Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued) vs. Ubiquiti Networks UniFi

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)
Score 6.3 out of 10
N/A
Currently supported by Cisco, but no longer sold, Cisco recommends migration to the Cisco Catalyst 9100 Family of Access Points, which offer greater performance and flexibility.N/A
Ubiquiti Networks UniFi
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Ubiquiti Networks in San Jose provides their UniFi wi-fi hotspot technology.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)Ubiquiti Networks UniFi
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)Ubiquiti Networks UniFi
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)Ubiquiti Networks UniFi
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)Ubiquiti Networks UniFi
Small Businesses
Ubiquiti WLAN
Ubiquiti WLAN
Score 9.3 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers
Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers
Score 9.8 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Enterprises
Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers
Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers
Score 9.8 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)Ubiquiti Networks UniFi
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(13 ratings)
8.7
(38 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(2 ratings)
9.5
(3 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(1 ratings)
6.9
(6 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)Ubiquiti Networks UniFi
Likelihood to Recommend
Discontinued Products
Cisco Aironet 1550 Series Access Points is very useful for outdoor locations that are more exposed to the wilderness or the weather, which provides uninterrupted wifi access during high winds and bad weather. It also is useful for hazardous locations that are prone to danger or wildlife. Unfortunately, it would not be appropriate to get a Cisco Aironet 1550 Series Access Point if it is only needed for basic wifi use, or indoor use, as the extra features and price would not be necessary.
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Ubiquiti Networks
In the past few months we purchased thousands of dollars in brand new networking equipment from Ubiquiti. IT DOES NOT WORK CORRECTLY We bought 2 sets of hardware. 1 for home office and 1 for work. They both have the same issue (internet stops working). We have emailed literally dozens of times with customer service and they have not been able to resolve the issue. We have requested escalation to more trained technicians and have asked them to log into our system to assess. None of this has happened and our internet continues to intermittently work.
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Pros
Discontinued Products
  • Outdoor mesh bridging of access points brings significant cost savings to many of our production facilities. Deploying mesh APs is a significant cost reduction over trenching conduit to connect remote areas via fiber.
  • Cisco APs are extremely resilient, with a failure rate of below 5% in some of our harshest environments.
  • Cisco APs have the intelligence to identify wireless interference sources with Clean Air technology
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Ubiquiti Networks
  • AP's are very affordable.
  • Most of the AP's are highly reliable and can be used indoors or in covered outdoor spaces.
  • Outdoor Mesh AP's with an external directional antenna can effectively cover outdoor spaces with dual band wifi better than much more expensive APs.
  • Unifi Protect via the Cloud Key Gen2+ is probably the slickest, most affordable IP camera system on the market right now.
  • Unifi controller is powerful yet simple to administrate.
  • Remote management of entire networks through a single pane of glass is easy to accomplish with the Unifi controller.
  • Cloud Key Gen2 solves problems with the first Cloud Key wiht a built-in battery backup.
  • When you are "full stack" Unifi with wifi, network switches and gateways, the control you can wield over a network in just a few clicks and the amount of data you can glean from a quick glance in the controller is incredibly impressive. It makes an IT guy wish every product/service could be so tightly and well-integrated.
  • Community support is excellent, Unifi staff monitors their official forums and responds to almost every thread.
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Cons
Discontinued Products
  • In the facilities where we operate, we had to put a reinforcement on the ceiling to avoid problems due to the weight of the access point.
  • On the appearance, it could be smaller and lighter.
  • As for the hardware, I think it's incredible, I don't see any points to improve.
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Ubiquiti Networks
  • VLANs: They can make these work more smoothly. Setup can be more intuitive.
  • Cloud Key: These need to be stabilized; they lose their programming a little too easily.
  • Stop selling the Gen-1 cloud key: No battery means you need an external power source or you must be onsite to power it off before updating.
  • Portal can be modernized.
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Likelihood to Renew
Discontinued Products
There is no other better option than this. It's the line between the commercial Cisco grade AP's and industrial ones.
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Ubiquiti Networks
No answers on this topic
Usability
Discontinued Products
Everything clear and easy to use
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Ubiquiti Networks
UniFi's system is intuitive in how options are placed and explained throughout the interface. What is not directly explainable within the interface, Ubiquiti does provide several knowledgebase documents explaining best practices and methods of troubleshooting when things don't go exactly right. We've been using them for over three years, and the benefits vastly outweigh any negatives we could come up with on the equipment and system.
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Performance
Discontinued Products
The Cisco Aironet 1560 Series Access Points served their function well. They were reliable, provided decent speeds, resisted the elements, and provided a good investment. The only downsides were mostly appearance which doesn't matter that much. However, I believe that the tech in the access point is not future proof which is why I did not give it a nine or ten star rating.
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Ubiquiti Networks
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Discontinued Products
Initially I had a problem with the regulatory and channel selection, it was a bug on the AP as it was fairly new, solved by TAC on engineering release, and since then it has been performing flawlessly.
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Ubiquiti Networks
Support tickets can be proactively created within the dashboard with full detailed documentation. The Ubiquiti website provides detailed documentation on support. Forum and user groups also provide the interested community with information that covers all aspects of issues or questions users can encounter with the latest and most updated information.
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Alternatives Considered
Discontinued Products
Making the decision to use Aironet is more related to the type of scenario that you have. We chose Aironet because we mainly manage all the network internally and already have Cisco products to integrate with Meraki which is a good option if you are starting from scratch.
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Ubiquiti Networks
Ubiquiti is overall easier to work with. There is no special training needed to accomplish many of the things required with a Cisco product. Since my time is stretched thin, I need something that I can manage without being weighed down by command-line communications. Also, I am able to use my wireless devices to maintain every Ubiquiti device on my network.
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Scalability
Discontinued Products
The software of the Cisco Aironet 1560 is highly scalable, the software is very powerful so that the APs can be customized to the maximum and achieve the best performance of the network at the wifi level. The use of it is very easy for people with low knowledge.
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Ubiquiti Networks
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Discontinued Products
  • With only a few DOA's or failing devices, the AP's are of very high quality.
  • We expect them to run stable for many years, which is why our initial investment will be an intelligent choice compared to installing a cheaper product.
  • Although the AP's from Cisco is cutting-edge technology, the 802.11ac standard will be considered legacy in a few years, meaning that its a balance to purchase a well-designed product that won't outlast the tech that it provides. Imagine having an investment in a large fleet of high-quality 802.11b AP's 20 years ago. Although they would still be working flawlessly due to their good quality, the bandwidth would probably be unacceptable to most modern consumers.
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Ubiquiti Networks
  • The access points and switch were extremely affordable and we've had minimal downtime over the life of the products.
  • The switch was in our main rack and there was a bug in the firmware that would reboot the switch if you made a change to one of the switch ports (that was not in use at the time). This caused our entire organization to have a network outage, in the middle of the day. Fortunately we didn't have any customer refunds to issue. We've had to purchase different switches for the main racks, and place the UniFi switch in a better suited place.
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