Meraki MS Switches Reviews

I am a Solutions Architect. I work in presales. We make projects with our customers and then provide the solutions. We position the MS Switches. If the company changes from 24 ports to 48, for example, I will see that. I am also aware of when licenses are renewed.

Meraki MS Switches are used with the PoE version together with an access point. The solution is most common in the access layer. 

My clients value the application visibility of this solution. For example, for the Layer 2 switch, our customers are able to see not only the wireless aspect, but its cloud management.

The price of Meraki MS Switches should come down, particularly for the Layer 3 switch, which is the most expensive switch. 

Because we have Wi-Fi 6, which is 2.5 or sometimes 5 Gigabits, we want the biggest ports in the lowest, entry-level switch. Sometimes we have to provision the equipment because there are some gaps.

I would like to see improvements to the dark mode in the next release, as I prefer the dark mode.

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for more than four years.

The product is stable, however, after we closed the project, our clients reported that they had some problems. 

Meraki MS Switches is scalable. Buy the licenses, and then plug them into the network.

I require technical support when I need information regarding the product during presales. They meet my expectations and answer with clear and thorough information.

I would rate technical support a five out of five overall.

The initial setup of this cloud based solution is very easy.

Meraki MS Switches is easy to use and implement. The solution has good support, functions, and features.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10.

I've got the appliances and I've got the switches and I've got the access points.

I have switches for the phones and the access points. I have standard switches for the network. However, I'm doing the layer-two switching. I don't do any additional programming on them. The advantage that I have with them is the user portal. I can find the endpoints by port. Therefore, if I need to control it, I can do it from the portal and shut a port down, however, I don't do any additional programming beyond layer two.

I like that I can patch and manage them remotely from the user portal. It's easy to patch and manage from anywhere.

The initial setup is easy.

I don't see any need for any improvements for my particular use case. 

They could lower the price.

At my latest company, we've used the solution for three years. However, I've worked with the product for seven years. 

In terms of stability. they're as good as any other switches I've used. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

I don't know that you scale switches. You get them for whatever amount of ports they're on.

I have sites with 24 port switches and I have sites with 48 port switches. Their size is growing to meet the needs we have.

Before this, I had HP and Cisco and was actively buying HP switches. We switched, not that it is cheaper. I am required in our industry to always be on the current firmware. That would, in the past, require either working late hours or scheduling downtime to do those updates. Now I can schedule them for any time of the day in the off hours. It happens automatically. There wasn't much difference between any of the switches. 

It's a straightforward implementation. 

I just did plug-and-play.

I can maintain them from my desk. I'm a one-person shop. They are very easy to take care of.

For example, I can schedule patch management. The biggest concern is keeping them patched or updated so that the firmware is always current to avoid potential bad players or issues. I can schedule that and do that all from the console. I don't have to worry about staying up late at night to do it or taking it down in the middle of the day and scheduling downtime. In the middle of the night, I can say, "Patch it," and it'll be done.

The pricing is high and could be reduced. 

The initial cost is above HP and probably comparable to Cisco. HP, on their switches, still has a limited lifetime warranty. You buy it and you'll get support and replacement for the life of the switch. The maintenance on the Meraki is not that great. I buy it three years at a time. It's not a big number.

Visibility is part of the Meraki mindset or the culture. You manage your infrastructure from a single portal. I have visibility into what's going on from a single portal, and I can manage and update and maintain it from that single portal. I don't have to have multiple solutions. I don't have to log into the switches. Everything's managed from that single portal. It's great.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

We use the solution for our networking.

The most beneficial features of Meraki MS Switches are the visibility and convenience they provide. We have a single-pane-of-glass and a cloud-based management dashboard, so we do not need to manually configure each device. This is the greatest advantage. Additionally, they are easy to deploy with zero-touch provisioning, meaning that even those with limited technical knowledge can connect the devices.

Meraki MS Switches do not offer as many features as their competitors, so we are quite limited in what we can configure on the switches and firewalls. They are meant to be simple, but perhaps they should offer advanced features for more experienced users who would like to opt for them. I would suggest improving the price as well, as Meraki MS Switches are quite expensive due to their Cisco branding.

