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.