Unifi access points = YES Unifi switch = YES unifi anything else = NO edge products = yes, if you are target market. Want something similar. Nothing with a direct equivalent. Meraki has similar or better features at much higher initial and ongoing price. Engenius, Ruckus, Aruba are likely nearest competitorS. Netgear and Dlink has a cloud controlled line but does not seem popular.
I have Unifi WiFi, but pfsense firewall/router. My one complaint about the WiFi is you can't specify which 802.11 versions you want to allow. While it is possible to block 802.11b, you can't easily block g or a. This means your headers are going to be slower than if you just supported n or better, as the headers are transmitted at whatever the lowest rate the AP is prepared to handle or hears.
Ubiquiti Technology for wifi and switching is great everything on 1 monitor. For routing an Firewalling. we use primary forti and sophos on Customers side. Youre Video is great it is exactly what we‘ve got here Everyday in business.
It is pretty good equipment indeed. I deployed 220 switches, 70 AP's and 20 camera's of this brand in our company. Running for almost one year now, and I don't regret it. 2 fiber networks, 1 with a USG and the other one with Palo Alto FW and an EdgeRouter 8P with 60 VLAN's on it.
I totally stand behind the whole routing issue. I'd never run a business behind a USG. I use a pfsense both at home and soon at work too. I need extreme vpn performance. pfsense as a virtual vm gives brutal performance.
Can confirm with all of our deployments as well. Great for smaller sized projects, but routing and some specific feature requests that have been open for years are sorely lacking. That said, we love using the devices for it's relative ease of use and low cost.
Tom makes a good point about support. I think you are either a meraki customer with very premium support options or a DIY customer with Unifi. And the price points are very different. But both are very valid options.
Not really. My map jumped on meraki.. now leaving them for forti stuff. Meraki has alot of downsides. One Instance is it yeeter all static is on the switches we set had to call support and wait 5 days for them to figure it out. That along with u lose internet you lose 90% of admin abilities and a yearly license fee
Good overview. Ubiquiti fits at a company size and price point. If you want full support, you have to pay for it, hence the licensing for products like Meraki. You have to understand your client (if you are a consultant) or your own skills and tolerance for issues if you are a home user. Agreed in the limits of the UDM products, but if a small company running on cable or FIOS connection needs decent protection, UDM (Pro) fits.
Thanks for an honest voice on ubiquity I was contemplating buying a dream machine pro for the routing and security cameras on my house. I’m glad I saw this video. Looking forward to the ubiquity cameras vid
The vpn server is STILL broken in the usg and usg-pro-4. The old version of strongswan they are using is BROKEN. There is a version that fixes the issue, and they've even managed to update strongswan in edgeos- but not in the USG? It can't even be that different of a codebase... edgerouter and usg are both debian, mips, and vyos based.
USG is approaching if not already EOS, it's not getting updates, it's not going to get updates, and hasn't for a year or two now. the only updates you can expect for the USG and USG-Pro are security updates for critical security bugs, if that. in a few years or two, they are likely going to completely EOL the devices. they are coming out with a new USG-Pro and probably will have another USG mini at some point later on.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks They are still selling them on the unifi store. Also, the issue I'm calling out has been known for years, and is fixed in the edgerouter product that has the exact same hardware.
@@stefanbehrendsen330 yeap, and they aren't going to fix it. That's actually what amazes me about ubiquiti. They will sell something for years, then just not give a crap about updating it after a few years, and continue selling it. it's one of the few companies you can say they will stop supporting the software before they stop selling the product. It's actually pretty pitiful.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks I hope they finally move and bring out the UXG-PRO for good, the announcement has been made like 6 Months ago, since then it has been dead quite around the new USG, I want it so much...
Even though you can buy the hardware on Amazon, from what I understand, they are not an authorized dealer, therefore anything purchased there will not be covered under warranty by Ubiquity. Is this true, and how do you handle this? Do you just end up covering it yourself, and if there's an issue, just cover the cost of replacement yourself? An occasional AP wouldn't be so bad, but some of these items can be pricey. With low markup, seems one should buy direct for the warranty coverage.
I fear every firmware update with Unifi. We never use their USG or Edge router for smb or enterprise deployments. The NanoHD has been an issue at least compared to AC Pro APs. I find Ruckus to be better APs hands down for SMB and Enterprise. The unifi warranty is a problem, we have had several 48 port POE switches fail at about the 16 month mark and customer wasn't interested in buying extra warranty.
In terms of routing, I’ve been leveraging EdgeRouters especially due to the PoE flexibility with the APs, switches and cameras. I know you were saying the Unifi routing was meh...wondering if that comment also applied to EdgeRouters. How do you feel about those?
Valid comment Adriano. Same company, but different product line. Edge products were briefly shown when browsing the Ubiquiti site. Would have been good if he could have mentioned EdgeRouters vs UniFi ones. Else a good video.
We use UniFi in two sites of our business. The main site is 50+ APs connected to UniFi switches, which are fibre connected to company network of Cisco Meraki and SonicWall equipment. The remote site is 8 APs with all UniFi equipment including USG Pro 2. The remote site is a very simple setup so that’s all they need. Controller for the UniFi kit at both sites is HostiFi. The main site has 3 WLANs with their separate SSIDs. I am finding performance reductions via the UniFi APs with multiple WLAN/VLANs when compared to singles. Have you experienced this? It’s not the network as plugging a laptop into the same AP datapoint and connecting to the individual VLANs gets much faster results.
Unifi APs, switches - great. I am actually just about to rip out my original AP & AP LRs, handing them to family/friends to boost their 2.4GHz performance and stability. My ERPRO8 is holding up well, I hate MikroTik configuration, but it works well. The ERPRO8 can do a fair bit of stuff with regards to routing, the USGs are utterly useless for anything other than super basic home use. Most likely I will shift to pfSense at some stage, but I can definitely state that the equipment reliability has been rock solid. Camera wise - Protect is good, now they finally have the NVR on sale officially; The CK2+ is great value for what it is, but it just cannot hack the traffic after adding a few cameras and it won't get anywhere near 10 cameras + network controller that UI claims it can handle. If I have all cameras at 'full speed', it fails miserably. I am hoping to get the NVR (non-pro) and that should handle the load a lot better and allow the CK2+ to just handle the controller piece. Congratulations on another objective review calling out the good and bad of a vendor. It is way more useful than blind fan reviews. I am amazed about some of the business decisions made, but clearly the $$ are coming in :)
The APs sold me on going 100% Unifi. Knowing what I know now, the Layer 3 switch 48 port Pro POE, is not what I thought. The UDM-Pro cloud account needs to be disconnected, need the local account. The 8 ports on the UDM-Pro share 1 gb, I do not use the switch ports or protect feature. Per the Unifi dashboard my UDM-Pro is using 52% of the 4Gb ram. I am looking at the UXG-Pro but only has 2Gb ram.
Last MSP I worked for used Unifi for Wifi and some switching and Fortigates for the firewall... worked well. Current company I work for just put in a Dream Machine SE and a couple of access points and it works great.
We love Ubnt. We sell, design, integrate and educate all of the UBNT products. Great video. They offer so many options from home use to expanded enterprise integration.
Yep. It’s sad and disgraceful. Shows complete disrespect for the customers who bought those products and amounts to theft. I bought a ton of SHDs and returned them after firmware issues and missing features. When you ask about it, they stop replying your emails. I let my wallet do the talking and dropped them.
@Progressor are you drunk? I never said hundreds of devices. Also, it worked great until a firmware update (isn’t that usually the case for ubiquiti: crappy firmware). Go talk crap somewhere else.
I am totally with you. There switches and APs are awesome, but the Ugs lack configuration options. I. Have been deploying ap and switches but are using pfsense as a router. Thanks again for the insite;!
