We performed a comparison between Aruba Wireless and Ruckus Wireless based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Ruckus Wireless seems to be the superior solution, based on the parameters we compared. Our reviewers found Aruba Wireless to have stability issues and mentioned a poor ROI because of issues that needed fixing caused by the solution. Ruckus Wireless did better in these categories.
"The most valuable feature of Juniper Mist is the Virtual Network Assistant, powered by artificial intelligence."
"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."
"Overall, we've been very pleased with the performance."
"In terms of reporting, in terms of all the user reports, it's very rich."
"The AI capabilities of Mist Wireless are superior to other OEMs."
"Juniper Mist offers valuable features like comprehensive network insight, granular policy control, fast device setup, strong security, and efficient SSL traffic management."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is Marvis, the AI-driven network management system."
"As we have acquired a few companies, having the ability to have multiple RADIUS connections has helped us."
"I have not experienced any bugs, software, or hardware issues with Aruba."
"We have three wireless networks: One for employee use, one for guest use, and one for our warehouse use, which uses MAC authentication. These wireless networks just simply work, they do not fail. The IAP-205 devices are very strong with great range. Very durable equipment; it always works."
"APs are very easy to configure to the network once they contact the controller."
"It has very flexible features."
"Aruba Central."
"Price is one of the most important factors. We have a solution that's reasonably cost-effective when balanced against all the areas we need to cover."
"It's been running for the past three years with no default configuration."
"Provides us with the features we need: walled garden, client isolation, 802.1x with dynamic VLAN, guest passes, etc."
"We rarely had access points fail in the field. They were rock solid, durable, and had the best signal penetration from any we tested."
"Easy to configure and user-friendly."
"The mesh technology is the solution's most valuable aspect. Ruckus originally had the patent for it. They might've lost it because I see now that other people are doing it, however, they were the ones who came out with the smart mesh technology first, which is phenomenal."
"I like the price and its capacity."
"Very reliable."
"Our IT staff can quickly issue guest passes for vendors and the instructions are very straightforward, requiring very little effort to get connected."
"The smart antenna is very good."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product should include adaptive Wi-Fi to show a more accurate location."
"Improvement is needed in the user-friendliness of Juniper Mist, particularly in enhancing the interaction with AI features."
"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."
"Enrolling into the tool is a tedious process."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support and installation."
"The pricing is very high in the Indian market."
"The pricing should be made cheaper."
"Every month Aruba has new firmware. I don't know if it's good or bad but it's not good in terms of production. We can't upgrade our firmware every month, especially an enterprise company, because if we upgrade our firmware based on the latest firmware that Aruba has, that firmware is not stable. They're not 100 percent sure about it."
"The ARM functionality does not always seem to perform how I would like. In some cases, I have had to manually assign channels to avoid channel confusion."
"The new 8400 failed at Lab, plus its integration with Aruba Central."
"Their documentation needs to be improved. Aruba's documentation is poor."
"The solution needs to add features and enhance security."
"The reliability could be improved."
"Additional detailed reporting for client traffic would be a great addition."
"We would like to declare a specific number of devices that an employee or a user can use to access their Wi-Fi."
"They should work to make their licensing more affordable."
"Ruckus seems to have removed the built-in help from the appliance, urging the user to log on to the support web site to obtain it. This is simply a nuisance if one wishes to look up what a particular field on the configuration page does, for example."
"Their support has been lacking a little bit and needs to be improved. I have had a ticket open for a month, and it is really hard to get a resolution out of them. They haven't really come out with anything that is much of an improvement in a long time. It has mostly just been fixes and things like that. We used to have a ZoneDirector or a physical controller for the wireless network, and that was kind of end of life. It was very old, and at the time, we were expanding the wireless network, and we didn't want to rely on one piece of hardware that was pretty old. So, we went to SmartZone Cluster, which has two VMs in a cluster. Unfortunately, we lost the feature ability for guest networks and other things that we were using before, and Ruckus just kind of told us that they weren't supporting that feature in the newer product, which is not really great. I was told initially that SmartZone was an upgrade to ZoneDirector. It is the logical thing to think that it is going to have all the same features, but it didn't. The issue that we have right now is onboarding BYOD devices. It is not really great for us, and we're looking for a new product to make that easier. We did have Cloudpath, which was a product that Ruckus purchased from another company that was an onboarding solution, but it just didn't really work very well for us. So, we discontinued using it, and it actually created more confusion for people. They should make BYOD or guest network portals a lot easier and better. In some areas, we have been having issues because there are just so many WAPs that are so close that we had to manually turn down the radio of power because the automatic feature of the AP wasn't really doing it right. It should also have a little bit better RF analysis capability to be able to see on the controller side. The front end for our staff, students, and guests has also not been quite as good as we had hoped."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"Mounting options for outdoor access points, I think they could easily improve on that."
