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Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers vs. Extreme Wireless Access Points

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AThe Cisco Catalyst 9800-80 is a modular wireless controller with optional 100 Gigabit Ethernet (G) modular uplinks boasting seamless software updates for large enterprises and campuses, and security with ETA and SD-Access.N/A

    Extreme Wireless Access Points

    Score9.6 out of 10
    N/AExtreme Networks' Wireless Access Points (or ExtremeWireless) are designed to provide performance in the most demanding environments with the latest Wi-Fi technologies including 6 GHz, OFDMA, MU-MIMO, and software-defined dual 6 GHz radios.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersExtreme Wireless Access Points
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersExtreme Wireless Access Points
    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 Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersExtreme Wireless Access Points
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Extreme Networks
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    99%
    Would buy again
    103 Answers
    83%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    92 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    101 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    76 Answers
    80%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    4 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    86%
    Implementation went as expected
    83 Answers
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
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    Enterprises
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    Score9.2 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersExtreme Wireless Access Points
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (109 ratings)
    9.5
    (11 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.7
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.7
    (3 ratings)
    Availability
    8.9
    (107 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.7
    (108 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.5
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless ControllersExtreme Wireless Access Points
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Well suited for most of our customer base because it is a versatile, scalable, large multi-campus organizations. Not so: Brandish deployments where there's a much more simplified feature set needed. So where we can basically rely on Meraki as a cloud base with easier to deploy.
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    The Extreme access point solution has been used in the cooperative scenario with VLANs for employees in access through 802.1x authentication and also for guests through the captive portal that allows access of people for a limited time and prior registration. The equipment has great performance and connection speed and supports a high density of users connected at the same time without lag and crashes. The management of this equipment is being carried out through software with cloud management and is accessed by our infrastructure team to configure and monitor alerts.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Cisco
    • I think the updates are great. ISSU upgrading code is fantastic. I think the speed with which CAPWAP converges or reconverges, I think the redundancy mechanisms for roaming APs to other controllers is very good. I think overall, getting away from more of a monolithic processor where subprocesses handle what they call the WNCD tasks, I think fundamentally is an improvement in performance.
    • The radioactive tracing, all of the troubleshooting and all of the logging and all of the importing and exporting features for logging and analytics within the controller itself is really, really good compared to the predecessor AireOS.
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    • Ease of use and Management. The process of implementing APs is straight forward and managing the wireless infrastructure is quite simple and efficient.
    • Coverage: we are very happy with the distance each AP coverages in our warehouses without having any drop issues or over implementing APs.
    • Cost competitive versus other cloud managed wi-fi solutions such as Cisco, Aruba or Mist.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Cisco
    • The biggest issues we have had have been software related. Requiring code upgrades or reloads to fix an unfixable problem.
    • Some of the troubleshooting utilities aren't perfectly clear as to what theyre doing or how to set them up or what to expect results wise or resource wise.
    • I think there is a lack of filtering in certain displays where you cannot use the "contains" option for certain device type filtering. But those options should be universal in all views.
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    • In my experience, licensing has become a nightmare. Licensing must be tied to a device, they also won't let you activate used units from other companies if they are donated or purchased third-party.
    • Customer service is outsourced overseas.
    • In my experience, technicians are incentivized to close tickets quickly - whether the issue has been fixed or not - which can be frustrating to work with.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    Despite common software and hardware issues this is still the best product on the market for large scale enterprise deployments. Cisco has worked with us extensively to reduce the amount of bugs in every iteration however new bugs are introduced or new incompatibilities always arise with major releases. Thus, while I'm hesitant to recommend the product it's still much better than all the other competitors such as Aruba and Juniper in the WIFi space. There is also extensive integration with DNAC/Catalyst Center and ISE in an SDA deployment. Recently there has been a number of critical issues with the controller software and Cisco has proved themselves to be incapable of timely troubleshooting and diagnosis. This has reduced our confidence in the product and it's current and future stability and maintainability. At it's current state the product is taking up too much of our engineering resources to maintain despite also paying for premium support from Cisco. As such I have reduced by rating as we are likely to look at alternative vendors for our long-term wireless management solution