As an IT provider in Zambia I love Unifi Equipment, agree in their routing side is lacklustre, however for basics their equipment is amazing. I need to spend more time merging pfsense with unifi stuff as that must be a perfect combo. But I sell unifi and I stand behind their reliability! Also their VPN isn't too bad at all maybe not the most Secure but darn good. Scalability is impressive!
What would be amazing is if they made an OS similar to Pfsense only with all the things and maybe charged a License Fee then you can have a monster of a router built for every occasion.
A Very good friend of mine has deployed Ubiquiti equipment in a corporate environment lots and lots of issues and basically they will never use them again, remember the guys deploying them are not home end users. For small installations I use their AP's but as tom says their routing products are just very average.
Not saying this about Lawerance, but I’ve found that companies offering and pushing Ubiquiti products have less than average knowledge on networking technology. UI has made it easy for people to become ‘network engineers’ less of a barrier to entry.. Anyone can sell it, anyone can buy it.. it leaves a lot of issues finding a reputable company to manage your Ubiquiti network.
@@scottluebke5012 Cheers Scott yes agree 100% with your comments. Replacing Aorohive with Ubiquiti was probably a bit of a mistake. I have used some of Ubiquiti router range and had issues with VPN's breaking with firmware updates. Now I have moved over to Draytek a very solid product, with fantastic support.
I currently have a single Unifi access point and I quite like it and the Unifi controller software. I want to get a USW-Pro-24-POE to replace my crummy HP switch since its noisy and its UI terrible.
For small offices probably works fine. But, earlier this year, we had to take out a Dream Pro appliance from a large hotel network, because it kept crashing the network. And these things have zero support. Don’t install these if you expect any sort of critical vendor support and where downtime should be kept to a minimum. We replaced with a FortiGate firewall, and issues went away.
I’m worried about buying into Ubiquiti as they seem to have pivoted from the Unifi mindset to just being another Netgear. Wifi 6e will be out before they release a wifi 6 access point to the general market meaning they’ve essentially missed a wifi generation. Sure, they’ll get wifi6 products to market but they’ll hit the market as « last gen ».
@Progressor It just seems wrong to invest in previous technology gens without a serious discount... it would be like buying a new computer with a heap of DDR3 ram... sure, it works, but why not stay current? For me personally, wifi 6 seems to punch through walls a little better than wifi 5. I think the real benefit for me will be new spectrum in wifi 6e (I have a lot of interference here). My wifi 5 APs currently give me up to 580mbps. I’ll wait until I see something beat that enough to make it worth the upgrade.
Unifi's DPI is useful for anyone that doesn't need to monitor what a specific client is doing in a specific way, at a specific time. unifi's DPI is useful if you want to monitor bandwidth usage on specific apps(that is knows and can dissect), and monitor for abnormal traffic, lets say a high amount of Tor usage, because for some odd reason you enabled that on your business network for god knows why (and yeah there are probably legitimate business uses for Tor but...). It's not enterprise grade monitoring, I don't think it was ever intended to be. However for a home (or business) user that just wants to monitor what is being sent on the network and how much data it is uses, it's actually incredibly useful for that.
I installed UniFi in several small to medium business.. As they had issues just keep stuff running. Without having to call out a network engineer every month.. Once I installed Ubiquiti.. I get a call once a year. Just to upgrade as they grow... The only thing I don't use on is the Camera system. They don't allow other brands. Which nobody is going to spend an extra $30k dollars for Ubiquiti Cameras..
I disagree as you cannot do remote site with UDM. This means you cannot do the well loved site-to-site with any of the USG. So you think "fine, I'll use a cloud key and remote site the DMP. Nope cannot do that either". So you think OK, I'll do it all manually but look they don't support hostnames so ddns is out the window.
Stock price or market cap doesn't entail company stability. Both those measures are based solely on future profit expectations of investors (some who understand the market, and others who are just speculating on waves.) However, it's entirely possible that the company goes bankrupt in the interim, or the stock drops significantly in the interim. A better measure would be company's revenue and profit, and comparing that to the historical quarterly numbers.
I'm thinking about using it at home with an udm some AP and 6-7 g3 flex cameras indoor and maybe 1-2 g4 pro's outdoor. Also been considering the Amplify Alien mesh for the wifi6. Not sure what would be best. Family of 5, mostly game/youtube use. Any thoughts? =)
I feel like a lot of use IT pros and enthusiasts wants to love the idea of a full Unifi network stack a lot more than we actually do. I wish I loved Unifi as much as I want to. But it’s true that some of their gear is really lacking, like routers and security. However, if topology mapping actually works, which is a big IF, having their switches and WLAN gear is pretty awesome. Routing is kind of weird and non standard.
for me it is easy with the prices, if people want out help and service they have to pay the price we set. we always say we are not the cheepest but we give a higher level of service.
I have had unifi AP for years. Decided to go all in and ordered 700 dollars worth of stuff from unifi store. Got notification email that they received my order and they had my money. Nothing after that. No notifications of order status, order says unfulfilled. Will they just ship it and i get when i get it? Is the store a black whole that takes your money and just ships stuff when they get around to it? I am aware their customer service is not the best but providing no info about order status just seems crazy to me :(
Just ordered the first Ubiquiti Equipment I will ever work with (EdgeRouter X) but as I just need a simple DHCP Server for one (yes one) network device at my workplace (connecting a product to be tested which is initially set to DHCP and firmware update before shipping etc.) this should work just fine I hope.
Great video as always! We have the same mindset. Only one newer Gen2 switch failure but feel it was network power surge related. Everything else has been super solid!
Their routers are OK for basic needs. only have 3 or 4 people using a USG or USG Pro. Their switches, wireless, AirMax line i love. I always use their switches for IP Cameras just for the ability to check any issues from my phone right away an reboot a port. Same for AirMax and UNMS and i can see where an outage is right away. When it comes down to the UniFi and UNMS apps that is what i mainly use thier product for.
I just had a switch 8 die and it was out of warranty (2.5 years old). I have used Cisco small business stuff that is replaced NDA and it was older. If you want something cheap then by all means use it. Our old it contractor called and asked if we knew how to get ahold of ubnt support. They seem to be lacking in support and warranty. A Cisco switch is 4x + the price. Ubnt is attractive when you have a low budget. When you get bigger and need support contracts and stable infrastructure the ubnt starts to fall flat. The equipment is just as good as the Cisco small business line minus the warranty. When you start developing complex networks it not worth the trouble. Having a stale platform that is well documented and has a great warranty when time is money
@@pembo13 Not compared to cost of downtime without a direct support channel. In the end it just depends on your business size, *actual* downtime allowance and level of experience.
I've worked at my company for 8 years. When I started we had zero budget and low cost equipment from ubnt is perfect. A few years went by and some equipment failed taking down the network. That was an eye opener. It took days just to get po approved to replace it. After that paying more for equipment that is supported and I can call and get a replacement tomorrow is justified. Now we are owned by an 8 billion dollar company and they mandate Cisco + smartnet as they manage the network at a corporate level and they have hundreds of offices that need to be VPNed back to the data center.
I've worked at my company for 8 years. When I started we had zero budget and low cost equipment from ubnt is perfect. A few years went by and some equipment failed taking down the network. That was an eye opener. It took days just to get po approved to replace it. After that paying more for equipment that is supported and I can call and get a replacement tomorrow is justified. Now we are owned by an 8 billion dollar company and they mandate Cisco + smartnet as they manage the network at a corporate level and they have hundreds of offices that need to be VPNed back to the data center.
@Progressor I can't spell to save my life. Also editing grammar on a phone is a challenge when you can only see a few lines of text as a given time. I choose to work in IT and I majored in Physics because I suck at Language. I fully admit that. But we are getting off topic as my English skills are irrelevant to the video.