"Previously, we would need to purchase appliances every time but it caused our data centers to get filled. Ruckus now has cloud-based controllers. They resolved the issue we were having."
"Its interface could be a little bit more user friendly."
"The biggest adjustment improvement will come from a price adjustment because the price is quite high; it feels like premium pricing. I suggest shaving off 10 percent to 20 percent. That would help grow users and increase the number of clients."
More Juniper Mist Wireless Access Points Pricing and Cost Advice →
Aruba Wireless is ranked 1st in Wireless LAN with 138 reviews while Ruckus Wireless is ranked 3rd in Wireless LAN with 97 reviews. Aruba Wireless is rated 8.4, while Ruckus Wireless is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Aruba Wireless writes "The portal for centralized management and virtual controller for APs are very valuable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Ruckus Wireless writes "Great wireless, good reliability, and excellent connectivity". Aruba Wireless is most compared with Cisco Wireless, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, Ubiquiti WLAN, Huawei Wireless and Mist AI and Cloud, whereas Ruckus Wireless is most compared with Cisco Wireless, Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, Ubiquiti WLAN, ExtremeWireless and Omada Access Points. See our Aruba Wireless vs. Ruckus Wireless report.
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We monitor all Wireless LAN reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
1 Ruckus
2 Aruba
3 Cambium
It depends on your enviroment.
Greetings
Here's my recommendation in order.
#1 Aruba
#2 Ruckus
#3 Ubiquiti
Hi Vinny,
I recommend you the following devices:
1. Ruckus: Easily to deploy. Expensive but effective. Don’t ask for the advanced license - you don’t need it. Buy only the basic one. A great option for hard users performance and large venues.
2. Ubiquiti: Easy to deploy, cheap but limited hardware. This is an option for basic performance.
3. Aruba: Easy to deploy, expensive, bad UX experience.
4. Cambium networks: A good option, between Ruckus and Ubiquiti.
5. Huawei. Never. Never. Never. Bad UX, bad support experience, bad hardware, bad everything.
6. Meraki. Too expensive. Don’t!
Regards!
If you want high performance and stability, you should definitely go with Ruckus Wireless.
Ruckus Wireless APs have:
- Adaptive antenna technology (called BeamFlex)
This technology analyzes different paths to reach the client and electronically turns itself to a directional antenna, choosing the path that gives the best performance to reach each specific client. If the client is mobile or if the environment changes (such as a warehouse) the selection of paths/direction also changes instantly.
Transmitting in a directional way allows a good Signal-to-Noise Ratio and also causes less interference for other nearby APs outside the path of the directional transmission.
- ChannelFly technology
This technology chooses the best channel based on performance rather than background scanning for noise.
- Polarization Diversity
This technology allows the clients not to lose signal strength when held at different angles (important for mobile devices such as tablets and telephones).
- Better receive sensitivity compared to the competitors
All these features make Ruckus Wireless a better choice than any other competitor (better performance, better coverage area, more stable and surprise-free communication especially in not so easy conditions such as noise, too many clients, too much traffic).
Selecting an AP depends upon a couple of factors which include (the number of users per AP, coverage area and required speed/throughput)
My recommendations are:
1. Ruckus
2. Aruba
3. Cisco
Ruckus:
Performs well in a high-density environment, with unique adaptive antenna technology & PD-MRC gives more coverage and interference mitigation. Ruckus offers a reliable Wireless network solution.
Aruba:
Good but not the best with better security features.
Cisco:
Complex deployment, is costly but it has better compatibility.
I have a smaller venue where I am using Unifi: Dream Machine UDM, Aggregation Switch, U6-Lite APs and Pro Switches...fiber optic backbone.
I am extremely satisfied with its performance. I can't tell about the other brands.
Have a look at Juniper Mist solution - it used in large retail stores and corps as well as a full integrated AI suite.
You can implement hundreds in just a few hours using foundation staff as it can all be programmed up on the cloud, no need for expensive network engineers to deploy
https://mist.com
Malcolm
Hi Vinny,
I'm biased toward Ubiquiti Unifi, but successful Wi-Fi deployment is hugely dependant on the type and number of Wi-Fi users, and more importantly, the layout and environment of the area you would like to cover.
Please feel free to PM me to discuss your application.
Regards,
Steve Pender