Meraki Dashboard Reviews

We use Meraki Dashboard to manage our wireless networks, and we will soon use it for the wired portion, too. We're talking with Cisco and some of their partners about doing full Ethernet and security, as well. We have about 1,500 users.

We don't have to manually update all the Meraki devices individually. Without Meraki Dashboard, we would have to manually update all the operating systems and do the testing when we deploy switches. Meraki Dashboard handles all of that. It has reduced our overhead and admin costs. 

You need to configure multiple devices if you want to introduce something new to your network, and that could potentially break something in the network. We have fewer configuration errors because the Meraki portal will tell you if you've done something wrong. If you were to make the same mistake on a Catalyst switch, it would accept the configuration whether it was wrong or not. It's far easier to avoid mistakes on the Meraki Dashboard. 

We like how Meraki Dashboard lets you manage all the devices in a single pane of glass. The dashboard is intuitive and easy to use. They are constantly updating the functionality. Switches from other vendors have the same features for the life of the device, but Meraki is always improving.

We're refreshing our networks and looking at the new Meraki MX250 firewall, one of the higher-end security devices. We're happy with what the devices can do, but they lack a few features found on older firewalls or competing products.

For instance, you should be able to see if something has been blocked by a firewall rule by looking at a live log of traffic moving through the device. It helps you troubleshoot issues and understand if your rules are working. You need to ensure the firewall is blocking the right things. 

That's unavailable in the Meraki Dashboard. You have to send the logs to a log server. We use SolarWinds locally, but it's not natively built into Meraki. We're also using Cisco ISA and another tool called Smoothwall. 

I've been working with Meraki Dashboard for maybe about eighteen months now.

We've never experienced an outage. If we ever lose internet connectivity, it will likely be an ISP problem, and any devices connected to Meraki Dashboard will keep working. 

Scaling isn't a problem. Meraki Dashboard can scale beyond what we will ever need. We're happy with that. 

I'm happy with Meraki support. I opened one ticket to ask about something I didn't understand. Meraki support resolved the issue quickly. I received a nice phone call from the Meraki support team. 

Deploying Meraki Dashboard isn't simple for us because we have a complex environment. The larger MX devices are at the main campus building, and there are branch sites with other MX devices on the branches. 

The VPN is simple to set up because it's automated. There's a drop-down menu, and you select the devices you want to connect. You don't need to configure things like encryption or tunnels. Normally, I manage and configure the on-site routers individually, but I don't have to do that with Meraki. It's all automated. 

All of the equipment is on-prem, but the Meraki Dashboard management interface is up in the cloud. 

I rate Meraki Dashboard seven out of 10 for affordability. We get the best price from our partner who works directly with Meraki. The subscription is expensive, but you have to factor in the total cost of ownership. We expect to have the solution for five or six years. We will reduce admin costs because we spend less time on it, and the alternative was Cisco Catalyst or DNA Centers, which are also expensive. We wanted to stick with Cisco either way. 

Our board of directors is pleased with it. While it is expensive, we will recover some of those management costs. It reduces the amount of time we spend on network management, freeing up some of our staff to do other things. We can allocate more people to the service desk or downsize.  

We looked at other options, but they didn't match Meraki's ease of use. We didn't look at all the vendors because we're primarily a Cisco shop, and we had already invested in the Meraki platform for our wireless. We were happy with the Meraki, so we didn't feel the need to look at anything else. 

I rate Meraki Dashboard nine out of 10. 

You can control your access points through the current Meraki dashboard. You can also run Cisco switches through the solution if you design your network that way. I've used them in a school environment before with Meraki Access Points. We were handling several students accessing Chromebooks to get to their assignments. An MX400 was being utilized, and it worked really well.

You can help shape the traffic if you have a single point location where you can go and get information on the equipment, including how it's doing and what its bandwidth utilization is. There are some whitelist blacklist capabilities in the MX dashboard, which is very helpful.

Meraki Dashboard's pricing could be improved. Price has become a very real issue in our economy right now. Any product is worth considering if it can help you save some money and still get quality equipment.

Meraki Dashboard could do a little better in the planning stage regarding heat map creation. Once the solution is deployed, you can utilize a heat map capability within Meraki, which is pretty good. However, the pre planning stage is very difficult because you'd have to get a third-party vendor and get their software.

I have been using Meraki Dashboard for about ten years.

I rate Meraki Dashboard a seven out of ten for stability.

Meraki Dashboard is a very scalable solution.

I rate Meraki Dashboard an eight out of ten for scalability.