Watching this in 2022, Unifi firewalls are still meh. But the AP's are great. The company I am with has mutliple offices around the country and we use solely Unifi AP's (over 500 AP's deployed around multiple office sites) with Cisco switches and Palo Alto firewall. No issues at all.
What are your thoughts on their L3 switches, such as the USW-Pro-Aggregation, not for firewall? You're right, the UDM Pro is shockingly lacking in depth of each feature set.
Yeah that can't work for real life things. Red Hat is software, but here you also have HW to do... Although... they could croudsource extension of long term support...
I think one of the larger distributors, Double Radius, has a support program you can pay for. They have a team of guys that have gotten Ubiquiti certified....
To answer the question, depends on how much equipment your business requires... Setting up a centralized controller for one or two switches and a couple of AP's is ridiculous! If this is your setup then UniFi is NOT the way to go in my opinion. I really like the HP Aruba line of products and you don't have to buy or configure another server to maintain the equipment, but with Aruba you can do both, manage the device locally or centrally manage from the cloud if you so desire. Now it you plan to just pay someone to manage your IT then whatever works...
Tom, What would be your go to stack for a routing solution for small/medium business that offers a great mix between performance, security, options, and cost. Thank you for your contributions by sharing your content and knowledge.
Multi-wan dual virtual pfsense with active/passive carp sync inside two Xcp-ng hosts. You get one-and-done performance, security, resilience, upgradeable, backups, test lab, and $0 cost except for the two server hardware. Pfsense free packages will give you vpn server, network filtering, Squid, pfBlockerNG, SquidGuard, Darkstat, Snort, banwidthD and much more.
Do you think you could make a vid showing how to open up the ports for a unifi video server so you can view the cameras from a phone app after the discontinue it? I'm building my own little server just for home with 4 or 5 cameras. I was thinking about putting it on its own vlan
We dont mark up Ubiquiti products, our clients pay what we pay. We earn our money through managing the network, hence, MSP. So to answer your topics question, for us, yes. Our model has been working fine since 2011.
UI UDM-PRO device is shocking, the problem with UI forums is the fanboy noise. Sophos XG, Untangle or pfsense for edge. If I was spending again, I'd go with Rukus and Aruba.
I enjoy your video a lot because it is all about your honest opinion. What do you think about TP-Links Omada line for home and mini-business setups? It’s be awesome if you can do a video on that. Thank you
I tell you the Mexican style novel, with Ubiquiti Unifi Ecosystem. Shortly before the release of version 5.14.23 of the Controller, ubiquiti antennas already presented inter-Vlan's latency, and inter-VLAN routing problems. With version 6.0.20, everything went to hell, the latency problems, inter-VLAN routing, increased to the point that our customers even threatened us with fines for the damage caused by the latest updates, from there we opened a In the case of the Ubiquiti Support service, version 6.0.22 came out almost immediately, the situation continued the same and version 6.0.23 came out, likewise it did not repair all the problems reported. In the end, the Ubiquiti support staff asked us to update to version 6.0.24, which is not open to be downloaded from the Controller, but must be downloaded and installed manually. But equally new problems appeared, the power of the antennas went to the ground, the coverage was seriously affected and the instability increased to the point that the devices, connected and disconnected randomly, the antennas now indicate connection to 100FDX where never it had happened. In short, the case continues open, the response from Ubiquiti Support was, wait for a new update, they did not give other options to repair the mega Bug that ubiquiti faces today in its Unifi solutions. We understand that this is normal in manufacturers when they release an update and it manages to corrupt a stable installation, Cisco, for example, on many occasions has released corrupt IOS to the point that we have to return to stable past versions. I don't want to be rude, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ubiquiti's development today is in India, this situation Ubiquiti faces today, and other large companies have faced it when they hire development and labor from India. I do not want to think badly, but one does not stop thinking that they will be doing this themselves to increase their sales, as Apple has done to affect old models or versions in order to force their customers to acquire new equipment ???? Let's remember where the founder of ubiquiti comes from.
Unify's routers are ok for a small home network in fact for the majority of the users they are overkill. But Unify wants them in the hands of the professionals who avoid them for being unreliable and lacking features.On the other hand the home end users want UPNP things and they become frustrated when they realize Unify is not that. Not sure how Ubiquity will ever solve this. BTW I have a UDMPro for sale...Cheap...🤣
Tom, thanks for the video, good info as usual. BUT the real question is... Was the Blue LED indicator still working in that 2013 AP after all this time? ;-)
We use Palo Alto Firewalls and Extreme Networks Switches and AP’s at Corporate but I started using UDM Pro’s and UAP’s at other sites and wish we had UniFi instead of Extreme at corporate. The UI in UniFi is superior
I wonder could we have something like an open source like unifi cloud key that connects pfsense/opnsense plus openwrt for AP, only problem is custom firmware switches, cant seem to find any...
Anyone having issues with the U6-LR only getting below 100 Mg throughput? Using a 500 Mb fiber ISP pipe, no matter what settings I try I can't get past 90 Mb up/down on 2.4/5 ghz no matter what settings I change. That's even coming off the ISP router and not through a firewall (for testing only). I was getting around 300 until the device updated it's firmware to the latest version. First time using Unifi devices.
My happiest installations are a pfSense combo with UniFi APs. You can deploy an enterprise level solution for a small business for an extremely cost effective price point. You solve someone's issues and don't have to have them go to the bank to cover the costs, guess who they call for their next problem. Case studies show the highest success rate is all in the service and support. Do that part fantastically and you will have a great business/service
The discontinuation of Video Platform made me hesitant to look into Ubiquity for anything other than WiFi/Network equipment for small businesses. I figured that is their bread and butter so discontinuing of that portion would be slim.
4:40 Not for long time anymore... I have few old UAP-LR too and there will be end of story by march 2021 :-( And let's talk about supporting Ubiquiti mFi - it was supported for few years only.
Lackluster is an understatement for the UDM Pro.. no OSPF, no SNMP, no LLDP, no VPN insights, no real time throughput view. Bugs, and Alpha/Bata features everywhere... I could go on but being a 3rd party vendor/consultant who deploys Cisco, and PAN I'm a bit critical for what this equipment is really geared for. BUT if you're going to sell a 48 port PoE switch for over a grand you should have your shit together on other "flagship" products like the UDM Pro.. You nailed it with UI ignoring demands to fix features but they spend more money and time trying to release the next cool things that will either stay in beta, or get discontinued... frustrating..
@Lawrence Systems what is your thoughts on Aruba. I am building a house and considering purchasing AP-515 I planning on having zigbee for some smart home things ....
If Ubiquity listened to the community and their customer base, they would take care of all this things missing or incomplete in the Unifi routing devices and we would all be deploying them like crazy. They have a lot of potential but they decided to come up with UA??
Great video and love the channel! So i've gone the route of older gen hardware to get 10gig for my home office and fit it with my VM environment - wound up with redundant Nexus switches (N5k's), fabric extenders, PoE switch their 5500 WLC and access points, and I repurposed a Sun Exadata rack for an ESXi cluster... all said its great but a ton to manage and consumes serious power. It's been a learning experience and great training for me (I do enterprise integration and architecture) but I 1000% know its overkill. My question is would you/anyone here keep this setup to get 40gig between systems and have that much control or would i truly be better off moving to something like this for a network infrastructure? Sorry if this is the wrong place but i've never posted to a video before. Oh - my total cost in all of it was about $2k. Thanks in advance!
Ubiquiti just started Nexus like DC infrastructure switches - see Unifi Switch Leaf. Not great, no spine switches yet, but the price is gooooood. I know your equipment wasn't new but still $2k? I want it too!
