zlacker

Why are people paying what seems obscene prices for UniFi stuff? You probably all have spare hardware lying around that can be repurposed as a router; it does not need to be modern. I use a Ryzen 5 as a general purpose home server/router/firewall running Linux and no ISP plastic box or expensive "prosumer" gear can't touch its performance. I can push 25Gbps through it (saturating my SFP28 LAN), or north of 4Gbps through Wireguard. For access points in a home setting, TP-Link boxes flashed with OpenWrt are also considerably better value and far more "free" (i.e., unclouded) than any UniFi stuff constantly phoning home for "updates."

>>drnick+(OP)
Perhaps you missed the product positioning: “Simple setup and clean design”

Not everyone wants to fix old hardware and configure linux on their weekends

>>npunt+F
> Not everyone wants to fix old hardware and configure linux on their weekends

I thought this was Hacker News.

>>drnick+R
UniFi customers =/= Hacker News.

>>drnick+R
I'm a Hacker News reader and relate with the community. At the same time, it's not like I've same interest and energy in every niche. For example, I might have interest in custom building my keyboards, but may not be in restoring an old router. It's not like HN users exclusively use Linux desktops and many of us prefer simplicity.

The point I'm trying make is that there is more nuance than a simple HN user stereotype.

>>drnick+(OP)
I know I pay more for my unifi gear. I want stuff that works without having to hack around with it. I do enough of that in my day job. Their ecosystem works without needing to tinker. I love it.

>>asib+b1
Very much not true. I'm a seasoned network engineer, and very comfortable deep in the Linux network stack. I still have no interest in doing that for 7-10 hours during work and then having to do it for another 1-3 hours after work to get things working properly. I use UniFi products because they're dead simple and work well.

I would challenge you to try supporting your family using your home network doing esoteric things, the juice is not worth the squeeze. I can give my wife the UniFi login and she can figure things out well enough on her own, and it lets us easily integrated networked devices that don't serve network connectivity (e.g. IP cameras) into our day-to-day as well.

Do I think UniFi is bar none the best gear? Absolutely not. Do I think it's a "good deal"? Maybe. Do I think it's better than the alternative uses of my time, that I'd rather spend doing other stuff? Abso-fucking-lutely, which is why I have been buying it for years.