Cisco Meraki Z3 Teleworker vs MikroTik Routers and Switches

Cisco Meraki Z3 Teleworker can be used as Gateway/VPN or Firewall

MikroTik is suited for large companies that require advanced distributions in terms of contracted bandwidth, and in the same way, allows a single device to specify filtering and firewall rules without acquiring an additional device. There is a range for small companies which is more economical and less robust, but in case it's not necessary, such a strict control over the data consumption of the company is not a feasible solution.

• Zero Touch Provisioning
• VPN Device
• Gateway Device
• Firewall capabilities

• Affordable, it has more features compared to other brand at the same price.
• Widely available, by today it's easy to obtained one, even online retailers sell it.
• Highly customizable, you may write a powerful script to enhance the function.
• Flexible, you can make different configuration approach based on you needs.

• When Internet is lost and come back we need to reset the Z3 device from the dashboard in order to register the IP Phone to CUCM
• It would be nice to manage the Z3 device to a local web portal just for TS
• Max Speed 100Mbps. It would be nice if it could run up to 1GB

• Some of the wiki articles have not been updated or are not accurate enough. We spent a couple of days trying to find an example of implementing a mobile IPSec client solution. But once this has been implemented, it has been solid (always worked). A bigger community would help, and I am finding it hard to find the time to contribute to these articles.

Almost perfect, despite some issue that need to be addressed by the manufacturer. If this issue has been addressed, a full 10 mark will be given.

There is no SOC, NOC, where you can contact to try to resolve any difficulties. The problems that these devices have are solved largely through the community, with workaround alternatives, or if the support team responds to a request, the response times are too high for the current needs of technological communications.

With Cisco 800 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 800) you can establish VPN connections and maybe integrate the IP Phone to your CUCM; however, you need an expert in place; you need to configure it with tunnels GRE or VPNs for example; you also need to configure other VPN devices on the main site. With Cisco Meraki Z3 Teleworker you just connect it to the Internet and make some easy configuration from the Meraki Dashboard and are ready.

Cisco Routers are one of the best in the market, however they are also very expensive and not suitable for a small deployment or any deployment which requires just a couple of routers. MikroTik on the other hand are less expensive and provides many features that you require for a small scale deployment. they fit in with the budget and do what you need them to.

Cisco Meraki Z3 Teleworker acts not just as a gateway but also as a VPN and Firewall. The performance is great and it solves a lot of situations, that I mentioned before. I highly recommend buying and trying it.

• Good visibility for IT team so we can monitor and validate the teleworker traffic
• Zero Touch Provisioning so we do not need to send a Engineer to configure it.
• Consumer-grade network security

• First of all it's cheaper than Cisco routers.
• It has more functionality than Cisco routers that cost 4 times more.
• It has a GUI. But it has CLI too.