Hey man! When is our board meeting again? ;) I have 4 Ubiquiti sites deployed so far- most controllers and firmwares held back a few versions on purpose. Sometimes going GA first day can be painful- so I do not do that anymore.
After using their APs for the last 5 years their software maintenance leaves a lot to be desired. Serious development process issues. Bugs like the on going DHCP issue, performance issues when using VLAN tagging for SSIDs, the still on going stability issue with IoT and smart phones, and a number of other issues. Too often firmware updates can be a real shake the magic 8 ball as to what will happen. I would never trust them for switching or routing. I've had enough issues with Unifi Protect as well.
What do you think of Dream machine pro in terms of hardware and features compare to Edgemax routers? Personally, I have never been a fan of Unifi routers.
I tried ubiquiti for business but returned it. I went with Cisco Meraki because of Ubiquiti firmware problems. I’d rather not be explaining to customers why there’s no internet after a borked firmware update and I’d rather not skip said firmware updates or be behind on them just because of stability issues. Security and reliability are at the forefront for me so I cannot, in good faith, recommend Ubiquiti for anyone whose livelihood relies on internet up time. Also, no WPA3-Enterprise Suite B 192-bit, no WPA3-Personal, still no real WIPS on the UAP-SHD as promised (it’s been 3 years! Meraki has WIPS on a $20 refurbished MR32 access point on Amazon!), and no WiFi 6 (EA doesn’t count) while others have had those for almost 2 years now. Unacceptable.
@@deanjohn9203 not if you know where to buy it -www.ebay.com/itm/174326944708. Besides, I’d rather pay more for something that’s supremely reliable than pay anything for something that won’t work after a random crappy firmware update. I refuse to play Russian roulette with firmware updates when my livelihood depends on it. For true enterprise - not small shops, Ubiquiti is simply not reliable enough so they stick to the big boys like Cisco Meraki and Cisco Catalyst lines of products.
@@kittysreview9055 I agree Meraki is the best, but with the best comes the highest price. The MR32 you linked to is EOL 3 years ago! C'mon! Comparing apples to bananas.
@@deanjohn9203 the meraki mr32 still received updates until july 31st 2024 -> meraki.cisco.com/lib/pdf/eol/meraki_eol_mr32.pdf And, if you want to compare apples to apples, have a look at the mr42 which is still active duty -> meraki.cisco.com/lib/pdf/eol/meraki_eol_mr32.pdf So, yes, meraki is the best bar none and can be had at roughly the same price at ubiquiti equipment.
your review is right on the nail, access points, switches great but on the routers and firewall mediocre. I wanted to consider their access control products
I’ve been considering moving our MSP clients to Ubiquiti but having a huge piece missing (firewall) really doesn’t appeal to me. It takes away from the value of the Unifi console. Such a waste of potential.
For a business your size, a company giving you a couple of pieces of gear is hardly "compensation" - it's standard practice whether or not you have a youtube following.
You actually did not answer my questions. What if some customer wonders why you have chosen quite expensive Ubiquiti equipment and not for example cheaper D-Link or TP-Link equipment. For example I have Ubiquiti Edge Router combined with D-Link smart switch and TP-Link access points. All equipment supports VLANs (including APs). How would you convince your customer that unify equipment is better and worth to pay a bit more?
I run big boy pants sophos xg430 full featured as my firewall and have half a dosen vlans withh unifi switches and ap's. There is no way in hell I would be able to operate with this scale with their routing equipment, and do all the other tings USG can only dream off.
Unifi wifi doesn't support some very critical enterprise features unfortunately. From someone that has used them longer then you, there are major gaps and have no interest in fixing it. Also, they break some very critical basic things like how they've screwed up DHCP for older unifi devices with latest firmware and are doing nothing to resolve it. Imagine randomly clients dropping off the wifi and they can't get back on until you cycle all the wifi gear. The edgemax line I've enjoyed as a low cost solution. Just don't expect to run everything on it when it should be on a separate device. After over a decade of using their equipment, I'm done with them. I wouldn't go with them today.
Hello, I want to get rid on my Google and Ring cameras and purchase Ubiquiti cameras and have my cameras on my own network and my own hard drive/cloud.
I know there’s downsides. But I love the stuff. My baby is asleep on me and I’m configuring vlans, adding wifi networks and updating equipment all from my phone.. I don’t even need a laptop for an install now. Got SSH on my phone to set inform URLS. It’s really so valuable to be able to do so much from my phone. I manage like 150+ sites and wouldn’t be able to do it without UniFi. It’s great to be able to troubleshoot or look at any network from my phone. 👍
Unifi access points = YES
Unifi switch = YES
unifi anything else = NO
edge products = yes, if you are target market.
Want something similar. Nothing with a direct equivalent. Meraki has similar or better features at much higher initial and ongoing price. Engenius, Ruckus, Aruba are likely nearest competitorS. Netgear and Dlink has a cloud controlled line but does not seem popular.
Airmax absolutely
I’m coming across this more and more. And I’m experiencing it myself from my time in the field.
I have Unifi WiFi, but pfsense firewall/router. My one complaint about the WiFi is you can't specify which 802.11 versions you want to allow. While it is possible to block 802.11b, you can't easily block g or a. This means your headers are going to be slower than if you just supported n or better, as the headers are transmitted at whatever the lowest rate the AP is prepared to handle or hears.
Ubiquiti Technology for wifi and switching is great everything on 1 monitor. For routing an Firewalling. we use primary forti and sophos on Customers side. Youre Video is great it is exactly what we‘ve got here Everyday in business.
It is pretty good equipment indeed. I deployed 220 switches, 70 AP's and 20 camera's of this brand in our company. Running for almost one year now, and I don't regret it. 2 fiber networks, 1 with a USG and the other one with Palo Alto FW and an EdgeRouter 8P with 60 VLAN's on it.
I totally stand behind the whole routing issue. I'd never run a business behind a USG. I use a pfsense both at home and soon at work too. I need extreme vpn performance. pfsense as a virtual vm gives brutal performance.
Can confirm with all of our deployments as well. Great for smaller sized projects, but routing and some specific feature requests that have been open for years are sorely lacking. That said, we love using the devices for it's relative ease of use and low cost.
Tom makes a good point about support. I think you are either a meraki customer with very premium support options or a DIY customer with Unifi. And the price points are very different. But both are very valid options.
Not really. My map jumped on meraki.. now leaving them for forti stuff. Meraki has alot of downsides. One Instance is it yeeter all static is on the switches we set had to call support and wait 5 days for them to figure it out. That along with u lose internet you lose 90% of admin abilities and a yearly license fee
Good overview. Ubiquiti fits at a company size and price point. If you want full support, you have to pay for it, hence the licensing for products like Meraki. You have to understand your client (if you are a consultant) or your own skills and tolerance for issues if you are a home user. Agreed in the limits of the UDM products, but if a small company running on cable or FIOS connection needs decent protection, UDM (Pro) fits.
Amen, brother! Love the switches and APs. Still prefer pfsense for routing.
Can I use pfsense in a high dense customer population as a wisp Internet and Internet as a service combo?
If so how?
You should check OPNSense, they are so ahead of the game. It is a pfSense fork after Netgate
Junipers are great to automate with ansible too just a fyi
@@sribasgmail "so ahead" that they don't have proper disk mirroring, and nothing similar to pfBlockerNG..........
Thanks for an honest voice on ubiquity
I was contemplating buying a dream machine pro for the routing and security cameras on my house. I’m glad I saw this video.
Looking forward to the ubiquity cameras vid
Happy new year!
Did you buy the Dream Machine Pro? And if yes, how is it performing for you?
