the option to have one gig connectivity. That's one of the pain points I've got. I don't mind paying for throughput, but I should at least have the option to be able to update that throughput, maybe through extra licensing or something else. It is crazy expensive to jump through to the next one."
"The most important improvement needed is to eliminate the limitation of uplinks."
"Some of their first level support staff does not seem to be well-versed in the solution, so support for Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN needs improvement."
"We would like the solution to work on the pricing of the solution. It would be ideal if it could bring the overall costs down."
"We would prefer it if the solution could be less expensive."
"In my region, access to the product is very difficult and presents a logistical nightmare. Also, pricing is a big problem and a barrier to entry when selling Juniper against competitors."
"There could be a high level of security."
"The solution should create configuration documentation."
"Juniper WLC Series has certain shortcomings in traffic monitoring."
"The solution could offer more integration with other products."
"The biggest issue was that Juniper stopped developing, so we had to look for another solution."
"The support on offer to other vendors switching - like Aruba or Ruckus - could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not super expensive and it's not super cheap."
"It is a relatively expensive solution compared to traditional network alternatives."
"The cost of both the hardware and licensing is high, and it is more than what I would prefer to spend currently."
"Cisco Meraki requires either a one year or three year license for a standard enterprise license."
"Since it's been acquired by Cisco, it's an even higher cost."
"We pay a yearly license fee for the solution."
"The pricing is based on a subscription and is a bit high at the moment."
"We pay licensing fees."
"Juniper WLC Series is a bit pricey but worth its cost."
"The solution's pricing is reasonable."
"The licensing cost is quite high, but considering it's an enterprise solution, the complexity justifies the price."
"There is a certain amount that needs to be paid towards the licensing charges associated with the product, but though I am not sure, I feel the licenses that we have in our company are for three years."
"The product is relatively affordable for enterprise companies."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business69
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise33
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
 

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...
Which is better - Cisco Wireless or Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN?
Cisco Wireless is very robust, very rugged, and can handle indoor and outdoor coverage extremely well. We found it to be very reliable and to consistently run very efficiently. Cisco Wireless helpe...
How does Ruckus Wireless compare to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN?
Cisco’s Meraki Virtual MX is a virtual instance of the Meraki SD-WAN appliance. We liked the Meraki. The Wifi APs are a great feature. The dashboard is a simple interface and easy to learn. It feat...
What needs improvement with Juniper WLC Series?
Juniper lacks a network access control agent similar to solutions like Alubakya Path and Cisco ISE. There should be a network access control engine. Some customers find it challenging as they do no...
What is your primary use case for Juniper WLC Series?
I work with Juniper service provider solutions. I have a service provider customer and some enterprise customers in retail.
 

Also Known As

MR18, MR26, MR32, MR34, MR66, MR72, Meraki Wireless LAN, Meraki WLAN
Juniper WLAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Banco de Guayaquil, Baylor Scott & White Health, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Calligaris, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Del Papa Distributing, Department of Justice, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Hertz, K&L Gates , LightEdge, Lone Star College System, Management Science Associates, Mindtree, NBC Olympics, Quest, Sony Corporation, The Department of Education in Western Australia, Valley Proteins
Apollo Hotel Papendrecht, Armstrong Atlantic State University, Bajaj Capital, Baloise Insurance, BAS Group, Borealis, Danish Crown, Deloitte Belgium, Jan Yperman Hospital, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, MercaSID, S.A., NHTV Breda University, Parklands College and Christopher Robin Pre-Primary, San Antonio Community Hospital, Sandia National Laboratories, Springfield Public Schools (SPS), St. Catherine University, TalkTalk, The Education Village, University of Copenhagen, University of the Highlands and Islands, University of the West of Scotland (UWS), Valdosta State University, Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), zulily
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. Juniper WLC Series and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.