Is Ubiquiti really as great as I'm hearing?

[ThaiTaffy]

I'm hoping I can get a fairly neutral perspective here with the wide range of members we have,but all I hear is people going on about ubiquity in network forums.
From what I understand it's a pretty good system but not great, I went down the OpenWRT route mainly because I'm a cheapskate and it seemed more like a challenge but before that I used tp-links Omada for almost a year (from what I understand it's a ubiquiti clone) so I have a rudimentary understanding of ubiquiti's possibilities and limitations.

Whenever mention OpenWRT die hard ubiquiti users clam up and almost seem to ignore me and change the subject to another great ubiquiti product, I mean if it was better than OpenWRT there wouldn't really be a need for the majority of their products to have been ported over to OpenWRT.
I would have started a poll about what you use for a router, ISP provided mainstream manufacturer and their firmware or something flashed with OpenWRT but I don't think I write well enough or have a good enough title to get a large portion of members to vote.

What do you think? I love to especially get some opinions off members who have experience with both.

 

[Solaris17]

Coming in hot about OpenWRT and you want someone to sell you unbiased? Bit of a disadvantage already right?

Looks like you might just want a openWRT war thread all over again in another forum.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Coming in hot about OpenWRT and you want someone to sell you unbiased? Bit of a disadvantage already right?

I'm useless with it though, the selling point to me of those controller based systems is simplicity I've been having issues trying to get past 20mb on my 2.4g network which considering the setup I have is pretty bad, just purely the cost of the mainstream systems I can't justify.

Like I said I'd love to get opinions of people who use or have used both and why they made the choices they have.

 

[Zareek]

So I haven't used OpenWRT and I only use Ubiquiti for WAPs and managed switches, not their firewalls or Dream Machine lineup. I discovered Ubiquiti at work years ago and was impressed with their reliability and pricing. I currently use a pfSense firewall/router/gateway and Ubiquiti for the switching and WiFi. I love both, I will never go back to a single use device to handle my internet and networking needs.

 

[Solaris17]

just purely the cost of those setups I can't justify.

Then it looks like it’s over before it begins. You spend money to make networks work.

if you think omeda is a competitor your already looking in the wrong direction anyway. The alien/whatever the white ones are mesh stuff is garbage, because all mesh Wi-Fi systems are garbage. If they weren’t you would see them used where it matters like schools or stadiums.

anyone that knows anything about networking will recommend a router and an access point. Skipping all the trash in between like mesh and Internet over power extenders. For anyone that no longer fits in a normal Wi-Fi router.

kind of looks like you just want an openWRT fight with a bias towards mesh and already turned off by the price.

forgive me for having a hard time trying to understand what you are looking for.

maybe try a different approach like telling the forum what problem your trying to solve and what manufacturer you would rather solve it with.

 

[Halo3Addict]

I've been using a Ubiquiti UDM Pro paired with a U6-Lite AP for a couple years and have had very minor issues with the system, albeit my setup right now is fairly simple. I will say, Ubiquiti tends to push out feature updates more often than I would like. I'd prefer they work on optimizing and fixing bugs in their OS rather than introducing new features.

I did have a problem recently where I wanted to setup a VPN tunnel in my network, which I thought would be fairly simple since they're touted as 'enterprise hardware at consumer prices'. Turns out Unifi OS doesn't support TLS 1.2, which has become industry standard and most VPN clients won't work without it. It did give me a chance to dive into DD-WRT flashed onto an old NetGear device I have. I wasn't too impressed with it, although I hear OpenWRT is better. I think in the future I will use pfsense, though.

In summary, I like Ubiquiti hardware and will continue to use them, and possibly purchase a POE switch from them when I move into my new house. Their OS updates can be finicky and tend to break things, though.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

if you think omeda is a competitor your already looking in the wrong direction anyway. The alien/whatever the white ones are mesh stuff is garbage, because all mesh Wi-Fi systems are garbage. If they weren’t you would see them used where it matters like schools or stadiums.

anyone that knows anything about networking will recommend a router and an access point. Skipping all the trash in between like mesh and Internet over power extenders. For anyone that no longer fits in a normal Wi-Fi router.

I don't bother with mesh I moved over purely for roaming and costs.

Kind of looks like you just want an openWRT fight with a bias towards mesh and already turned off by the price.

forgive me for having a hard time trying to understand what you are looking for

Just a chat something to talk about with other members.

maybe try a different approach like telling the forum what problem your trying to solve and what manufacturer you would rather solve it with.

My technical support is probably longer than one evening.

I've been using a Ubiquiti UDM Pro paired with a U6-Lite AP for a couple years and have had very minor issues with the system, albeit my setup right now is fairly simple. I will say, Ubiquiti tends to push out feature updates more often than I would like. I'd prefer they work on optimizing and fixing bugs in their OS rather than introducing new features.

I did have a problem recently where I wanted to setup a VPN tunnel in my network, which I thought would be fairly simple since they're touted as 'enterprise hardware at consumer prices'. Turns out Unifi OS doesn't support TLS 1.2, which has become industry standard and most VPN clients won't work without it. It did give me a chance to dive into DD-WRT flashed onto an old NetGear device I have. I wasn't too impressed with it, although I hear OpenWRT is better. I think in the future I will use pfsense, though.

In summary, I like Ubiquiti hardware and will continue to use them, and possibly purchase a POE switch from them when I move into my new house. Their OS updates can be finicky and tend to break things, though.