Perhaps in a future release, we could implement security technologies that are not yet available, such as SAC. To do this, we may need to purchase different types of switches; for example, Cisco has an access switch for data centers that allows for virtual port channeling, which cannot be done with a regular switch. However, this is a different market and use case.

The price of the solution has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for almost four years.

The solution is stable and we have not encountered any issues. Meraki MS Switches have a familiar life cycle, so we are not required to upgrade. Everything can be done automatically as long as we adhere to the most common scenarios; we should be good. We have 150 locations where we use them and we have not experienced any stability issues.

The solution is scalable. The solution is suitable for all organization sizes, except for those that are very large and require a service provider or data center, footage. Meraki should be a good fit as long as a reasonable price can be negotiated and the technology is compatible.

Technical support is quite satisfactory. It may not be as great as Cisco support, but it is much better than other vendors I have had to work with. Response times are still quite fast and we can call someone if we have an urgent problem, with reasonable waiting times. Whenever I have needed help, I either get the answer or am being pointed in the right direction. Overall, it is quite satisfactory.

Neutral

The pricing varies. If we start with this small eight-plus switch, it is quite inexpensive. However, if we need some ten gig switches, it can be very expensive, ranging up to $10,000 or $18,000. Additionally, we also need to purchase the license, making it more costly than the regular Cisco Catellis.

I evaluated Ubiquiti UniFi.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

It makes sense to purchase Meraki MS Switches if we already have other Meraki devices, such as IPs. Getting the switches is a good choice, or if we plan to use the full Meraki stack, including the firewall, switch, and AP, then we will benefit from visibility in the dashboard. If we mix and match equipment, then it is not ideal as support may not be as good, and we may have difficulty identifying the source of any issues. If we use Meraki, then they will take responsibility for any issues on the network.

Ubiquiti UniFi Switches are the main competitor to Meraki MS Switches because they offer a range of products, including switches, access points, security appliances, cameras, and more. However, Ubiquiti is primarily focused on small-to-middle-sized businesses, and their prices are lower than Meraki's. However, they do not provide the same level of support or documentation as Meraki, and their warranty is much shorter - only one year compared to Meraki's lifetime warranty on data devices.

We use Meraki MS Switches to can the VLANs to a particular port.

The most valuable features of Meraki MS Switches are the GUI mode which is helpful for access and good dashboards.

When we do any changes to the core switch it causes the devices to reboot.

I have been using Meraki MS Switches for approximately one and a half years.

The solution is stable.

We have approximately 1,000 people using the solution.

The support that Meraki MS Switches provides is good.

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

Positive

The initial setup of Meraki MS Switches is simple.

I rate the price of Meraki MS Switches a two out of ten.

I did not evaluate other solutions. I have always used Cisco.

I rate Meraki MS Switches a nine out of ten.

I use Meraki MS Switches for cloud-based management and web visibility, which I can control from a single pane of glass. I have a controller that lets me manage all devices.

I found the cloud-managed dashboard most valuable in Meraki MS Switches.

Management from a single dashboard is what I want to see from Meraki MS Switches.

The level of stability of Meraki MS Switches would depend on the environment.

My rating for Meraki MS Switches is nine out of ten in terms of scalability.

The Meraki MS Switches technical support is good, so I rate it nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup for Meraki MS Switches was straightforward and had no problems. The product is easy to manage and deploy. Deployment only took one week.

My company deployed Meraki MS Switches based on requirements. That was the only deployment strategy.

My company pays for Meraki MS Switches yearly. Pricing-wise, the product is relatively inexpensive.

My company is both a reseller and user of Cisco Meraki solutions, including Meraki MS Switches.

I work on different models of Meraki MS Switches.

My company has multiple clients using Meraki MS Switches.

I recommend the product to others for cloud-based management. You can manage everything from the cloud.

My rating for Meraki MS Switches is nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as a switch.

It's better for small businesses.

The solution is well-managed and easy to deliver.

Its cloud feature and cloud management are great. They are the most valuable aspects.

The setup process is simple.

It is stable. 

We can scale the product.

Cisco gives very good support.

The pricing is very good. 

If they added the option to manage it locally, not in the cloud, it would be better. 

Cisco has to make improvements to the ordering page CCW. If it could be the same as Cisco Switches, it would be way better.

