Dell PowerConnect Switches vs Ubiquiti Networks UniFi

Likelihood to Recommend

We work in the electric industry. These should not be used in a high-heat environment. We like to keep the temperature of the room in the low 60's so they are not suited for our Substation locations due to extreme heat and cold. However, they perform great in a server room.

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Seth Urbanczyk

Network Administrator

Deaf Smith ElectricUtilities, 51-200 employees

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In the past few months we purchased thousands of dollars in brand new networking equipment from Ubiquiti. IT DOES NOT WORK CORRECTLYWe 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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Verified User

C-Level Executive in Other

Education Management Company, 1-10 employees

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Pros

Reliable.
Excellent hardware support from Dell including 4 hour parts/replacement.
Excellent technical support from Dell on software, troubleshooting, and configuration.
More affordable than its main enterprise competitors.
Easy to use CLI.

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Verified User

Executive in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employees

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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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Patrick Plaisance

CTO (Chief Technical Officer)

Pachyderm ConsultingInformation Technology and Services, 1-10 employees

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Cons

Precarious graphical (GUI) mode, needing to be updated for more efficient technologies such as HTML5
Short support time, given how much these devices support in terms of use. I have owned the devices for years, but no longer have a warranty

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Roni Peterson Alvarenga

Diretor de Tecnologia da Informação e Telecomunicação

Câmara Municipal de CampinasGovernment Administration, 501-1000 employees

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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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Vin Campbell

IT Director

Sahadi Fine FoodsWholesale, 11-50 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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Usability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Ubiquiti Networks UniFi 9.5

Based on 3 answers

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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Brandon Patton

Manager, Information Technology

Engineering InnovationIndustrial Automation, 51-200 employees

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Support Rating

Dell PowerConnect Switches 9.1

Based on 3 answers

Dell ProSupport is outstanding. Dell ProDeploy is likewise outstanding. I prefer them even over traditional Cisco support. I've had repeated cases where Dell immediately addressed or fixed an issue with US-based support, including firmware hotfixes. Not even Cisco can boast that.

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Verified User

Executive in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employees

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Ubiquiti Networks UniFi 7.5

Based on 10 answers

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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Tiago Mokwa

IT Senior System Network Administrator

Revise Clothing IncApparel & Fashion, 51-200 employees

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Alternatives Considered

I selected Dell mainly due to previous experience using them in a business environment. I've never had a unit fail on me and when my budget for equipment like network switches has been less than a training class on how to use those switches, it's incredible to be able to find quality equipment at the price point Dell offers and even more so when their enterprise support has been as excellent as I have been accustomed to dealing with. In all honesty, even if I had a larger budget, I would have bought these same switches since they were exactly what I needed to suit my needs. We looked into HPE/Aruba network switches, and while they would have performed everything we needed and more, they were almost four times the cost of these Dell network switches. That's a hard sell when it comes to planning a tight budget.

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Chris Funk

IT Director

Clark County Juvenile CourtGovernment Administration, 51-200 employees

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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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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Religious Institutions Company, 11-50 employees

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Return on Investment

Reports are easily created and very useful.
Quick creation of different network connections.
Excellent and secure channels for multiple data management.
Great data visualization options offered by Dell PowerConnect Switches.

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Annette Gilmour

Senior Project Manager

Linio GroupInternet, 1001-5000 employees

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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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Aaron Smith

Information Technology Manager

TimeTrak Systems, Inc.Computer Software, 11-50 employees

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Dell PowerConnect Switches vs Ubiquiti Networks UniFi