I rate Meraki Dashboard a six out of ten for the ease of its initial setup.

Meraki Dashboard's deployment does not take that long. The solution is deployed on a hybrid cloud in our organization. We have an MX400 control head, which acts as a traffic-shaping firewall-type device control unit. However, the dashboard itself is in the cloud.

Like UniFi or Aruba, you can cloud anywhere as long as you've got that address. You could be 1,000 miles away and still check in and see how your network is doing. You can also do some troubleshooting through the network configuration. The solution is deployed on whatever cloud provider Cisco has.

It took only one person to maintain the solution in a school environment with 18 access points.

I use the most up-to-date version of Meraki Dashboard.

Meraki Dashboard was the monitoring product that came with the access points from Meraki. So I haven't used a different product for a different device.

If Cisco could come down on their pricing and UniFi could come up a bit on their support, these two products would be neck and neck all the way.

Overall, I rate Meraki Dashboard an eight out of ten.

The solution is used to monitor our devices.

The most valuable features are the ease of use and a single-pane-of-glass that allows us to identify issues across the entire network from one dashboard. We can access the dashboard from any network.

The solution has a limited routing table and needs improvement by increasing the numbers as well as providing a summarization for the table.

I would like to have some features that enable the customer to choose the MTU. This is extremely helpful as it is not currently possible to do this from the customer side. We can see that this will be useful for setting up the MTU for various conditions, particularly for voice and any traffic manager that can alter our routing table.

The routing for calls was limited due to certain protocols, so a big review was conducted. Especially for advertising, the routing table and receiving routing tables from internal BGP or external BGP, enhancing this would be helpful. We also collect everything. We only have the option for BGP and BGP is not available in the routing mode, it is a routed model. All features such as a concentrator mode are included, however concentrator mode only has one cable, so we cannot control it. For example, if we want to connect one connection to concentrator mode, we have to do it manually from the firewall side, not from the concentrator mode or Meraki side. It would be helpful if we could add one connection for the concentrator mode to be managed from the Meraki Dashboard, not from the firewall such as Fortinet or Palo Alto.

I have been using the solution for one year.

I give the stability a nine out of ten.

I give the scalability a seven out of ten.

The solution is designed for a midsize organization.

The technical support is good.

Positive

I give the initial setup a seven out of ten. 

We sometimes encounter some unexpected problems during the initial setup, particularly with some devices. We should create a reset button to connect them to the dashboard. This is definitely an issue for us, as sometimes the device is not directly connected to the dashboard. We have to restart the device. Additionally, if we change one connection, it may become static, and we need to reset the device. Therefore, we need someone to do this on-site.

Deployment takes around 30 minutes per switch and requires one person per site.

I give the solution a one out of ten for pricing. The solution is currently the most expensive on the market.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

Two people are required for maintenance.

The solution is useful for medium size organizations, is user-friendly, easy to monitor, and doesn't require any configuration. I recommend the solution to others.

I use Meraki Dashboard to manage our Cisco Meraki devices. It is where I handle the setup and configuration of wireless networks, security settings, and more. The real-time monitoring helps me keep an eye on the network's performance, making troubleshooting and issue resolution a breeze.

What I love most about the Meraki Dashboard are its user-friendly features. Configuring wireless networks is a breeze, and troubleshooting is made easy with insights into RF parameters and roaming issues. The simplicity of the dashboard makes configuration a quick task, and the ability to perform packet captures is a game-changer for in-depth troubleshooting. Overall, it is a go-to solution for efficiently managing and monitoring our network.

One area that could use improvement in the Meraki Dashboard is user-friendliness when navigating to port configurations. While it is functional, the process could be more intuitive and straightforward. After using it for three years, I find that the user interface for configuring ports might benefit from some enhancements to make it more user-friendly and efficient. Clarifying the GUI and simplifying the settings would be a great step forward in improving the overall experience in managing switch configurations.

I have been using Meraki Dashboard for three years.

I would rate the stability of the solution as a ten out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of the solution as a nine out of ten. We have approximately 20 users at our company.

We switched from Cisco Prime to Meraki due to continuous improvement, better features, and enhanced integration capabilities. Meraki's dynamic approach aligns well with our need for ongoing advancements and scalability. Unlike the appliance-based nature of Cisco Prime, Meraki offers easier deployment, making it more cost-effective and adaptable to evolving technologies.