For example, Cisco has a page called CCW where you can put in and order the switches and all other items from Cisco. Meraki has some difficulties in terms of adding its products to this page. You cannot enter it. You can memorize the product number ICQ by name. Other Cisco Switches, without memorization, you can put in them in.

I've been using the solution for five years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

Technical support is very good. Cisco offers the best technical support.

I'm working with Cisco. That's all.

We found the initial setup to be simple and straightforward. It's not overly complex.

This is an easy product to scale. 

We only use it for a small business, for a branch offices and remote workers. There are maybe 50 users at this time. 

The pricing is reasonable. I'd rate it four out of five in terms of affordability.

The licensing and support last up to seven years. You pay for it once, and it lasts for around that long. 

We did not compare the solution with another vendor as we only work with Cisco. 

We're a distributor and reseller.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

It's a cloud-managed, stackable access switch. It has various features, like providing quality of service to prioritize critical traffic, such as voice and video. It has various levels of support for simplified voice deployment. We also use this switch for multicast traffic. In addition, we use the switch for high capacity trunking where we require link aggregations. 

This switch is enabled with network security features. We use it for port security and MAC whitelisting, as well as DHCP snooping to prevent users from adding unauthorized DHCP servers to the network. The switch supports BPDU guard, root guard, and rapid spanning tree protocol for the loop prevention mechanism.

Moreover, now with the advent of automation in our environment, the switch supports various automation testing tools, and it's quite helpful for network troubleshooting as well.

The switch has a good speed and low latency. I will not say it's the market leader of low latency, but it competes with Arista switches in terms of latency. 

It is a compact switch, so there are a limited number of ports, and it needs improvement in terms of scalability. The number of ports should be increased. I would love to see modular capabilities, and various security features, like the ones provided by Palo Alto and various emerging cybersecurity solutions. I would like this switch to match that level of competency.

This switch is robust. It's never, ever gone down. It has not been rebooted during the last two years in my environment. In terms of stability, I don't see any challenges. I haven't seen any bugs associated with the current IOS. 

It is a scalable solution, but compared to competitors' technology, I still see some gaps. There are a lot of scalability improvements needed in this particular model.

There are 500+ on-prem users. Counting business employees altogether though, there are about 2,000. 

The support is quite easy and handy. No one can compete with Cisco's tech support.

The initial setup was very straightforward. I have been in the IT industry for the last 16 years so I didn't have any challenges with the configuration or deployment. It is a plug and play solution, and needs basic configuration during the initial setup. We pushed the configuration and provisioned this switch immediately. 

I see a return on investment in terms of manageability because a single employee can easily manage the switch. I don't need to hire additional resources for taking care of the vulnerability assessment or anything else.

I don't know the exact price, but in terms of comparison, I know that Extreme switches are more cost-effective than Cisco Meraki Switches. Cisco should have some switches that are more cost-effective.

There are some other competitors nowadays, like Extreme switches. They are cost-effective and have many security features embedded in the switches. We want to see that level of competency for modular capabilities in Meraki switches soon. I still see Cisco as the market leader because no one can compete with Cisco's fast tech support.

To someone considering this solution I would say that compared to other switches, like Arista, Meraki switches are quite robust. In terms of performance, we haven't faced any issues or vulnerabilities in the last two years. 

I would rate this solution as a ten out of ten. 

We use this solution as a switch.

The features are great.

It's scalable. The expandability and ease of use are excellent. 

We like how easy the manageability is. 

The evolution of the product was also quite good. It's always getting better and better. 

It's very easy to set up.

This product is stable. The reliability is great.

Its troubleshooting features need work. They could adopt a console approach that could be more helpful.

If they offered more advanced management features, that would be useful. It is a cloud service; for example, if I were about to buy such a product, I would be very concerned about having cloud management for my switches. Anyone can have access from all over the world, and you can reload the switches from everywhere. That's fine. However, security is a bit of a concern for the cloud.

I've used the solution for the last five years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The product can scale well. It's not a problem at all. I've seen the evolution, and the scalability potential is one of the things that makes it more competitive than other products.

This product can work for both smaller and quite large organizations. 

I've been working with Cisco for years now, so technical support was always something that turned us on to solutions with Cisco. We are pretty satisfied.

I've also worked with Fortinet as well as Cisco. 

The solution is quite simple and straightforward. It's not hard to set up.