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Cisco
    It's not simple, but this is the result of being very deeply configurable
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    Extreme Wireless Access Points are easy to manage. They are easy to deploy and install. The hardware and firmware are reliable. There a number of things to be improved since we are still using the WiNG platform, but all of those things will be much better when we migrate to CloudIQ.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    Honestly, in the six years that we've been using it, we've had one, I would say show stopping event. There was an issue with in an HA setup they would every so often when rebooted lose all configuration. So that was a bit disappointing, required quite a few hours to resolve, but Cisco had to fix very quickly and once we implemented that, we've not had any further additional issues.
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Cisco
    We have been using the Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers for over 2 years and the whole system has been very stable. We currently run them in HA and have found when this has been activated (due to power issues etc.) the units change roles seamlessly, minimising the downtime to almost nothing. Except when we have had major issues, our wireless networks have a solid uptime and keeps our whole borough up 24/7 without problems.
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    Extreme Wireless Access Points can support all our devices, even in high capacity areas. They are easy to manage and get basic information. There was a time back around 2017-2018 where people's devices needed to make sure they were using the latest wireless drivers; otherwise, people were having connection issues. Other than that time period, we were able to have fewer complaints from end users.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Cisco
    the overall support on the 9800 Wireless lan controller is good. Wireless issues are sometimes hard to troubleshoot since it's the RF that make it complex and the diversity in clients and requirements. The engineers do a good job in understanding the scope and issue, altough not all issues can be solved
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    Support was always responsive and willing to help, but at times did not know when to call it and send a replacement to stop the bleeding. I respect that fact that they wanted to get the solution working, and the wanting to learn more and understand, but at times you cant do that at the expense of the customer.
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    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    You need to understand wifi basics
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Ubiquiti WLAN is very much a consumer platform. It is not production ready, it is buggy, it has issues. It is cheaper than Cisco, but you get what you pay for. Aruba doesn't integrate nicely with our existing largely Cisco based networks, so when time came to replace AireOS, the Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers came out on top.
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    I've used both Aruba and Cisco (traditional, not Meraki) for wireless, and each have their own strengths. Aruba offers a lot of feature functionality, though the interface is difficult and confusing to use (this was ~4 years ago). Cisco wireless is fairly straightforward to set up and expand, though features are more limited. Aerohive's benefit is the easy+speed of deployment. I've also used the Citrix NetScaler SSL VPN soft client and that works fairly well, though it doesn't compare like-for-like due to the fact that it's software vs. Aerohive, which is hardware.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Cisco
    There are different vesrions for different requirements, there's HA as well.
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • Positive impacts, yeah, is good to have a central location to control all these profiles for different countries and locations. And the drawback, like I said to you really because of the too many integrations that have a dependency on the software version. For example, Cisco ONE for Access have certain software that can run through and then this scatter center need to make sure it's working with the others APS version that is currently working. And we also, the Cisco Catalyst Center also have some kind another version of software that you need to support this controller. So it's like two tier three tiers of the software version that we need to match. Then only it can work.
    Incentivized
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    Extreme Networks
    • Linking APs to AD, via NPS, and gaining the password reset policy; helped us move past some issues that we were held up on with SOC
    • Segregating corporate wifi and guest wifi, plus forcing guest wifi to agree to the Acceptable Use Policy, was needed to pass a compliance audit of the network.
    • Being able to locate which users are connected to which individual wifi AP, has been a asset with troubleshooting
    • APs sharing connections allows for us to overlap the wifi zones and create redundancy if an AP were to go offline for any reason.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Extreme Wireless Access Points Screenshots

    Screenshot of AP5020Screenshot of AP5010Screenshot of AP3000/XScreenshot of AP4000Screenshot of AP5050U/D