The vpn server is STILL broken in the usg and usg-pro-4. The old version of strongswan they are using is BROKEN. There is a version that fixes the issue, and they've even managed to update strongswan in edgeos- but not in the USG? It can't even be that different of a codebase... edgerouter and usg are both debian, mips, and vyos based.
USG is approaching if not already EOS, it's not getting updates, it's not going to get updates, and hasn't for a year or two now. the only updates you can expect for the USG and USG-Pro are security updates for critical security bugs, if that. in a few years or two, they are likely going to completely EOL the devices. they are coming out with a new USG-Pro and probably will have another USG mini at some point later on.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks
They are still selling them on the unifi store.
Also, the issue I'm calling out has been known for years, and is fixed in the edgerouter product that has the exact same hardware.
@@stefanbehrendsen330 yeap, and they aren't going to fix it.
That's actually what amazes me about ubiquiti. They will sell something for years, then just not give a crap about updating it after a few years, and continue selling it. it's one of the few companies you can say they will stop supporting the software before they stop selling the product. It's actually pretty pitiful.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks I hope they finally move and bring out the UXG-PRO for good, the announcement has been made like 6 Months ago, since then it has been dead quite around the new USG, I want it so much...
VPN and Site to Site VPN works for me just fine. What's your definition of broken?
Even though you can buy the hardware on Amazon, from what I understand, they are not an authorized dealer, therefore anything purchased there will not be covered under warranty by Ubiquity. Is this true, and how do you handle this? Do you just end up covering it yourself, and if there's an issue, just cover the cost of replacement yourself? An occasional AP wouldn't be so bad, but some of these items can be pricey. With low markup, seems one should buy direct for the warranty coverage.
Edgerouter is still better than Unifi Routers for a small business
Agreed. Edgerouter for sure over USG. PFsense over edgerouter and USG
Was going to say this exactly, if you want to get a router/firewall from ubiquiti go with their edgemax line.
Eeeeehmmmmm, depends !! There are some features like IDS/IPS that you do not have on the edgemax line !
@@kostasalextown4581 and if you need anything advanced you gotta go to another vendor
@@Klipschrf35 sure, that's why there more than one vendor. However, we are talking about ubnt.
I fear every firmware update with Unifi. We never use their USG or Edge router for smb or enterprise deployments. The NanoHD has been an issue at least compared to AC Pro APs. I find Ruckus to be better APs hands down for SMB and Enterprise. The unifi warranty is a problem, we have had several 48 port POE switches fail at about the 16 month mark and customer wasn't interested in buying extra warranty.
In terms of routing, I’ve been leveraging EdgeRouters especially due to the PoE flexibility with the APs, switches and cameras. I know you were saying the Unifi routing was meh...wondering if that comment also applied to EdgeRouters. How do you feel about those?
Edgerouters aren't UNIFI, that would be USG.
Valid comment Adriano. Same company, but different product line. Edge products were briefly shown when browsing the Ubiquiti site. Would have been good if he could have mentioned EdgeRouters vs UniFi ones. Else a good video.
Tom has done videos on Unifi vs Edge before. Not hard to find.
We use UniFi in two sites of our business. The main site is 50+ APs connected to UniFi switches, which are fibre connected to company network of Cisco Meraki and SonicWall equipment. The remote site is 8 APs with all UniFi equipment including USG Pro 2. The remote site is a very simple setup so that’s all they need. Controller for the UniFi kit at both sites is HostiFi.
The main site has 3 WLANs with their separate SSIDs. I am finding performance reductions via the UniFi APs with multiple WLAN/VLANs when compared to singles. Have you experienced this? It’s not the network as plugging a laptop into the same AP datapoint and connecting to the individual VLANs gets much faster results.
Unifi APs, switches - great. I am actually just about to rip out my original AP & AP LRs, handing them to family/friends to boost their 2.4GHz performance and stability.
My ERPRO8 is holding up well, I hate MikroTik configuration, but it works well.
The ERPRO8 can do a fair bit of stuff with regards to routing, the USGs are utterly useless for anything other than super basic home use. Most likely I will shift to pfSense at some stage, but I can definitely state that the equipment reliability has been rock solid.
Camera wise - Protect is good, now they finally have the NVR on sale officially; The CK2+ is great value for what it is, but it just cannot hack the traffic after adding a few cameras and it won't get anywhere near 10 cameras + network controller that UI claims it can handle. If I have all cameras at 'full speed', it fails miserably. I am hoping to get the NVR (non-pro) and that should handle the load a lot better and allow the CK2+ to just handle the controller piece.
Congratulations on another objective review calling out the good and bad of a vendor. It is way more useful than blind fan reviews. I am amazed about some of the business decisions made, but clearly the $$ are coming in :)
The APs sold me on going 100% Unifi. Knowing what I know now, the Layer 3 switch 48 port Pro POE, is not what I thought. The UDM-Pro cloud account needs to be disconnected, need the local account. The 8 ports on the UDM-Pro share 1 gb, I do not use the switch ports or protect feature. Per the Unifi dashboard my UDM-Pro is using 52% of the 4Gb ram. I am looking at the UXG-Pro but only has 2Gb ram.
Last MSP I worked for used Unifi for Wifi and some switching and Fortigates for the firewall... worked well. Current company I work for just put in a Dream Machine SE and a couple of access points and it works great.
We love Ubnt. We sell, design, integrate and educate all of the UBNT products. Great video. They offer so many options from home use to expanded enterprise integration.
True only reason i ventured into this brand was because of companies like Lawrence systems and other youtubers that show us how to do it.
Think UI forgot about completing the Security in their SHD and also the L3 in their L# switches as of this video.
Yep. It’s sad and disgraceful. Shows complete disrespect for the customers who bought those products and amounts to theft. I bought a ton of SHDs and returned them after firmware issues and missing features. When you ask about it, they stop replying your emails. I let my wallet do the talking and dropped them.
@Progressor are you drunk? I never said hundreds of devices. Also, it worked great until a firmware update (isn’t that usually the case for ubiquiti: crappy firmware). Go talk crap somewhere else.
I am totally with you. There switches and APs are awesome, but the Ugs lack configuration options. I. Have been deploying ap and switches but are using pfsense as a router. Thanks again for the insite;!
Love pfsense, usg was total garbage
As an IT provider in Zambia I love Unifi Equipment, agree in their routing side is lacklustre, however for basics their equipment is amazing. I need to spend more time merging pfsense with unifi stuff as that must be a perfect combo. But I sell unifi and I stand behind their reliability! Also their VPN isn't too bad at all maybe not the most Secure but darn good. Scalability is impressive!
And their community forum is pretty darn effective
What would be amazing is if they made an OS similar to Pfsense only with all the things and maybe charged a License Fee then you can have a monster of a router built for every occasion.
A Very good friend of mine has deployed Ubiquiti equipment in a corporate environment lots and lots of issues and basically they will never use them again, remember the guys deploying them are not home end users. For small installations I use their AP's but as tom says their routing products are just very average.
Not saying this about Lawerance, but I’ve found that companies offering and pushing Ubiquiti products have less than average knowledge on networking technology.
UI has made it easy for people to become ‘network engineers’ less of a barrier to entry..
Anyone can sell it, anyone can buy it.. it leaves a lot of issues finding a reputable company to manage your Ubiquiti network.
Yup, Unifi is cool for smaller networks. For true enterprise level networks, heck no. No way.
@@scottluebke5012 Cheers Scott yes agree 100% with your comments. Replacing Aorohive with Ubiquiti was probably a bit of a mistake. I have used some of Ubiquiti router range and had issues with VPN's breaking with firmware updates. Now I have moved over to Draytek a very solid product, with fantastic support.
My church was a hodgepodge of stuff. I have started using Ubiquiti and much easier to manage. Controller runs on a raspberry pi. No complaints yet.
