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UBNT vs. MikroTik

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NowhereMan

Regular Contributor
Is this place ANTI Ubiquiti? I am not finding much of anything about their networking gear and thought this would be a great place to find lots of people who use them? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong subthreads or something I've done a search with no results, maybe just not a lot of love here for their products?

Or have I just missed where its at? I don't own any yet, just wanted to see if others were discussing the gear who did own it, etc...I know they have a good forum there, but I like to see what others outside of their site have to say about it.
 
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What products are you interested in? UBNT's UAP-ACs are recommended so many times around here I've lost count. Same for the EdgeRouter

Entering "Ubiquiti" up there in the Ol' search box yields 10 pages of results. You'll get even better results using your favorite search engine to search SNBForums.

Go search over on SmallNetBuilder to find our reviews of both the UAP and Edgerouter.
 
What products are you interested in? UBNT's UAP-ACs are recommended so many times around here I've lost count. Same for the EdgeRouter

Entering "Ubiquiti" up there in the Ol' search box yields 10 pages of results. You'll get even better results using your favorite search engine to search SNBForums.

Go search over on SmallNetBuilder to find our reviews of both the UAP and Edgerouter.

Well I did use the search, it didn’t find anything. Maybe I did something wrong. I was just wanting to see some threads on the UniFi stuff, not the Edge. I’ll try the search again, see if I just did something wrong.


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Search default to only the thread you are looking at. Make sure you uncheck that box.
 
Lots of UBNT fans hiding in here....well, we aren't really hiding...more like lurking. Also to note, if you are hunting for more specific technical info, UBNT has great forums as well....although on SNB you can generally get a broader perspective from the threads here.
 
Lots of UBNT fans hiding in here....well, we aren't really hiding...more like lurking. Also to note, if you are hunting for more specific technical info, UBNT has great forums as well....although on SNB you can generally get a broader perspective from the threads here.
Yeah, I've been on there, lots of good info, but like you said, I was just looking for some more broader perspective on their products. I started this post because I just thought I'd find more people discussing the products.
 
more like i scare them away. The edgerouter only makes sense if you need a switch, those speed ratings dont count as the features that edgerouter customers use dont work with hardware acceleration. However their other products are entirely worth looking it. Part of the reason why i hate ubiquiti is their marketing, they call their fanbase fanatical which basically tells you quite a lot about the company even pricing.

Hence why i steer anyone looking for a router from ubiquiti to mikrotik but for wifi and some other products, it can be worth considering depending on price. I would never recommend ubiquiti for any establishment with a high number of devices/users though.

If your internet speeds arent that fast, you can definitely consider ubiquiti edgerouters. For instance their famous old ERL is only good up to 100Mb/s, their ERPRO up to 200Mb/s, their new routers you can figure out from the CPUs of the old one (the manycore MIPS IPC is very similar to standard MIPS).
 
Hence why i steer anyone looking for a router from ubiquiti to mikrotik but for wifi and some other products, it can be worth considering depending on price.
Why I am still running pfSense for my FW. When the time comes to replace my pfSense box...I will look at a newer x86....or even a Mikrotik based on some of your various posts.
 
I changed the title of this thread because I was looking for UBNT posts and didn't find an abundance of them, I think I know why now, so the title has been changed to start a discussion of MikroTik products and UBNT products.

So it seems there are a lot of MikroTik users on this forum, I'd like to start discussing the reasons/differences in MikroTik and Ubiquiti products from a high level point of view. Like why do you all prefer MT over UBNT etc or vice versa. I don't think I'll get a lot of positive feedback about UBNT here so looking forward to seeing what MikroTik has to offer that is more preferred.

I hadn't heard of MikroTik till I was doing research for UBNT on here, again I still haven't found a lot, there are some threads but not what I was imagining I'd find by coming to a small network builder site. Seems like a lot of you enjoy the MikroTik products so I would like to hear what it is that stands out and maybe compare those features to the UBNT and what they offer or don't offer etc...

Like a similar thread where the OP was "tired of consumer grade networks", I have been slowly researching home networking gear with a small step up from the ASUS/Netgear/TP-Link/Linksys products. I don't need super enterprise class CISCO stuff with all the price tags, I'd just like to take a small/medium step up with hardware and software.

I'm not a network engineer, but I do work in IT as a systems engineer and so I know a little bit about networking and would like to expand my knowledge some using my home as my learning grounds (tough down time is tough customers being my wife and kids, lol). Someone at work turned me onto UBNT products a few years ago and I've watch videos on them and how to setup their stuff, but haven't yet pulled the trigger on anything yet. Mainly because I'm in a lot of beta tests with the consumer routers and get to use them for free. Eventually I want to stop that and just go with something more stable, customizable, controllable, powerful, etc. I have Gigabit internet and my speeds seem good over all so I'm not having any real issues with the home network, I just want to feel I have something better than consumer stuff, with more control and features that will give me more bang for my buck. Something that will allow me to play with putting different VLANs out there, so maybe I can keep the wife and kids with iPads and iPhones on their own traffic and my Xbox on its own, etc... remotely log in and look at the network and reboot things if needed etc.

