We performed a comparison between Cisco Wireless and Fortinet FortiWLM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Wireless LAN solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It provides private network access, helping us protect our company’s devices."
"The most valuable feature of Juniper Wireless Access Points (AP Series) is the ability to troubleshoot ports on the network. Additionally, when there is an update on the APs they are able to reboot quickly reducing downtime. Other solutions have a longer downtime when updates are done."
"The solution is stable."
"The AI capabilities of Mist Wireless are superior to other OEMs."
"The most valuable feature of Juniper Mist is the Virtual Network Assistant, powered by artificial intelligence."
"In terms of reporting, in terms of all the user reports, it's very rich."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is Marvis, the AI-driven network management system."
"With Mist, every Wednesday they roll out new features."
"Security is an important feature for my customers, and I am able to offer this to them with our Cisco products."
"The most valuable feature for us is management of the systems. We can easily access all features."
"Overall, Cisco was stable and worked well for all our needs until we started having more and more students and teachers using YouTube and Zoom — what with classes being isolated and everything — which put a lot of strain on our Wi-Fi network."
"The product’s stability is great."
"It is a stable solution. The performance was good."
"From my experience, I have found Cisco Wireless to be scalable."
"The most valuable features are mobility and security."
"I like that Cisco Wireless is easy to implement. If you get stuck with any issues, they have ample documentation on the internet. It's easy to implement, and Cisco documentation is easily accessible."
"With Fortinet, there is a feature called Network-In-Control. It's the AP controller that decides what the clients are going to connect to... Even though your phone sees, let's say, two APs, since the wireless controller has visibility into and access across all the APs, it knows the best AP for the client to connect to. This way, the controller makes sure that none of the APs is over-crowded, and the spectrum is used properly."
"The firewall integration is very important for the security of the connection."
"We can deploy a tunnel-based VLAN and SSID, for something that happens at the last minute, in a matter of minutes, because of the interaction between the FortiGate, the FortiSwitches, and the FortiAPs."
"Fortinet FortiWLM is good for tracking assets, monitoring, and overall management."
"The Fortinet FortiWLM system can be controlled through the cloud controller, which is convenient when the solution is not installed in our environment, as it allows us to manage the entire WiFi or access points and provides more adaptability."
"The security is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiWLM is the single management pane and integrated controller inside the firewall."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to connect and broadcast to different networks without using a VLAN or a layer two switch, which allows you to easily create guest networks."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support and installation."
"Enrolling into the tool is a tedious process."
"It would be helpful to have even stronger security features to help protect against interference from other nearby access points that aren't part of our network."
"The pricing should be made cheaper."
"If you want to do more specific stuff, it's a bit limited."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product should include adaptive Wi-Fi to show a more accurate location."
"The pricing is very high in the Indian market."
"The web interface for Cisco controllers could be better. It could be more user-friendly. Sometimes I have to remember how to access some functionalities or how to enable or execute some functions. If it were more user-friendly it would save time."
"Its licensing has been very frustrating. There is also the complexity of managing the product. These are probably the two reasons why we're looking at Aruba. The way they license this product is not simple. There are some good features in the latest version, but there are additional license costs as well, which is frustrating for us. It is not really a feature issue for us. It really comes down to cost and licensing. They should make it a bit simpler to manage. We find the overall solution a little bit more complex than we would like to deal with. Its troubleshooting is a bit difficult, and it does require a high skill set. Comparatively, Aruba seems quite simple. One of the benefits of the Aruba product is that it is cloud-managed. We don't have to manage the management platform itself, whereas Cisco is on-premise. Its user interface could also be better."
"Cisco Wireless is expensive."
"The installation is not too difficult but the solution could improve by making the configuration easier."
"It's end-of-life, it will be end-of-support in the next two years. The APs are also end-of-life."
"Apple is definitely causing a lot of issues by turning on more security features on its equipment. It is causing more problems on the business side. One is what they call a randomized Mac address that Apple has put out. As far as I know, Cisco doesn't have a fix for that."
"The solution could improve by having more advanced features, such as AI that is able to do diagnosis on the network or detect incorrect configurations and is able to tell you what is the recommended practice. Additionally, it would be a benefit to have smart antennas that are able to track your movement, Wi-Fi 6 support, better transfer rates, low latency, stronger signals that can penetrate thick walls, and zero packet losses."
"Cisco Wireless needs to improve pricing. I understand that Cisco products are typically more expensive than other vendors. Therefore, I believe that adjusting the pricing could potentially be beneficial. Discounts may be available depending on the customer or type of purchase, which could help offset the higher costs."
"The range needs some improvement and also the stability."
"There is very little publicly available information about Virtual Cell and Single Channel Architecture. Promotion of the overall technology is limited as well. Being more vocal about a product that has many advantages would go a long way to eliminating a lot of the confusion and negative perception about Virtual Cell and Single Channel Architecture."
"The initial setup is complex and has room for improvement."
"When using the FortiGate as the wireless controller, you cannot have automatic user registration, which is something that they should offer."
