Why Choose Ubiquiti over its competitors
In short price point, to elaborate if you choose Ubiquities Unifi line you will have near feature parity with the larger networking companies such as Cisco or Jupiter Networks when it comes to local networking at a far more compelling price point
Ubiquiti Hardware
Build Quality
I must admit I was very impressed with the build quality of both the switches and access points. For the price they are extremely high quality. I’m talking aluminum and high quality plastic, I would have no problem recommending them for a small to medium sized business and being confident that they would not have any issues with the hardware quality and longevity.
Useability
Switches
Ubiquiti offers a wide range of options with some of the following key features:
- Options for 5 – 48 ports per switch
- Options for RJ45 and SFP
- Options for 1GB – 25GB transfer speeds
- Options for POE and POE +
- L2 and L3 Switching
Access Points
Like there switches Ubiquiti Access Points offer a wide veriety of features such as:
- WIFI 6
- POE
- Long Range
- Outdoor rated Options
- Ecstatically pleasing designs
Unifi Controller
The Unifi Controller provides an easy to use and manger web based interface to configure all your Ubiquiti Unifi devices.
Old UI VS New UI
Within Ubiquiti’s Clients there is some debate around there decision to develop a new UI for there controller. While I do admit it looks really nice it is missing key features for configuring your network, I am not going to get into the specifics here because it has been beaten to death and is apt to change as they continue to develop this new interface. Personally I do primarily use the old user interface because it provides the full functionality I have come to expect from there competitors such as Cisco’s Meraki. To Ubiquiti’s credit they do still give you the options to switch between the two user interfaces so that you can still get the full featured old user interface.
Hosting the Controller
One thing I do like about the Unifi controller over similar offerings from there competitors. Is that you have to host your own controller. This means that you aren’t at the mercy of Ubiquiti to continue to support the controller forever.
IOS Connectivity Issues
One word of warning to anyone looking at building out a Unifi Network Stack there appears to be long standing issues with Unifi’s default configuration that causes IOS devices to randomly disconnect from the network. To Unifi’s credit within the Controller you do have the ability to toon the network to help prevent this for the most part although you are completely at the whim of both Apple and Ubiquiti to not break it completely.
Unifi Routing Hardware and Software
Up until this point I have focused solely on Ubiquiti’s Switch and Access Point Offerings this because while they do have a routing solution based on the research I have done unless all you have is the ISP provided router/modem you likely will be better off long term choosing a different option
My thoughts on the Unifi Product line as a hole
While Ubiquiti’s Unifi Line of products does have its issues and quarks so does every cloud managed Network platform. I believe that the price point, lack of license fee’s, and build quality makes it worth at least considering for personal or small to medium sized business use.