I currently have a single Unifi access point and I quite like it and the Unifi controller software. I want to get a USW-Pro-24-POE to replace my crummy HP switch since its noisy and its UI terrible.
For small offices probably works fine. But, earlier this year, we had to take out a Dream Pro appliance from a large hotel network, because it kept crashing the network. And these things have zero support.
Don’t install these if you expect any sort of critical vendor support and where downtime should be kept to a minimum. We replaced with a FortiGate firewall, and issues went away.
I’m worried about buying into Ubiquiti as they seem to have pivoted from the Unifi mindset to just being another Netgear. Wifi 6e will be out before they release a wifi 6 access point to the general market meaning they’ve essentially missed a wifi generation. Sure, they’ll get wifi6 products to market but they’ll hit the market as « last gen ».
@Progressor It just seems wrong to invest in previous technology gens without a serious discount... it would be like buying a new computer with a heap of DDR3 ram... sure, it works, but why not stay current?
For me personally, wifi 6 seems to punch through walls a little better than wifi 5. I think the real benefit for me will be new spectrum in wifi 6e (I have a lot of interference here). My wifi 5 APs currently give me up to 580mbps. I’ll wait until I see something beat that enough to make it worth the upgrade.
Unifi's DPI is useful for anyone that doesn't need to monitor what a specific client is doing in a specific way, at a specific time. unifi's DPI is useful if you want to monitor bandwidth usage on specific apps(that is knows and can dissect), and monitor for abnormal traffic, lets say a high amount of Tor usage, because for some odd reason you enabled that on your business network for god knows why (and yeah there are probably legitimate business uses for Tor but...). It's not enterprise grade monitoring, I don't think it was ever intended to be. However for a home (or business) user that just wants to monitor what is being sent on the network and how much data it is uses, it's actually incredibly useful for that.
I installed UniFi in several small to medium business.. As they had issues just keep stuff running. Without having to call out a network engineer every month.. Once I installed Ubiquiti.. I get a call once a year. Just to upgrade as they grow...
The only thing I don't use on is the Camera system. They don't allow other brands. Which nobody is going to spend an extra $30k dollars for Ubiquiti Cameras..
Protect roadmap is integrating (SSO) with UniFi OS. Anyone with a UDM or newer knows this. Much better experience then cloud key.
I disagree as you cannot do remote site with UDM. This means you cannot do the well loved site-to-site with any of the USG. So you think "fine, I'll use a cloud key and remote site the DMP. Nope cannot do that either". So you think OK, I'll do it all manually but look they don't support hostnames so ddns is out the window.
Stock price or market cap doesn't entail company stability. Both those measures are based solely on future profit expectations of investors (some who understand the market, and others who are just speculating on waves.) However, it's entirely possible that the company goes bankrupt in the interim, or the stock drops significantly in the interim.
A better measure would be company's revenue and profit, and comparing that to the historical quarterly numbers.
Would you recommend their Poe switches for an office of 50 with a couple of vlan’s? I’ve heard mixed things about their reliability/stability.
I'm thinking about using it at home with an udm some AP and 6-7 g3 flex cameras indoor and maybe 1-2 g4 pro's outdoor.
Also been considering the Amplify Alien mesh for the wifi6. Not sure what would be best. Family of 5, mostly game/youtube use. Any thoughts? =)
I feel like a lot of use IT pros and enthusiasts wants to love the idea of a full Unifi network stack a lot more than we actually do. I wish I loved Unifi as much as I want to. But it’s true that some of their gear is really lacking, like routers and security. However, if topology mapping actually works, which is a big IF, having their switches and WLAN gear is pretty awesome. Routing is kind of weird and non standard.
for me it is easy with the prices, if people want out help and service they have to pay the price we set. we always say we are not the cheepest but we give a higher level of service.
I have had unifi AP for years. Decided to go all in and ordered 700 dollars worth of stuff from unifi store. Got notification email that they received my order and they had my money. Nothing after that. No notifications of order status, order says unfulfilled. Will they just ship it and i get when i get it? Is the store a black whole that takes your money and just ships stuff when they get around to it? I am aware their customer service is not the best but providing no info about order status just seems crazy to me :(
IMO and my MSP
Ubnt for switches. Ubnt for AP. Ubnt for small fun toys and gadgets. IE cameras doorbells lights.
PFsense for router.
Internet Explorer Cameras?
@@jimmymifsud1 IE (for example), cameras, doorbells and lights...
Just ordered the first Ubiquiti Equipment I will ever work with (EdgeRouter X) but as I just need a simple DHCP Server for one (yes one) network device at my workplace (connecting a product to be tested which is initially set to DHCP and firmware update before shipping etc.) this should work just fine I hope.
Great video as always! We have the same mindset. Only one newer Gen2 switch failure but feel it was network power surge related. Everything else has been super solid!
Their routers are OK for basic needs. only have 3 or 4 people using a USG or USG Pro. Their switches, wireless, AirMax line i love. I always use their switches for IP Cameras just for the ability to check any issues from my phone right away an reboot a port. Same for AirMax and UNMS and i can see where an outage is right away. When it comes down to the UniFi and UNMS apps that is what i mainly use thier product for.
I just had a switch 8 die and it was out of warranty (2.5 years old). I have used Cisco small business stuff that is replaced NDA and it was older. If you want something cheap then by all means use it.
Our old it contractor called and asked if we knew how to get ahold of ubnt support. They seem to be lacking in support and warranty.
A Cisco switch is 4x + the price. Ubnt is attractive when you have a low budget. When you get bigger and need support contracts and stable infrastructure the ubnt starts to fall flat.
The equipment is just as good as the Cisco small business line minus the warranty. When you start developing complex networks it not worth the trouble. Having a stale platform that is well documented and has a great warranty when time is money
@@pembo13 Not compared to cost of downtime without a direct support channel. In the end it just depends on your business size, *actual* downtime allowance and level of experience.
I've worked at my company for 8 years. When I started we had zero budget and low cost equipment from ubnt is perfect. A few years went by and some equipment failed taking down the network. That was an eye opener. It took days just to get po approved to replace it.
After that paying more for equipment that is supported and I can call and get a replacement tomorrow is justified.
Now we are owned by an 8 billion dollar company and they mandate Cisco + smartnet as they manage the network at a corporate level and they have hundreds of offices that need to be VPNed back to the data center.
I've worked at my company for 8 years. When I started we had zero budget and low cost equipment from ubnt is perfect. A few years went by and some equipment failed taking down the network. That was an eye opener. It took days just to get po approved to replace it.
After that paying more for equipment that is supported and I can call and get a replacement tomorrow is justified.
Now we are owned by an 8 billion dollar company and they mandate Cisco + smartnet as they manage the network at a corporate level and they have hundreds of offices that need to be VPNed back to the data center.
@@dheijnemans at 4x the cost, you can have 3 spares sitting on the shelf ready to go
@Progressor I can't spell to save my life. Also editing grammar on a phone is a challenge when you can only see a few lines of text as a given time. I choose to work in IT and I majored in Physics because I suck at Language. I fully admit that. But we are getting off topic as my English skills are irrelevant to the video.
Watching this in 2022, Unifi firewalls are still meh. But the AP's are great. The company I am with has mutliple offices around the country and we use solely Unifi AP's (over 500 AP's deployed around multiple office sites) with Cisco switches and Palo Alto firewall. No issues at all.
What are your thoughts on their L3 switches, such as the USW-Pro-Aggregation, not for firewall? You're right, the UDM Pro is shockingly lacking in depth of each feature set.
We like their AP's and switches
I wish that ubiquiti had a solution like redhat where you can pay for support if you want it.
Yeah that can't work for real life things. Red Hat is software, but here you also have HW to do... Although... they could croudsource extension of long term support...