I'm not sure of the pricing. It's not an aspect I deal with directly. 

If I compare it with Fortinet switches or HPE switches. Overall, the benefits that you gain with the ease of use and the manageability with Meraki are good. Also, many products from other companies are more unstable. That's one of the reasons why our first choice was Catalyst Switches.

I've worked with various Meraki solutions - not just switches. I've used access points, firewalls, etc. 

I'd recommend the solution is problem-free for the most part. However, the cost needs to be taken into account, and new users should work to calculate costs before agreeing to buy. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

I'm a customer and end-user. 

The solution is used for different office locations. The client wanted to have central control from their headquarters on wireless across a number of users, traffic, NMS. It was more of a network and switching type of deployment. They have some applications which they want to track, including how much traffic is going to the user and uptime of devices. For that, they wanted more central management.

We like that it can work on a cloud basis. It gives the customer a choice to be operated from a central location and it can be controlled from there. Our customers mostly opted for having a centralized approach.

It's a proactive approach to networking for IT infrastructure. It will bring better uptime and availability to the network.

The initial setup is easy.

They need more variety in terms of models to satisfy different customer requirements. There are very limited models right now. The range of models could expand.  

They need to work on prioritizing different types of data on the network, whether it's voice, data, video, et cetera. Video needs to be prioritized in a much better way, for example.

If there are certain search protocols added to these switches that make for better network trafficking, that would be ideal.

The lack of availability of hardware is causing issues and bottlenecks. 

We'd like interoperability to continue to be improved. 

We've been dealing with the solution for two years.

The stability is okay. 

I understand Cisco has far more stable products. For example, Cisco Catalyst. That is more stable as compared to Cisco Meraki.

I'd rate the stability four out of five overall. 

The scalability is fine. It's not an issue for us. Cisco is always working on scalability.

I'd rate it four out of five in terms of scalability. This is a new product that is still being refined. However, as they are working on the cloud, it's only going to get better. 

We have around 250 to 300 users based on the switches we've deployed. It's in an international organization with many departments and many levels of people working on it. 

Technical support is good. It is good only for certain areas. Their support needs to be improved to level it out for everyone. Even a premier customer may not get answers within the next business day.

We use Cisco Meraki Switches and Cisco Meraki Wireless.

Cisco has a big problem right now. Their availability of hardware is delayed due to high demand. A lot of system integrators and companies are opting for different hardware providers as they understand that deploying Cisco will take a long time. Cisco needs to work on faster deployment. The manufacturing side needs to speed up deploying hardware to meet demand or they will lose market share.

That said, once you have the hardware, the initial setup is not hard at all. 

We have two to three engineers that can help set up the solution. It depends on the kind of project. For example, if there are four or five switches, so it doesn't take more than two days to settle that. IN that case, maybe we need to have two different engineers: one physically installing the hardware switching and doing the basic configuration and then maybe an L2 engineer who configures things on the cloud and brings different switches alive. We have certified Cisco people. We don't get any problems in terms of deployment. We can also easily handle maintenance tasks. 

I'd rate ROI a three out of five as it is costly. The ROI is not very fast. No doubt they are getting ROI with the cloud-based approach. That said, not everything is on the cloud as of now. The transition is happening very slowly. Some departments and customers are partly on the cloud, not fully. If they're deploying anything like Meraki, they're not getting fast ROI as they're not fully on the cloud. They're not fully utilizing the benefits.

The cost is on the higher side if we are comparing it with Catalyst. It's approximately double the cost. Cisco needs to work on licensing if they want the system to be deployed more. They can have the same set of licensing: standard, premium. Premium customers who don't have any budget issues can buy premium license-based hardware. However, if there are customers who want to deploy good hardware like Cisco yet have budget constraints, they should offer a more affordable tier. 

I'd rate it a three out of five in terms of affordability.

We're resellers. We've been dealing with the 300 and 390 series. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

Meraki switches are appropriate for small and medium-sized businesses. Most recently, I worked with Meraki switches when I was helping my last two clients transition to a new service provider. One is a printing company, and the other is a tourist and convention center. One was moving from Ubiquiti to Meraki. 

Meraki switches greatly increase our clients' security.

