Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi comparison

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi

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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

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

4.3

Number of Reviews

120

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Wireless LAN category, the mindshare of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is 11.5%, down from 12.8% 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
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN	11.5%
WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi	0.5%
Other	88.0%

Wireless LAN

Featured Reviews

RezaPradipta

Sr. Officer Network Managed Service Product Management at PT. Indosat Tbk

Streamline network management with a unified dashboard for seamless device integration

The primary use case for Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is mostly for enterprise wireless, including guest Wi-Fi and enterprise Wi-Fi. I use it across various industries with a focus on retail Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN offers a single pane of glass management. It only comes with a controller on the…

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WarrenWilliams

Senior Account Manager at Bralin Technology Solutions

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I really don't have any problems with the stability of the product."

"The most amazing part is that their Access Points have the ability to connect to multiple conference devices at different times, and it shows you the very in-depth Wi-Fi analytics through their dashboard."

"The most valuable thing to me is the stability of the product."

"I have found it to be stable."

"The most important feature is flexibility."

"The solution is very stable. It is a very manageable and secure system."

"The initial setup of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN was very easy."

"The settings of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN can be very granular. You can lock down and block devices with the controls. For example, we have four different wireless settings, such as guest, employee, security, and backup. For example, the settings for the employees, if they use laptops, they're required to have certain settings, such as an antivirus installed. If they do not then Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN will not let them connect. This is very good protection because the network works on the bringing your own device(BYOD) principle. It's a BYOD environment now, and you also don't want them to bring infection into the environment because these people are connecting to the LAN via wireless connections. We have to be careful because we're managing it, we have to be very strict with regards to the rules and policies."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN pros

"They're very easy to set up and get running."

"The configuration part of WatchGuard is very flexible."

"We like that WatchGuard works and integrates directly with the firewalls we use."

"The solution has been stable."

"Cloud analytics that provide all its attributes."

"It makes it easy to obtain all information about the client experience."

"The Wi-Fi security features of this solution have been great for our customers who need to strictly control access to their network."

Cons

"The customization needs to be improved because it's pretty locked down."

"In the next release, I would like to see the central control plane have the flexibility to control and distribute policies to all LAN networks, balance the traffic, and the performance based on application monitoring."

"The cost of the devices and the solution itself could be more competitive."

"They're great. If there's anything that they need to change, it is just simplifying the site to which you go to make changes on the admin side."

"There is only one particular thing that needs improvement. Sometimes, for example, when you need to open a ticket, although it's under the umbrella of Cisco, you still need to go to the Meraki support."

"Its licensing can be better."

"The graphics and call management could be better."

"There is a processing limitation when you have multiple SSIDs, above three or four."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN cons

"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."

"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 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 support response can be time-consuming because sometimes issues are very sensitive and require instant attention."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Users have to pay a yearly license fee for the solution."

"The price is on the high side when compared to Aruba."

"The platform is more expensive than other solutions."

"The solution is pretty expensive."

"There are multiple licensing options including three months, six months, and one year."

"Its price is higher than other products. It is above the expectation of customers. So, every time we need to fight for a good price."

"The cost of both the hardware and licensing is high, and it is more than what I would prefer to spend currently."

"The price of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is per unit and it has annual maintenance costs."

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN pricing and cost advice

"The solution is priced high compared to competitors. However, for the features that are included in the solution, the price becomes more reasonable."

"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."

"WatchGuard is on the upper scale for pricing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

Non Profit

13%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	68
Midsize Enterprise	26
Large Enterprise	31

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	2

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 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...

Aruba Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Comparisons

Compared 31% of the time

Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 12% of the time

Ruckus Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 12% of the time

Fortinet FortiAP vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 6% of the time

Ubiquiti Wireless vs Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Competitors

Ubiquiti WLAN vs WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi

Compared 38% of the time

Aruba Wireless vs WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi

Compared 23% of the time

Ruckus Wireless vs WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi

Compared 22% of the time

Fortinet FortiWLM vs WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi

Compared 18% of the time

More WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi Competitors

Product Reports

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN

Download Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN product report

WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi

Download WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Overview

Cisco Meraki access points are built from the highest grade components and carefully optimized for a seamless user experience. The outcome: faster connections, greater user capacity, more coverage, and fewer support calls. The Cisco Meraki dashboard gives visibility into the network users, their devices, and their applications. Armed with rich analytics, administrators can quickly create access control and application usage policies, optimizing both the end-user experience and network security.

Cisco

WatchGuard is a global leader in network security, secure Wi-Fi, and network intelligence products and services for SMBs and Distributed Enterprises worldwide. Our mission is to make enterprise-grade security accessible to companies of all types and sizes through simplicity, making WatchGuard an ideal solution for distributed enterprises and SMBs. WatchGuard is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.

WatchGuard

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

Portsmouth Grammar School, HILOTEC

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN vs. WatchGuard Secure Wi‑Fi