Aruba or Unifi

[techie17]

We have some schools that have just joined our trust that have had new Aruba CX switches and Aruba APs installed just before joining and they also use Aruba central to manage the devices. Our other 3 schools use Unifi switches and APs so I’m torn weather to go down either some Unifi or Aruba route so I want to know what others would do, either ditch Unifi and for Aruba or ditch Aruba and go Unifi? 
 

The schools are primary schools and as I’ve not used Aruba with Aruba Central before, I don’t know if this solution is overkill and more expensive? Would love to hear peoples thoughts

[FN-GM]

It would be hard to give you an answer as we don't know what you're requirements are. What features are you looking for? Have you listed all these requirements and compared the 2?

 

Considering you now have both, it might be a good idea to run both for a while and see what works best?

[jmak]

It's an often asked question in this forum and I think you might be about to become the expert! 

 

When I worked in a school, I went for Unifi. It was an easy decision - it was a massive upgrade on the home grade unmanaged access points we had and the total spend was around £600 Vs about £9.5k for Aruba. That included three years licensing but I knew I wouldn't be able to afford the ongoing costs and the Unifi had zero ongoing costs.

 

In the non-school setting I work in now, I don't have any influence on the decision, but the network team are very keen on the Aruba platform. They get a lot of value from the management platform.

 

If you can afford it and you'll use it the Aruba might be worth it.

[Aprice]

Historically I've liked the Aruba Instant system (not confused with instant on - which was a bit rubbish).

Personally I haven't been a fan of Aruba Central, as we felt it didn't really justify the license costs, as the functionality we needed was available without central.

 

Since AOS 10 firmware needs central it put me off Aruba wireless, at least for the sort of deployments we were doing. Sure AOS 8 is still supported but it feels like we'd be investing in something that clearly isn't the priority for Aruba.

 

Unifi has always worked well for WiFi in my experience, Switching has been a bit rocky, but has got a lot better.

 

If there's a 'need' for Aruba sure, but our Unifi WiFi experience has been great, no license fees either.

[techie17]

Does anyone know how much it’s cost per year to licence an Aruba switch or Aruba AP in Aruba central? It may the fact that for our schools, it just won’t be sustainable as it will be to expensive