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A great feature set at an attractive price for small businesses
December 07, 2020

A great feature set at an attractive price for small businesses

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Small Business RV Series

For this small business we chose to utilize a Cisco Small BusinessRV180W router. We chose it for the combination of VPN capability and wireless access in a small, reliable, cost-effective platform. It hasn't failed us and enables us to get on with our business and not worry about our network infrastructure. We have a remote salesforce that is able to securely access our internal network resources from the road using the secure VPN client. They are able to make use of our file sharing and printing capabilities and it makes their interaction with internal office staff seamless. As a small business we appreciate the ease of setup as well.
  • The built-in VPN capability is the lowest cost way to get a real Cisco business class VPN
  • Wireless isn't the absolute fastest but is very reliable
  • The form factor is nice and compact and doesn't require a rack
  • Power usage is quite good
  • More switchports would be welcome, although this would increase cost and size
  • Faster wireless would improve performance
  • An SPF port would allow uplinking to more business-class switches
  • Remote sales staff easily make use of the included VPN
  • Wireless access is built in and convenient
  • The form factor contributes no noise and negligible heat to our data closet
In this space I'd also consider something from Ubiquiti or SonicWall. Fortinet also has solutions starting at higher prices, but the Cisco Small Business RV Series router is simpler to set up and lower in costs than all three of those. You'll need to sort out VPN licensing for the other solutions as well, including a VPN platform at all for Ubiquiti. OpenVPN is easy enough to configure, but it's another point of failure and management issue.

Do you think Cisco Small Business RV Series delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Small Business RV Series's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Small Business RV Series live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Small Business RV Series go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Small Business RV Series again?

Yes

I feel that if you need reliability with VPN capabilities, the Cisco Small Business RV Series is tough to beat. The pricing is very competitive. If you plan on building out a larger wireless infrastructure, something like a Ubiquity setup may be more appropriate, although at the cost of more complexity. Firmware updates are quite easy to complete and straightforward as well; a single file is uploaded through the web interface. Other options may include a SonicWall, but costs on those are higher and they require even more expertise that a Ubiquity setup to configure and manage. The Cisco Small Business RV Series is well suited if you want to tell the higher-ups you have a Cisco router in place without busting your budget.