I like the flexibility of the Meraki firewall. It gives you the ability to lock things down. Having multiple VLANs is helpful for the switching infrastructure and firewall. It's crucial when you have a public-facing VLAN, a private-facing VLAN, and a secure VLAN. 

The documentation could be more extensive. For example, it could describe more scenarios.  It would be great if they could incorporate AI engines into the switching infrastructure and firewall so you can configure it to prevent intrusion. They have intrusion prevention and detection, but they could enhance it by incorporating AI into their firewall.

The switching infrastructure doesn't need AI so much, but it would undoubtedly benefit their firewalls. That would be enormously helpful in creating the secure infrastructure most clients want. Hacking is a significant concern as the country becomes increasingly dependent on digital infrastructures.

I've used Meraki switches for around seven years. I'm an integrator and a networking consultant. I assess the client's infrastructure and develop solutions for them. For example, I had one client for more than 20 years. I set up their initial infrastructure and updated it as it grew and increased in complexity over two decades.

In general, Meraki switches are highly stable. In one implementation, we had some issues, but that had more to do with how the facility was constructed. Some switches went down. The electrical setup in the facility wasn't as robust as it needed to be, so we had things go out because of storms. However, I've had no problems whatsoever with other clients.

Meraki switches are highly scalable, but I've mostly dealt with small and medium-sized businesses. You need to add enough devices to scale up to a thousand or 5,000 users. These days, that can be challenging because of supply chain issues.
 

Meraki support is fine. Sometimes it's a little slow, but I think that's due to the pandemic. It was superb prior to the pandemic. I rate Meraki support eight out of 10. 

I've worked with solutions from different vendors, including Cisco ASA 400s and Fortinet FortiGate firewalls. I had one client on FortiGate, but I transitioned them to Meraki when they doubled the size of their office. They needed a more robust solution. 

The other client had Ubiquiti in place, but the whole network was cobbled together and hadn't been maintained properly. Their server infrastructure was toast. They had been a client many years earlier. I was called in to remedy their predicament because their in-house support was useless, so we designed some things and stabilized everything. Their security was far superior to what it was before. 

Deploying Meraki MS switches is pretty straightforward if you have a background in networking, and I've been doing this for 25 years. The deployment time depends on the complexity of your environment, but a simple deployment takes less than an hour. It will take longer if you are doing a more complex deployment with multiple DHCP servers and VLANs. 

The switches don't require much maintenance, and you can manage them remotely once they are deployed. It's convenient to have someone on site, but not necessary.

My clients say they're fine with the investment. In one case, I work with the vice president and CFO. He's pleased with it, but I don't have the financial data points.

You can buy licenses for one, three, five, or 10 years, and it's pricey. The hardware changes. For example, you couldn't get the speeds we have today unless you had some high-end internet. 

You may have had a nice infrastructure that was fine for a hundred megabits per second, but the minute you get up to 500 or 1 gig or higher, the infrastructure is insufficient, so you need to purchase new equipment. That's just the name of the game. Equipment and licensing costs go up. I don't know if there's a way to get around that. I really don't think so.

I stopped evaluating other solutions later in my career because I was sold on Meraki by that point. If you spend too much time looking at other options, you don't solve the problem necessarily. 

I'm a tiny outfit, and I was pretty much retiring. I knew Meraki to be a good solution, and I use it personally. It's something I'm familiar with that I can support remotely. If a device goes down, we simply get another one in place, and everything downloads from the cloud. Replacing or scaling up is simple once things are configured correctly and working, 

I rate Meraki MS Switches10 out of 10. I must add the caveat that I don't have experience with hundreds of different solutions. I haven't made a lot of comparisons, but Meraki solutions have worked extremely well for my clients. I'm happy with that. 

If you asked me why, I would say it's the robustness of the solution. Cisco continues to invest in Meraki and come out with new products. Their support is top-notch, and the configuration is straightforward and logical. It's one of the better solutions out there.

These last two clients have been pleased with Meraki, though they also use FortiGate. This is probably their first real in-depth foray into Meraki infrastructure. 

If you're considering Meraki, do your homework. You must have a clear idea of where your client is now and their expectations. What do they hope to get out of the solution?  It has more to do with building a proper client relationship than it does with hardware and licensing costs. You have to be upfront with all of that, of course, because they're looking to you to get that information. You must be thorough in your research and present multiple options.