"The interface could certainly do with some improvement. We have other customers with WiFi networks, and they always use Ubiquiti. With Ubiquiti, it's a much better user interface, and it is much easier to configure."
"Technical support is very poor. We are not satisfied with the technical support because there is not any direct person from Fortinet for any troubleshooting, which we expected."
"The pricing for the solution is expensive and can be improved."
"One of the main features that I see as lacking in any of the Fortinet products is the reporting. If you want to have proper, end-to-end reporting, you must purchase the FortiAnalyzer... If Fortinet could offer some better, built-in reporting, that would be a point of improvement."
More Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Wireless is ranked 2nd in Wireless LAN with 148 reviews while Fortinet FortiWLM is ranked 15th in Wireless LAN with 23 reviews. Cisco Wireless is rated 8.2, while Fortinet FortiWLM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco Wireless writes "Allows us to deploy a wide range of wireless products with stable WiFi". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiWLM writes "Impressive manufacturing quality, highly durable, and very easy to deploy". Cisco Wireless is most compared with Aruba Wireless, Ruckus Wireless, Ubiquiti WLAN, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN and Omada Access Points, whereas Fortinet FortiWLM is most compared with Aruba Wireless, Ruckus Wireless, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, Ubiquiti Wireless and Omada Access Points. See our Cisco Wireless vs. Fortinet FortiWLM report.
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All are good selections, and this question is difficult to answer without knowing your throughput requirements, as each vendor has multiple models within there series.
Personally I recommend looking at Arista Networks’ cognitive Wifi, where controllers are a thing of the past.
Ruckus virtual smart zone will be your best bet allowing up to 300k connected devices and 30k access points. furthermore, Ruckus has time and again proven best in speed, throughput in high density environments by independent studies. I have over a decade of working with this product and none of the other competitors can beat the layer 1 connectivity of Ruckus WiFi
Hi,
Every one of the mentioned solutions is good but you need to check the needs which are security since the firms you are working with need protection and tracking of data. For this reason, I recommend:
- if you have FortiGate installed then go for Fortinet Wireless since they can be integrated with the Fortigate without buying a controller and they work perfectly together and you will get the advantage of applying rules to the client himself whether mobile or computer, easily managed & monitored, more visibility over your network and incident notifications.
If the above doesn't apply then you can go with the best one that fits your budget and security needs which for me doesn't fall on the mentioned solution but to go with ARUBA Instant Access Wireless Solution and the reasons are as such:
- Cisco is too much expensive and you got to pay smart support with some complexity in configuration and you need to buy a controller
- Ruckus is good but when you want to have the security you need to buy a controller with licenses and it won't give you the security needed since it is just a wireless solution
- Huawei is not a stable company since it had many ups and downs and they can reach with you to have all the solutions nearly free so that you install their brand.
Whereas Aruba you don't need a controller in the Instant access points and you will get the minimum security with radius integration and what is important a lifetime warranty on the access points.
In addition, if the number of access points increased and you want more detailed management and more advanced configurations, you can buy a controller either on-premises or on-cloud with Aruba.
The above information is based on my experience with all the solutions and their POC.
If you need any more details and consultancy, kindly feel free to contact me.
Regards.
Hi Imad,
Thanks for your input. Do you have any POC data for Cisco and Aruba?
Thanks in advance
Boa tarde
As soluções cada solução que você indicou tem pormenores que podem impactar tanto no funcionamento quanto em caso de disaster recovery.
Fortinet: Possui bons access points, aliado às funcionalidades de segurança do próprio UTM, porém será mais um serviço para o appliance gerenciar, e dependendo do que está rodando nele, corre-se o risco de degradar a performance da funcionalidade principal "segurança", por que tambem está gerenciando uma rede wireless, além do fato se houver alguma pane no appliance Fortinet, tanto os itens de segurança quanto a rede wireless irão ficar indisponível. Dê a Cézar o que é de Cézar, deixe a fortinet focada em segurança, que é o que ela faz de melhor.
Ruckus: Excelentes Access points, confiáveis e com alta performance, possui no mínimo 4 opções de gerência, sendo, controlerless Unleashed, appliance virtual, appliance hardware e cloud, ambas as opções não trará prejuizo à performance da rede wireless, porque não há tunelamento de dados para elas, além de possuir várias funções de segurança inerentes à rede wireless. licenças são perpétuas.
Cisco: Excelente access points, porém solução muito cara para aquisição e renovação.
Huawei: Pelo que conheço, tem bons access points, e controladoras virtuais e appliance físico, mas conheço poucas redes com esta solução.
É lógico que uma tem um recurso extra a mais do que a outra, mas considero mera perfumaria, pois o básico para uma rede wireless segura todas atendem.
Eu já atendi a mais de 40 universidades federais no Brasil, todas com Ruckus, e não há reclamação da solução.
Como recomendação pessoal, vá de Ruckus.
Hi,
It is all dependent on the size of the controllers in question. Though I would suggest getting a cloud base technology so you are limited by any controller and have much better redundancy. Take a look at Arista Cognitive Wireless