I like the comment I read elsewhere that consumers want "instant network" and I too like that idea but I'm not scared of a little configuration and learning more to gain the customizable features and what not. I don't want to install a VM and put software on it to be my router, I like hardware and having things to touch, and work on. So this is why the UBNT and now maybe MikroTik stuff appeals to me. Though the videos I've watch with UBNT seem a little bit of challenge to me, it sounds like MikroTik might be even more so than those?

MikroTik is new to me, upon first view of their site they seem to be a pretty close competitor to UBNT, if I'm not mistaken? Would they be the two closest or are there others I haven't heard of?

So I know this is all a matter of opinion, but thats what I'm interested in, your opinions and reasons for these opinions, so with that said, I'd like to know stuff like this:
Who was around first MT or UBNT?
Who's software has more features and customizations?
Who's hardware is better and why?
Can you manage both brands remotely?
What are your favorite features of the brand of choice?
Why did you decide on one vs. another vs. all others?

Just like to get some general thoughts and high overview of why you like one more than the other.
 
I changed the title of this thread because I was looking for UBNT posts and didn't find an abundance of them, I think I know why now, so the title has been changed to start a discussion of MikroTik products and UBNT products.

So it seems there are a lot of MikroTik users on this forum, I'd like to start discussing the reasons/differences in MikroTik and Ubiquiti products from a high level point of view. Like why do you all prefer MT over UBNT etc or vice versa. I don't think I'll get a lot of positive feedback about UBNT here so looking forward to seeing what MikroTik has to offer that is more preferred.

I hadn't heard of MikroTik till I was doing research for UBNT on here, again I still haven't found a lot, there are some threads but not what I was imagining I'd find by coming to a small network builder site. Seems like a lot of you enjoy the MikroTik products so I would like to hear what it is that stands out and maybe compare those features to the UBNT and what they offer or don't offer etc...

Like a similar thread where the OP was "tired of consumer grade networks", I have been slowly researching home networking gear with a small step up from the ASUS/Netgear/TP-Link/Linksys products. I don't need super enterprise class CISCO stuff with all the price tags, I'd just like to take a small/medium step up with hardware and software.

I'm not a network engineer, but I do work in IT as a systems engineer and so I know a little bit about networking and would like to expand my knowledge some using my home as my learning grounds (tough down time is tough customers being my wife and kids, lol). Someone at work turned me onto UBNT products a few years ago and I've watch videos on them and how to setup their stuff, but haven't yet pulled the trigger on anything yet. Mainly because I'm in a lot of beta tests with the consumer routers and get to use them for free. Eventually I want to stop that and just go with something more stable, customizable, controllable, powerful, etc. I have Gigabit internet and my speeds seem good over all so I'm not having any real issues with the home network, I just want to feel I have something better than consumer stuff, with more control and features that will give me more bang for my buck. Something that will allow me to play with putting different VLANs out there, so maybe I can keep the wife and kids with iPads and iPhones on their own traffic and my Xbox on its own, etc... remotely log in and look at the network and reboot things if needed etc.

I like the comment I read elsewhere that consumers want "instant network" and I too like that idea but I'm not scared of a little configuration and learning more to gain the customizable features and what not. I don't want to install a VM and put software on it to be my router, I like hardware and having things to touch, and work on. So this is why the UBNT and now maybe MikroTik stuff appeals to me. Though the videos I've watch with UBNT seem a little bit of challenge to me, it sounds like MikroTik might be even more so than those?

MikroTik is new to me, upon first view of their site they seem to be a pretty close competitor to UBNT, if I'm not mistaken? Would they be the two closest or are there others I haven't heard of?

So I know this is all a matter of opinion, but thats what I'm interested in, your opinions and reasons for these opinions, so with that said, I'd like to know stuff like this:
Who was around first MT or UBNT?
Who's software has more features and customizations?
Who's hardware is better and why?
Can you manage both brands remotely?
What are your favorite features of the brand of choice?
Why did you decide on one vs. another vs. all others?

Just like to get some general thoughts and high overview of why you like one more than the other.
Both brands offer instant configs that work for most but not all. The main rewards of going with either or even pfsense or some other solution is mainly the ability to tweak and tune your network to your needs. I for instance am able to route my game server across 2 separate sites so players can use whichever domain is faster between them and i did it using NAT with port forwarding for WAN without having to use tunnels (low overhead routing).