As a note, I used Lawrence systems for some support and they were great.
I hear they have some sort of pay support model called Elite, but they don't respond to their paying clients!
@@b00573d They HAD a pay support model called Elite, it was recently discontinued. I'm guessing due to lack of interest.
I think one of the larger distributors, Double Radius, has a support program you can pay for. They have a team of guys that have gotten Ubiquiti certified....
But what routing equipment do you recommend?
ruclips.net/video/ZI7zt1Vf8vE/видео.html
To answer the question, depends on how much equipment your business requires... Setting up a centralized controller for one or two switches and a couple of AP's is ridiculous! If this is your setup then UniFi is NOT the way to go in my opinion. I really like the HP Aruba line of products and you don't have to buy or configure another server to maintain the equipment, but with Aruba you can do both, manage the device locally or centrally manage from the cloud if you so desire. Now it you plan to just pay someone to manage your IT then whatever works...
fair assessment of the equipment. Good info to know.
Tom, What would be your go to stack for a routing solution for small/medium business that offers a great mix between performance, security, options, and cost. Thank you for your contributions by sharing your content and knowledge.
Bet you its a Negate device running PFSense/Self hosted Pfsense. :P Based on the 100+ vids I have watched hahaha.
Multi-wan dual virtual pfsense with active/passive carp sync inside two Xcp-ng hosts. You get one-and-done performance, security, resilience, upgradeable, backups, test lab, and $0 cost except for the two server hardware. Pfsense free packages will give you vpn server, network filtering, Squid, pfBlockerNG, SquidGuard, Darkstat, Snort, banwidthD and much more.
Negate or fortigate
Do you think you could make a vid showing how to open up the ports for a unifi video server so you can view the cameras from a phone app after the discontinue it? I'm building my own little server just for home with 4 or 5 cameras. I was thinking about putting it on its own vlan
How about the Edge Routers? Any thoughts or recommendations on them?
I use an ER-4 with Unifi switches and APs. My needs aren't anything fancy, but I'm quite happy with the usability and features.
We dont mark up Ubiquiti products, our clients pay what we pay. We earn our money through managing the network, hence, MSP. So to answer your topics question, for us, yes. Our model has been working fine since 2011.
UI UDM-PRO device is shocking, the problem with UI forums is the fanboy noise. Sophos XG, Untangle or pfsense for edge. If I was spending again, I'd go with Rukus and Aruba.
I enjoy your video a lot because it is all about your honest opinion. What do you think about TP-Links Omada line for home and mini-business setups? It’s be awesome if you can do a video on that. Thank you
I tell you the Mexican style novel, with Ubiquiti Unifi Ecosystem.
Shortly before the release of version 5.14.23 of the Controller, ubiquiti antennas already presented inter-Vlan's latency, and inter-VLAN routing problems. With version 6.0.20, everything went to hell, the latency problems, inter-VLAN routing, increased to the point that our customers even threatened us with fines for the damage caused by the latest updates, from there we opened a In the case of the Ubiquiti Support service, version 6.0.22 came out almost immediately, the situation continued the same and version 6.0.23 came out, likewise it did not repair all the problems reported. In the end, the Ubiquiti support staff asked us to update to version 6.0.24, which is not open to be downloaded from the Controller, but must be downloaded and installed manually.
But equally new problems appeared, the power of the antennas went to the ground, the coverage was seriously affected and the instability increased to the point that the devices, connected and disconnected randomly, the antennas now indicate connection to 100FDX where never it had happened. In short, the case continues open, the response from Ubiquiti Support was, wait for a new update, they did not give other options to repair the mega Bug that ubiquiti faces today in its Unifi solutions.
We understand that this is normal in manufacturers when they release an update and it manages to corrupt a stable installation, Cisco, for example, on many occasions has released corrupt IOS to the point that we have to return to stable past versions. I don't want to be rude, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ubiquiti's development today is in India, this situation Ubiquiti faces today, and other large companies have faced it when they hire development and labor from India.
I do not want to think badly, but one does not stop thinking that they will be doing this themselves to increase their sales, as Apple has done to affect old models or versions in order to force their customers to acquire new equipment ???? Let's remember where the founder of ubiquiti comes from.
Unify's routers are ok for a small home network in fact for the majority of the users they are overkill. But Unify wants them in the hands of the professionals who avoid them for being unreliable and lacking features.On the other hand the home end users want UPNP things and they become frustrated when they realize Unify is not that. Not sure how Ubiquity will ever solve this. BTW I have a UDMPro for sale...Cheap...🤣
What do you recomend for me, using only 3 AP from ubiquiti and some devices pluged in? Is ubiquiti worth it?
@@darthmoonx3 Just get a PfSense. Much more reliable :) Can run the controller in Docker or _pick your Nix distro_.
Tom, thanks for the video, good info as usual. BUT the real question is... Was the Blue LED indicator still working in that 2013 AP after all this time? ;-)
The old 2.4 LR models had green and did not burn out like the blue ones.
@@LAWRENCESYSTEMS true, still got one LR with green light, just got its last update in March 2021 since they are EOL. love your videos
We use Palo Alto Firewalls and Extreme Networks Switches and AP’s at Corporate but I started using UDM Pro’s and UAP’s at other sites and wish we had UniFi instead of Extreme at corporate. The UI in UniFi is superior
what about the EdgeRouters? I can assign multiple WAN IP's to them. (and its central management platform - UNMS).
I wonder could we have something like an open source like unifi cloud key that connects pfsense/opnsense plus openwrt for AP, only problem is custom firmware switches, cant seem to find any...
Anyone having issues with the U6-LR only getting below 100 Mg throughput? Using a 500 Mb fiber ISP pipe, no matter what settings I try I can't get past 90 Mb up/down on 2.4/5 ghz no matter what settings I change. That's even coming off the ISP router and not through a firewall (for testing only). I was getting around 300 until the device updated it's firmware to the latest version. First time using Unifi devices.
Thought on unifi stack vs fortinet stack
Dunno, don't use Fortinet but they do have licence fees that UniFi does not.
Can you add NON unifi cams to unifi video controller?
No
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Infinity has no problem assigning multiple Static IPs to a WAN in the GUI.
My happiest installations are a pfSense combo with UniFi APs. You can deploy an enterprise level solution for a small business for an extremely cost effective price point.
You solve someone's issues and don't have to have them go to the bank to cover the costs, guess who they call for their next problem.
Case studies show the highest success rate is all in the service and support. Do that part fantastically and you will have a great business/service
The discontinuation of Video Platform made me hesitant to look into Ubiquity for anything other than WiFi/Network equipment for small businesses. I figured that is their bread and butter so discontinuing of that portion would be slim.
I am really curious what is a stable firmware for the UniFi APs? I have been using 4.0.80.10875 but still running into issues.
4:40 Not for long time anymore... I have few old UAP-LR too and there will be end of story by march 2021 :-(
And let's talk about supporting Ubiquiti mFi - it was supported for few years only.
Lackluster is an understatement for the UDM Pro.. no OSPF, no SNMP, no LLDP, no VPN insights, no real time throughput view. Bugs, and Alpha/Bata features everywhere... I could go on but being a 3rd party vendor/consultant who deploys Cisco, and PAN I'm a bit critical for what this equipment is really geared for. BUT if you're going to sell a 48 port PoE switch for over a grand you should have your shit together on other "flagship" products like the UDM Pro.. You nailed it with UI ignoring demands to fix features but they spend more money and time trying to release the next cool things that will either stay in beta, or get discontinued... frustrating..
@Lawrence Systems what is your thoughts on Aruba. I am building a house and considering purchasing AP-515 I planning on having zigbee for some smart home things ....
