Their wired stuff is a total scam since Edgerouter fell off, though. The same functionality exists on a $50 netgear managed switch (or wired router, etc.), and the shitty unified configuration interface doesn’t justify the markup at all.
Meanwhile, the quality of their competitors’ tools for managing multiple switches without manually configuring each one, individually, over SSH or via a graphical tool is not necessarily amazing.
For example, it’s been a while since I used Ruckus Unleashed (the low-end management tool from an very upmarket vendor), but I think UniFi Network (the management tool) is a good amount better than Unleashed.
I really wish the people who put so much effort into software like OpenWRT would put some of that effort into managing multiple devices in a nice, unified manner. The tooling could be so much better.
Why did AVM or Netgear Orbi not get this treatment for "works", though?
Unifi is used by the tech-savvy homeowner that needs PoE for their security cameras and wants to control and configure their network without needing a network engineer.
Honestly they are nothing like Apple - like just look at their mobile apps - how many do they have - 10 ? To interact with the same gateway just for slightly different use-cases. Not to mention that the functionalities are hard to decipher
They have tried to go subscription based licensing but that can be conflicting for companies who just want decent reliable network gear in all the above market segments.
I fit in the prosumer category and have about $10,000 in gear and while it's great for my needs I don't see myself ever spending money for network gear subscriptions.
I'm looking forward to getting more Unifi gear in the near future.
Unifi is great for small IT companies providing network services to tens of costumers. Being able to manage everything remotely (and even batch things for all of your customers) is great.
https://youtu.be/IStbaTQTBio?t=117
Aside from noise it's also not ideal for reliability in dusty environments.
There is OpenWISP: Leveraging Linux OpenWrt, OpenWISP is an open-source solution for efficient IT network deployment, monitoring & management.
Ubiquiti is one of the few companies doing prosumer hardware - and doing it extremely well. They give you access to advanced, raw configurations without necessarily having to go "full enterprise" deployment. They also have solutions for just about everything.
That being said, I generally have moved towards other Wifi solutions as I've grown weary of tweaking Ubiquiti all of the time. I found that I could get better top-end performance out of Ubiquiti gear, but really struggled to hammer out poor performance in edge cases. Particularly, with jitter and random latency spikes.
My consumer mesh wifi system gets nowhere near it's advertised performance, with little way for me to tweak it. However, I rarely need "full performance" and it doesn't suffer from the same random glitches.
Another example, I had Frigate set up on a home rolled NAS. Again, it worked alright, but it always stole time from me. It always needed a little maintenance or tweaking or thinking. I bought a UNVR and modern Unifi cameras. Adopted, zero thinking or management from me. I still retain control of my data and it respects my privacy. It isn't perfect, but at the price point it solved meaningful problems I cared about in both cases. Yes they are commercial products and not open source, but they are priced reasonably to my eyes (the UCG ultra was actually cheaper than the netgate). That makes me a happy customer.
I have run their wifi APs for over a decade with no problems. It's not perfect, I know there are still privacy concerns. No company is really perfect, but they are good to me.
Au contraire!
I got tired of the refrain "are you messing with the network again?" in the evenings when the neighbors are all streaming Netflix and crowding the airwaves, so I installed several low power UI APs around the house and and popped my own DNS and devices to a separate VLAN.
No more complaints :)
I do wish Unifi offered more configuration in the ad-blocking department, but I'm hesitant to inflict anything but the most vanilla deployment on the remainder of the household..
They were founded by some people that left Apple.
Ubiquiti 5 port managed switch: $30 https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-switching/products/u...
Netgear 24 port managed switch: $260 (with a 1 year subscription included!) https://www.netgear.com/business/wired/switches/smart-cloud/...
Ubiquiti 24 port managed switch: $225 https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-switching/products/u...
Sorry, but what markup are you referring to?
I'm sure you can find price differences at different products & tiers, but quickly glancing around it sure doesn't look like Ubiquiti has any particular premium markup.
Regardless having a self-hosted, buy-it-and-own-it, non-business friendly product line absolutely has value. I loved my mikrotik switches when I was just messing around, but the single pane of glass, central management is not insignificant when time becomes a more precious resource and you just need it to work.
There is now also TP-Link's Omada line at least which seems like the most comparable alternative.
I've done this using an android phone, usb-c hub w/ethernet nic, and and edgerouter lite before.
The biggest missing piece i see is the option for an external antenna.
Meanwhile, Apple still hasn't fixed bugs that I reported to them between 2012 and 2014 while working for one of the largest universities in North America as a level 2 tech.
Sure some of their hardware is overpriced, but they're pushing the limits of what's available in the 10 and 25 Gbe areas at relatively reasonable prices.
This is unprecedented and much appreciated.
I do wish they were even smaller (I've got one location I'd like to mount one inside a wall box, which is admittedly pretty niche), and I am never again touching UI's configuration software (even 10 years later I feel that wound), but, yeah... love these little guys.