I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as an eight out of ten. The time it takes to deploy the Meraki solution can vary, but it is generally quicker than traditional setups.  It takes about a day to deploy it. For a full integration of the Meraki solution, typically two people are needed.

Meraki Dashboard is fairly priced. It is not too expensive.

Overall, I would rate Meraki Dashboard as an eight out of ten. It is a great solution but could use slight improvement.

We are using Meraki in our network environment. It's for monitoring and analysis. 

The solution is easy to use. 

The initial setup is very easy.

We have found the client dashboard to be very simple to use, especially in our Meraki environment. 

It's mostly stable. 

The solution can scale. 

We've had some issues with the product and are looking to replace it. 

The coverage has been an issue for us. 

In the traffic analysis, there are too many categories.

I do not have any notes for new future features. 

I've used the solution for about three years. 

The stability is okay. However, with the cloud, it depends on the internet traffic. Sometimes the connectivity is not good, and that can affect the product. I'd rate the stability seven out of ten. 

The solution has been scalable. I'd rate the ability to expand nine out of ten.

We have around 250 users on the solution and 500 devices. 

So far, in terms of technical support, we've had some cases. They are fine.

We are planning to replace Meraki with Fortinet. I've used Fortinet in the past. There are some extra features, such as the firewall from Fortinet, that are a bit better. 

The setup process is very simple. It's not overly complex. 

The licensing is okay. I'd rate it five out of ten. It could be less expensive. 

We did evaluate other vendors as well and compared them to Meraki. 

I'm an end-user. 

I wouldn't recommend the solution to others right now. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten overall. 

I am using Meraki Dashboard for Meraki equipment for all of our corporate offices worldwide.

The most valuable feature of Meraki Dashboard is we can manage our switches and access point in one place.

The tool is useful for managing devices and monitoring their current state, but it falls short in troubleshooting network issues, particularly with access points. It does not provide a complete understanding of the root causes of the issues. As a result, network engineers have had to use additional tools to complement it and conduct assessments. The only way to improve the tool would be to enhance its capability to identify and resolve network issues effectively.

A feature that can conduct band analysis and provide information about deadlines and related details would be beneficial.

Repeatedly rebooting devices due to errors can disrupt operations, so it's not recommended. However, there are times when it's necessary to reboot access points or switches. The process of scheduling a reboot can be cumbersome, as it involves using the API and building a pipeline script through the console. This adds another layer of complexity to managing and supporting the system.

I have used Meraki Dashboard within the past 12 months.

The support from Meraki Dashboard is highly responsive.

I rate the support from Meraki Dashboard a nine out of ten.

Positive

The pricing of the tool is relatively high compared to other solutions. It comes with a premium that exceeds that of its competitors by approximately 25 percent.

By cross-training our systems administration team to support both, we have been able to reduce our overall organizational footprint and rely on network engineers only when needed. This flexibility has some advantages that can be scaled up across the organization, but it's worth noting that the cost of the tool is higher than other solutions, particularly when only a simple access point or switch is needed.

I rate Meraki Dashboard an eight out of ten.

We use this solution as management software for the Meraki hardware appliances. This allows us to manage the network infrastructure over the platform.

We like the visibility this solution gives us of the infrastructure.

This solution can be quite complicated to configure and manage, unless you have a technical person with specific knowledge working on it.

We have been working with this solution for around eight years.

We have found this to be a stable solution.

As this solution is cloud-based it is easily scalable.

We would rate this solution a six out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as a dashboard. We use it for configuring switches, routers, access points, or whatever we have in the network.

We like that it is cloud-based.

It offers a lot of great features. 

The solution scales well.

Sometimes the system crashes. We need them to offer better stability. When this happens, we cannot access some of the switches in the network. We can only reach them after multiple attempts. 

It would be nicer if the dashboard was lighter. They need to reduce the CPU usage. 

We'd like it if the dashboard showed everything on the network, even things from other vendors, like HP or Dell.

I've been using the solution for six months or less. 

The stability could be better. It does crash sometimes. I'd rate the stability seven out of ten overall. 

The scalability is quite good. I'd rate it nine out of ten.

The solution can be used in both SMBs and enterprises. 

I have not used technical support yet. I haven't had to contact them. 

The initial setup is not complex. it is pretty straightforward. The steps are simple to follow, and the devices are configured very easily. 

The pricing is okay. I'd rate it seven out of ten It could be cheaper. 

I have not had the chance to compare the solution to other products. 

I'm a Cisco partner. I offer Cisco products to customers. We are IT solutions providers. 

I'd recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I would rate it seven out of ten.