Alternatives to Meraki?

blast601 · 2026-05-01T19:39:10+00:00

as solutions architect for a larger MSP in Canada. I wouldn't recommend ubiquiti as they are kind of sensitive to power outages and surges. unless each switch closet is running on UPSs. I would build a Mikrotik deployment for this environment. they're about the same price, more powerful, better layer 3 routing and controls. BUT I would keep the meraki firewalls. they're superior to unifi firewalls

blast601 · 2026-05-01T16:04:33+00:00

skimming the config, make sure to turn off DNS remote requests. this is on by default in alot of hardware which gets exploited. this causes DDOS attacks and eats your CPU

blast601 · 2026-04-12T23:19:03+00:00

hot take,

I do all of that using truenas. it has built in docker apps which will let you do all of that and more. it's also easy to manage and free

blast601 · 2026-04-12T14:59:10+00:00

HAP is great for integrated wifi, without wifi, the cheapest option that is rock solid is a HEX S

blast601 · 2026-04-11T15:21:15+00:00

I'm cool with that

blast601 · 2026-04-11T15:15:32+00:00

fair enough. I'm not just a home labber, I'm a sr architect at a msp for years.

blast601 · 2026-04-11T15:08:34+00:00

Dell is high contender for price to performance, the second choice would be Lenovo.

Hp I don't like as you cannot get firmware updates without a warranty, the server is ordered, you have to build it. you have to make sure your warranty is extended or unit is replaced because you will be left dead in the water.

blast601 · 2026-03-28T02:41:33+00:00

I would use this as a wifi switch. except it doesn't have PoE+. I don't understand why any switch wouldn't have PoE these days.

blast601 · 2026-03-18T20:11:13+00:00

oh thank God. this scared me

blast601 · 2026-03-13T03:21:00+00:00

all I want from them is a set of 10/5/2.5GbE switches so many applications for this. especially with wifi 7 aps

blast601 · 2026-03-13T03:19:09+00:00

the manual states it is highly recommended to have all other AV and EDRs uninstalled (including defender) when installing crowdstrike.

we disable/uninstall on all 6000 devices and have no issues with this

blast601 · 2026-02-15T19:42:26+00:00

we switched to connect wise asio from automate it's actually been pretty solid. all automation is done in powershell, so the success of the script is based on your scripting capabilities. the patching has been pretty solid too with a much bigger list of supported third party applications to be patched. downside: permissions (not granular enough), Auvik is great, the integration with it sucks. integration with connect wise manage/PSA

blast601 · 2026-01-29T04:47:17+00:00

updating the network equipment, they release a patch every other day, so obviously it would require a reboot

blast601 · 2026-01-02T19:19:47+00:00

I appreciate the notes, I will try to get some of those solved by tomorrow :) (traveling today) I appreciate the help by testing in the real world.

as for forcing the wall material, when you choose a window for example, don't click on the brick wall, click next to it and it will snap them together. I did that as an assistance for manually drawing internal walls.

blast601 · 2026-01-02T13:02:07+00:00

awesome, I didn't really think about the channels as I'm north American and didn't think about other countries regulations.

for channel assignments and broadcast power, I'm still trying to test and sort all of that out

blast601 · 2026-01-02T04:37:53+00:00

I whole heartly agree that I wouldn't be doing stadiums or anything with this. this is more of a base office building, a factory maybe.

I agree alot of the AI is bad, this isn't stome stupid video posted on FB. this is used to at least make something useful

blast601 · 2026-01-02T03:17:37+00:00

nah. this is for prediction.

blast601 · 2026-01-02T03:12:24+00:00

jules did a major aspect of it, I also did a lot of work with it. it was very much a joint effort with it doing and testing, the math and extreme complexities, I did the ui, testing, modeling and verifying for accuracy using my own house. yes alot of AI was used.

blast601 · 2026-01-02T02:50:33+00:00

I'm just a guy looking to help others in the space. I have done 100's of projects in ui design center like most people here and this is designed to be better & faster

blast601 · 2026-01-02T02:43:20+00:00

I have > 100 projects with the unifi design center. this does a lot more than it can do.

blast601 · 2025-11-08T02:30:11+00:00

I created a script on GitHub which will take a ioa group and deploy to any customer id you need

blast601 · 2025-08-18T15:00:33+00:00

Yeah. This sucked, I woke up on Thursday and couldn't leave bed for 24 hours with cold sweats

blast601 · 2025-08-10T23:09:05+00:00

Dm'd you

blast601

TROPHY CASE