Aruba layer 3 switch instant on seems solid so far
Ubiquiti biggest issue is lack of live support and advanced replacement when something breaks on their products.
Advanced replacement is negated when the product is so cheap you can keep a spare in the closet. :)
@@nate8088 Yup when you can buy a 5 back for less or around $500 bucks? yeah....
If Ubiquity listened to the community and their customer base, they would take care of all this things missing or incomplete in the Unifi routing devices and we would all be deploying them like crazy. They have a lot of potential but they decided to come up with UA??
should I wait unifi wifi ac-pro or nanoHD sucessor version for wifi 6?
Yes . It's coming tomorrow
Great video and love the channel! So i've gone the route of older gen hardware to get 10gig for my home office and fit it with my VM environment - wound up with redundant Nexus switches (N5k's), fabric extenders, PoE switch their 5500 WLC and access points, and I repurposed a Sun Exadata rack for an ESXi cluster... all said its great but a ton to manage and consumes serious power. It's been a learning experience and great training for me (I do enterprise integration and architecture) but I 1000% know its overkill. My question is would you/anyone here keep this setup to get 40gig between systems and have that much control or would i truly be better off moving to something like this for a network infrastructure? Sorry if this is the wrong place but i've never posted to a video before. Oh - my total cost in all of it was about $2k. Thanks in advance!
Ubiquiti just started Nexus like DC infrastructure switches - see Unifi Switch Leaf. Not great, no spine switches yet, but the price is gooooood.
I know your equipment wasn't new but still $2k? I want it too!
I have 2 long range access points but if had to get more I would hire you.
Hey man! When is our board meeting again? ;)
I have 4 Ubiquiti sites deployed so far- most controllers and firmwares held back a few versions on purpose. Sometimes going GA first day can be painful- so I do not do that anymore.
Appreciate your experience and honesty.
I prefer the USW-16-150 instead of the USW-Lite-16. Because it is metal and therefore the heat dissipates better.
After using their APs for the last 5 years their software maintenance leaves a lot to be desired. Serious development process issues. Bugs like the on going DHCP issue, performance issues when using VLAN tagging for SSIDs, the still on going stability issue with IoT and smart phones, and a number of other issues. Too often firmware updates can be a real shake the magic 8 ball as to what will happen. I would never trust them for switching or routing. I've had enough issues with Unifi Protect as well.
What do you think of Dream machine pro in terms of hardware and features compare to Edgemax routers? Personally, I have never been a fan of Unifi routers.
Its a aio, avoid multi tools in a corp or smb if you can.
You didn't mention WISP back haul equipment which is a large piece of their business. Meh for their router/firewall options as well.
Enterprise => Cisco, HP, Juniper and Mikrotik
Soho (Small office/home office) => Unifi and other
Artista switches are really nice switches
Lol mikrotik for enterprise. HPe Networking is called Aruba.
I was then I learned how terrible their range was on a Nano/Flex. They sound like a pain to deal with.
I’ve never had good luck with nanos. A lot of complaints on range and consistency- also no pass-through port
I tried ubiquiti for business but returned it. I went with Cisco Meraki because of Ubiquiti firmware problems. I’d rather not be explaining to customers why there’s no internet after a borked firmware update and I’d rather not skip said firmware updates or be behind on them just because of stability issues. Security and reliability are at the forefront for me so I cannot, in good faith, recommend Ubiquiti for anyone whose livelihood relies on internet up time. Also, no WPA3-Enterprise Suite B 192-bit, no WPA3-Personal, still no real WIPS on the UAP-SHD as promised (it’s been 3 years! Meraki has WIPS on a $20 refurbished MR32 access point on Amazon!), and no WiFi 6 (EA doesn’t count) while others have had those for almost 2 years now. Unacceptable.
Isn't Meraki 3, 4 or even 5x the cost???
@@deanjohn9203 not if you know where to buy it -www.ebay.com/itm/174326944708. Besides, I’d rather pay more for something that’s supremely reliable than pay anything for something that won’t work after a random crappy firmware update. I refuse to play Russian roulette with firmware updates when my livelihood depends on it. For true enterprise - not small shops, Ubiquiti is simply not reliable enough so they stick to the big boys like Cisco Meraki and Cisco Catalyst lines of products.
@@kittysreview9055 I agree Meraki is the best, but with the best comes the highest price. The MR32 you linked to is EOL 3 years ago! C'mon! Comparing apples to bananas.
@@deanjohn9203 the meraki mr32 still received updates until july 31st 2024 -> meraki.cisco.com/lib/pdf/eol/meraki_eol_mr32.pdf
And, if you want to compare apples to apples, have a look at the mr42 which is still active duty -> meraki.cisco.com/lib/pdf/eol/meraki_eol_mr32.pdf
So, yes, meraki is the best bar none and can be had at roughly the same price at ubiquiti equipment.
your review is right on the nail, access points, switches great but on the routers and firewall mediocre. I wanted to consider their access control products
Yup the controller and lack of licensing makes it much much easier to sell and manage to the SMB sector.
I’ve been considering moving our MSP clients to Ubiquiti but having a huge piece missing (firewall) really doesn’t appeal to me. It takes away from the value of the Unifi console. Such a waste of potential.
We use pfsnse with the UniFi setup, it works well.
For a business your size, a company giving you a couple of pieces of gear is hardly "compensation" - it's standard practice whether or not you have a youtube following.
You actually did not answer my questions. What if some customer wonders why you have chosen quite expensive Ubiquiti equipment and not for example cheaper D-Link or TP-Link equipment. For example I have Ubiquiti Edge Router combined with D-Link smart switch and TP-Link access points. All equipment supports VLANs (including APs). How would you convince your customer that unify equipment is better and worth to pay a bit more?
I don't spend much time trying to convince people of that.
I’m with Lawrence here, you’ll find that those customers can’t be changed without spending energy that should be spent elsewhere
Has this changed? Can redo this video for year 2023/2024?
I should do a 2023 version and the answer is still yes.
Enjoyed your video. Very informative.
it is meant for small networks.
I run big boy pants sophos xg430 full featured as my firewall and have half a dosen vlans withh unifi switches and ap's. There is no way in hell I would be able to operate with this scale with their routing equipment, and do all the other tings USG can only dream off.
Unifi wifi doesn't support some very critical enterprise features unfortunately. From someone that has used them longer then you, there are major gaps and have no interest in fixing it. Also, they break some very critical basic things like how they've screwed up DHCP for older unifi devices with latest firmware and are doing nothing to resolve it. Imagine randomly clients dropping off the wifi and they can't get back on until you cycle all the wifi gear.
The edgemax line I've enjoyed as a low cost solution. Just don't expect to run everything on it when it should be on a separate device.
After over a decade of using their equipment, I'm done with them. I wouldn't go with them today.
Hello, I want to get rid on my Google and Ring cameras and purchase Ubiquiti cameras and have my cameras on my own network and my own hard drive/cloud.
I have not had a good experience with any of their routers. And support well there isn't any. Shockingly bad!
Does anyone know if its safe to update to controller 6.0 yet?
I have a thread here on that forums.lawrencesystems.com/t/dont-upgrade-to-unifi-controller-6-0-20/6478/18
No because they change their mind every 5 minutes to run after the latest shiny thing. There are equally good options.
I know there’s downsides. But I love the stuff. My baby is asleep on me and I’m configuring vlans, adding wifi networks and updating equipment all from my phone.. I don’t even need a laptop for an install now. Got SSH on my phone to set inform URLS. It’s really so valuable to be able to do so much from my phone. I manage like 150+ sites and wouldn’t be able to do it without UniFi. It’s great to be able to troubleshoot or look at any network from my phone. 👍
I'm in the same boat. It ticks the checkboxes that I value and it's weakness don't affect my usage cases for the 12 sites I manage.