I now exclusively use open-source projects with a strong history and community - or used high-end enterprise gear that I pick up when it reaches EOL so it's dirt cheap. Stability has been so much better, even with the most advanced configs I ever created.
Firstly, I can run the network controller easily in Linux (in Docker as it happens, but the image is third party - jacobalberty/unifi). It's happily running on Raspberry Pi.
Secondly, I've got one really old access point that is now unsupported for updates, but apart from that, there's no problem with controlling it along with the supported ones.
Also, I don't need a cloud connection though they do encourage using one.
Contrast with:
(1) eero has no web UI (ONLY mobile phone!) and almost zero network configurability. You can't set a hostname for instance for DHCP. You can have exactly one main and one guest network. You don't get to configure anything about it though. Etc.
(3) I bought a Linksys replacement for my Eeros to get 6E -- I returned it to the store due to how horrifyingly bad the Web UI was and how bad the "app" was too. AND it also had flaws like inability to have reservation IPs outside the DHCP pool range.
Apple is actually the opposite of Ubiquiti -- they don't want you to be able to configure anything or have any visibility into anything. It either 'just works' or just silently fails or fails with "An error occurred."
1. Eero - great performance, no web config (only mobile app), cloud dependent, half the features paywalled for monthly subscription (eyeroll)
2. Linksys - confirmed piles of crap, a 6E mesh kit I tried last year performed worse than my 2018 Eeros so why bother. Config is even more limiting than Eero, the web UI is a slow disaster that times out constantly, and the app is terrible and the features are badly designed.
3. Netgear - sucks as parent comment explains
4. TP-Link - reputation is that it's bad but I haven't tried
5. Asus - never tried
6. Google - no doubt they'll kill and brick these at some point
Any others I'm forgetting?
OpenBSD 7.7 (GENERIC) #339: Sun Apr 13 17:52:27 MDT 2025
deraadt@octeon.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/octeon/compile/GENERIC
real mem = 536870912 (512MB)
avail mem = 521142272 (497MB)
But I might pick up an R720 just to play with -- that's a different echelon of gear.
Thanks for the tip.
"Just works" means you can enjoy other parts of technology, like what you do with it, instead of just getting and keeping it working.
I just checked and my new Wifi 7 APs don't run Debian though, they...
admin@BedroomAP:~# cat /etc/os-release
NAME="OpenWrt"
VERSION="23.05-SNAPSHOT"
ID="openwrt"
ID_LIKE="lede openwrt"
PRETTY_NAME="OpenWrt 23.05-SNAPSHOT"
VERSION_ID="23.05-snapshot"
.... Ubiquiti at home because it is light years better than any consumer brand
https://www.historytools.org/docs/reasons-to-avoid-amazon-ee...
802.11ax ("wifi 6") is as good as it gets, with [eg] their wAP AX.
They get a lot of stuff right, though. They run RouterOS, which is a custom userland for Linux that is intensely flexible. Approximately any routing-esque function a person can dream up that can work with a Linux kernel can be made to work within RouterOS.
The form factor of the wAP AC/AX boxes is really very nice -- they can blend well in on a wall (inside or outside), attached to a pipe, or whatever. I've got a wAP AC on the wall of my living room, for instance. I use another one when "camping" off-grid, zip-tied to the leg of an easy-up awning.
It's ostensibly just an access point, but it doesn't have to be. I mean, like: There's two ethernet ports, but they exist without a preconceived function. Want to use it as a router, with hardware WAN and LAN ports? How about with VLANs and a managed switch instead, so it works with just one cable? Eleventy-five different SSIDs? Bridging networks with wifi? Using station mode to leech bandwidth from the cafe across the street, and perform firewalling and NAT and VPN, so you can use it in your apartment -- with only one box? Sure, no problem. Whatever it is, it works.
Power is flexible. All of the bits to use passive POE are included; or it can just plug in with the included DC connector; or it can use proper 802.3af PoE.
I don't know how it compares to something from Ruckus, but I'm much more pleased with it than the Ubiquity gear that I am presently taking a break from fighting with.
True, however before I was running a UniFi household I did quite enjoy Apple's Airport equipment. Back in the day it felt like they were the first time I had consumer networking equipment that I wasn't forced to reboot regularly to resolve issues.
I use both mikrotik and ubiquiti at home. The mikrotik is necessary for a few things the ubiquiti can't do, but mostly it's a wash.
Incidentally mikrotik tends to be behind ubiquiti for rolling out new wifi stuff
Which is how I'm using mine actually, one less wall wart in the area I use them
Wire still wins - especially for backhauls between endpoint. However, it’s really nice being able to stick an AP anywhere you have an outlet to extend the range. I have a few outdoor devices (speakers, lights, TV) that daisy chain though APs while getting just good enough performance for what I need.