The main difference between mikrotik and ubiquiti is very very simple. Mikrotik is a focused router. When it comes to routing, mikrotik is the best at it but they suck at anything else like NTP for instance or offering basic extra network features. Ubiquiti is the opposite, its not much of a router, but its good at doing other things since its basically just embedded linux.

So think of mikrotik as a purpose specific product, its very good at what its focused on, bad at others. Think of ubiquiti edgerouters as an embedded box running linux which isnt fast for the kind of routing mikrotik does, but offers better extra features. Mikrotik exposes everything you can do in the GUI so it can be overwhelming for new users to see so many GUI options whereas in ubiquiti edgerouters the GUI is simpler but more advanced things require terminal.

In my environment i use mikrotik as a router and i have a raspberry pi 2 to perform the extra features i need. Mikrotik itself however is capable of radius and LDAP though but i havent figured out how to set it up (mainly lack of time and testers). You're really better off using a raspberry pi 2 to perform the extra features than using a ubiquiti edgerouter for instance even for squid proxying, and if you need a gigabit ethernet port, the asus thinkerboard provides more than double the hardware of a raspberry pi for double the price as the linux used on these ARM is actually better than the embedded linux used in ubiquiti edgerouters.

So for the home user, you can go with either. Its mainly dependent on your budget and needs. For anything more than home usage i would not recommend ubiquiti edgerouters. For wifi, switches, etc, both brands are quite decent but even for switches, unless you need the configurability they offer for switching you can get cheaper semi managed switches like the netgear prosafe for instance however mikrotik does have very inexpensive CRS switches that are fully managed for the same price for the same port capacity and mikrotik CRS are fully managed meaning you can add rules to the switch chip itself and do all sorts of things on the switch chip.

When buying mikrotik however, its very important that you see the block diagram and know what your needs are. Knowing what ports are switched and which switch chip and hardware features present is a very important consideration to maximise its effectiveness in your network which is something ubiquiti doesnt offer in their edgerouters. I have both the CCR1036 from mikrotik and the ERPRO from ubiquiti so i am speaking from experience as i've used both at the same time. I cannot do what i can on ubiquiti edgerouters network wise that i can do with mikrotik but i have used squid and other features on the ERPRO which performs quite decently on the MIPS CPU, about 80Mb/s per core just like the QoS speeds.

To answer your question, mikrotik was around first, in the early days when cisco was still a valid consideration, mikrotik was buggy, but ever since ROS 5 they've been great and doing well still with annoying bugs on the non core features like the NTP server and client package. Mikrotik has the better hardware though. Put it this way, while UBNT and MT are competitors, MT focuses more on one area, UBNT on another. If you need an AP that can handle hundreds of wifi clients simultaneously, go with MT. If you need a basic AP thats decent in signal and low end use, UBNT is better at that. This is mainly down to the difference in how both brands produce their software and hardware.
 
Wow that was a lot of info to digest, but the kind of feedback I was looking for, till you went over my head with some of it, lol. Thanks!
Your analogies made sense though.

So the UBNT stuff I've actually been looking at is not the EdgeRouters, but more the UniFi stuff, I guess you're not a fan of it either, just more software and pretty GUI than the hardware is good?

I have Cox ISP, Fiber inside the house, Gigablast, so I just want to make sure I'm getting full advantage of that bandwidth for all my home network, mainly the gaming devices (XB1X and PC).
I played with that Mikrotik demo and that was overwhelming for sure. I'll have to continue to read up and study these both now to see what my needs can be met best with.
 
Wow that was a lot of info to digest, but the kind of feedback I was looking for, till you went over my head with some of it, lol. Thanks!
Your analogies made sense though.

So the UBNT stuff I've actually been looking at is not the EdgeRouters, but more the UniFi stuff, I guess you're not a fan of it either, just more software and pretty GUI than the hardware is good?

I have Cox ISP, Fiber inside the house, Gigablast, so I just want to make sure I'm getting full advantage of that bandwidth for all my home network, mainly the gaming devices (XB1X and PC).
I played with that Mikrotik demo and that was overwhelming for sure. I'll have to continue to read up and study these both now to see what my needs can be met best with.
im not a fan of UBNT after the stunts they pulled(marketing and investor marketing), but as far as product choice, there are cases where recommend them and they do have basic reliable well priced APs. However their network security,sensors and the like product ecosystems dont make sense versus building your own in terms of pricing, compatibility (restriction to the ubiquiti products) and even functionality if you are a home user as only businesses dont bother spending their time to build and set up such systems.

