A Capable Tank of a Router, but More Capable Options Exist
December 08, 2020

A Capable Tank of a Router, but More Capable Options Exist

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

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Small Business RV Series

The Cisco Small Business RV340 was the primary WAN router for our network. Having only a single site, it was responsible for routing any outgoing WAN traffic, as well as minimal intranet routing. It was used across the entire organization, with approximately 125 concurrent clients including BYOD clients and desktops. It was brought in not too long ago to deal with a failed router that was six years old.

Pros

  • Easy to set up and administer
  • Decent web portal
  • Fairly reliable and responsive support
  • Performance was as advertised

Cons

  • VPN functionality is not intuitive
  • Performance tanks when using advanced features
  • Not easily rackable
  • It was cheap enough and got the job done with Cisco reliability
  • It's definitely not a powerhouse and better/cheaper alternatives exist
Cisco's power really stems from its brand reputation and honestly not much else. No one ever got fired for deploying Cisco, and that's why it stands out. The Cisco Small Business RV Series is no exception there; the unit is built well and does the job. However, much more powerful alternatives for routers are out there—the biggest competitor being Ubiquiti. The UniFi routers are significantly more powerful in all regards, including routing speed, IPS/IDS speeds, and VPN functionality. Support for those is admittedly rather lackluster though, so if your network is critical, you are effectively self-insuring your equipment. For some that may be fine, but for others, that risk of extended downtime is just not worth it.

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

No

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

For a small-business router, the Cisco Small Business RV Series performs about as well as most small businesses would need. When you aren't dealing with too many concurrent clients, the router does exactly what it is supposed to do without any fuss. It can handle a fairly beefy WAN connection if you don't do any filtering/inspection/IPS and it's fairly "set and forget" in that regard. However, if you are thinking of turning on any of the L7 or DPS abilities, expect performance--both on the intranet and WAN sides--to take a hit. The router clearly is not a powerhouse by any means and should be reserved for rather basic functions. While it can definitely handle >100 concurrent clients, it was clearly not designed for it and I would not recommend pushing it.

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