If you are a beginner, i would strongly recommend pfsense over mikrotik/ubiquiti as a router because their setup is much simpler and you only need to know how to install linux via usb. As for wifi and other products, it would depend on what you go for. For homes with fewer users, ubiquiti basic APs are affordable and reliable vs consumer routers but many consumer routers can be turned into APs too so it depends on what sort of features and performance you want.
 
Speaking of pfsense, I have a TP-Link Archer C2600 router that was a beta test unit they gave me when it ended. I've since gotten a newer one to beta test, but was thinking I might use that C2600 and try to play with and learn DD-WRT, throw it on there. Its not on their compatibility list though, they mention they need a donation of that model to test on. I guess I could give it to them but thought it would be good for me to use for my learning of DD-WRT. Just not sure how it will react to their firmware if its never been tested.

What stunts did UBNT pull with marketing and investor marketing?
 
Speaking of pfsense, I have a TP-Link Archer C2600 router that was a beta test unit they gave me when it ended. I've since gotten a newer one to beta test, but was thinking I might use that C2600 and try to play with and learn DD-WRT, throw it on there. Its not on their compatibility list though, they mention they need a donation of that model to test on. I guess I could give it to them but thought it would be good for me to use for my learning of DD-WRT. Just not sure how it will react to their firmware if its never been tested.

What stunts did UBNT pull with marketing and investor marketing?
Or OpenWRT.

UBNT made an ad against cisco which is on youtube when they first released trying to say how they are better than pro cisco (which they arent and were full of bugs at the time). They then made unfair comparison with mikrotik using the suggested models i mentioned in their worst case scenario vs their non QoS speeds, they then made an investment brochure calling their fanbase fanatical. This is why i never recommend ubiquiti for businesses except for some of their products if their needs are simple.
 
So, tell me in some lamens terms, is there a router/switch/hardware that can handle the 1GB (900ish down, 500ish up) internet speeds, I've read some specs of some of the EdgeRouters and they only capable of up to like 200Mbps etc...I want something to work well with my Gigablast speeds, hardware wise you know CPU/RAM etc?
 
So, tell me in some lamens terms, is there a router/switch/hardware that can handle the 1GB (900ish down, 500ish up) internet speeds, I've read some specs of some of the EdgeRouters and they only capable of up to like 200Mbps etc...I want something to work well with my Gigablast speeds, hardware wise you know CPU/RAM etc?
the edgerouters, the new manycore ones are capable of those speeds in software but you'd have to pay like $1k if you want QoS at those speeds (dont listen to the ones that say you dont need QoS at those speeds. QoS helps a lot even when bandwidth is not fully used).

For mikrotik, theres the quad core ARM (RB3011something i think) and CCR1009 both ensured to do software NAT and QoS at the speeds you need. The CCR is even faster at VPN and can handle multi gigabit speeds with QoS and NAT running in software (not using hardware acceleration). Before you buy a routerboard always check the block diagram.

For pfsense, the minimum recommended hardware is already capable. So grab yourself or recycle existing desktops, add some 2nd hand intel NICs and you'll have yourself a capable router. Even the dual core i3s can easily do 1Gb/s of NAT, AMD bulldozer archs (if they have AES-NI). Any CPU with AES-NI that is not a small core will not only do NAT and configs at the speeds you want but also VPN. So it doesnt matter if its intel or AMD when paired with an intel NIC they can handle a lot of bandwidth even the low powered ones (only for intel - atoms and the AMD CPU arch used in consoles). pfsense requires the CPU to have AES-NI though.
 
Now you're talking more my language. One of my friends was chatting me up about his setup with pfSense, he's using a Lenovo TS140 and has vSphere installed and is running VM servers and one is for pfSense.
I'll look into some of these options you've mentioned and play with the pfSense some. I am curious as my same friend said the he didn't think, even with setting up QoS rules that my ISP - Cox would not respect them?
 
Now you're talking more my language. One of my friends was chatting me up about his setup with pfSense, he's using a Lenovo TS140 and has vSphere installed and is running VM servers and one is for pfSense.
I'll look into some of these options you've mentioned and play with the pfSense some. I am curious as my same friend said the he didn't think, even with setting up QoS rules that my ISP - Cox would not respect them?
Your ISP doesnt do anything to the QoS you set, they have their own QoS too for their service to throttle and prioritise paid stuff. That QoS is to do with the WAN link you have, making the best use of it.
 
Your ISP doesnt do anything to the QoS you set, they have their own QoS too for their service to throttle and prioritise paid stuff. That QoS is to do with the WAN link you have, making the best use of it.
Ok, and thats what I thought, it was more to do with my internal traffic. So when you say WAN link I have, you mean link to my house once it comes from Cox (WAN), hits my routers and goes throughout my network internal (LAN), thats where the QoS helps?
 

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