I use Opensense as my router and OpenWRT for my access points OpenWRT does very little on my network to be honest. I like the UI and software packages better on Opensense though documentation isn't as prolific as pfsense.

 

[dir_d]

You can look at the Aruba Instant ON line as well. Those are nice for the money, slightly higher in price than Ubiquiti but quality is a little higher too.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

You can look at the Aruba Instant ON line as well. Those are nice for the money, slightly higher in price than Ubiquiti but quality is a little higher too.

I'd never heard of them, I kinda went into omada purely on misunderstanding I bought two omada products thinking I could grab some of their cheaper outdoor access points and it would all work.

This isn't a business or anything enterprise, I have a homestead I'm slowly making smart, alot of the network is just home made electronics using Espressif chips so a fairly large NoT device number.

Most of the WiFi is purely used for Lan it just has the added benefit that me and my wife can sit down anywhere and work, she trades stocks and I just just do some consulting (currently due to visa constraints it's illegal for me to work and earn a wage so it's mostly charity work or favours for friends) that's the main reason I try to keep things cheap as possible.

As @Solaris17 said I'm pretty set on OpenWRT and OpnSense I can grab lots of random hardware and try it out and still have the option of 802.11r between all the various brands aswell as messing about with samba backups and other things I haven't yet heard of. It's all just a hobby really to stop me going insane with nothing to do.

 

[dir_d]

I'd never heard of them, I kinda went into omada purely on misunderstanding I bought two omada products thinking I could grab some of their cheaper outdoor access points and it would all work.

This isn't a business or anything enterprise, I have a homestead I'm slowly making smart, alot of the network is just home made electronics using Espressif chips so a fairly large NoT device number.

Most of the WiFi is purely used for Lan it just has the added benefit that me and my wife can sit down anywhere and work, she trades stocks and I just just do some consulting (currently due to visa constraints it's illegal for me to work and earn a wage so it's mostly charity work or favours for friends) that's the main reason I try to keep things cheap as possible.

As @Solaris17 said I'm pretty set on OpenWRT and OpnSense I can grab lots of random hardware and try it out and still have the option of 802.11r between all the various brands aswell as messing about with samba backups and other things I haven't yet heard of. It's all just a hobby really to stop me going insane with nothing to do.

Nice, i currently use virtualized Pfsense, Ubiquiti 2.5gig switch, APs at home. I have a Dell R720xd that has ESXi and virtualized TrueNas with 2x 6 disk RAIDZ2 in my zpool. I get what you are saying about being a hobby, i use my network as a hobby/test bed for keeping up my skills.

 

[Operandi]

I think the Ubiquiti (we are really talking about Unifi here) hype is mostly the real deal. I've installed a bunch of it and run it at home (USG, gen2 Cloud Key, 24 port POE switch, and just one AP and 1080p camera). I plan to expand to a couple of APs and more cameras as I go.

The management software isn't perfect, and its not really 'Enterprise hardware' but its very good software with a ton of features and the hardware is very good in my experience. For the money I don't think you can beat it for what it offers and I haven't had an really bad bugs that seemed to be pretty common 5-6 years ago.

I thought about going with something like Pfsense and a mix of Unifi or other hardware and I'm sure thats probably objectively better in almost every way but frankly I have too many hobbies and I just didn't want another learning curve.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

I think the Ubiquiti (we are really talking about Unifi here) hype is mostly the real deal. I've installed a bunch of it and run it at home (USG, gen2 Cloud Key, 24 port POE switch, and just one AP and 1080p camera). I plan to expand to a couple of APs and more cameras as I go.

The management software isn't perfect, and its not really 'Enterprise hardware' but its very good software with a ton of features and the hardware is very good in my experience. For the money I don't think you can beat it for what it offers and I haven't had an really bad bugs that seemed to be pretty common 5-6 years ago.

I thought about going with something like Pfsense and a mix of Unifi or other hardware and I'm sure thats probably objectively better in almost every way but frankly I have too many hobbies and I just didn't want another learning curve.

I saw a load of 1080 Ubiquiti cameras the other day going really really cheap, I almost picked up a few with no idea if I could even get them to work, though I'd ultimately love to run object detection on something like frigate but I just don't think I have the hardware.
I'm going to have to upgrade my switches at some point though it seems Cisco rule the second hard market here in Thailand and if I bought new I'd go for something I could run OpenWRT on just to prevent me from having to learn another ui.

 

[Operandi]

I saw a load of 1080 Ubiquiti cameras the other day going really really cheap, I almost picked up a few with no idea if I could even get them to work, though I'd ultimately love to run object detection on something like frigate but I just don't think I have the hardware.

Pretty sure you can't unless someone hacked them to make it work. The cameras are good though, I've had no issues with any of them including the ones outside that exposed to -30c in the winter and 40c the summer. Not comparable to Sony or Axis for features and configurablity but the image quality is in the ball park and they are literally 1/4th the price.

 

[Shrek]

I'm useless with it though, the selling point to me of those controller based systems is simplicity I've been having issues trying to get past 20mb on my 2.4g network which considering the setup I have is pretty bad, just purely the cost of the mainstream systems I can't justify.

I can get 120 Mbps on 2.4 GHz, although admittedly I am close.

 

[dir_d]

Pretty sure you can't unless someone hacked them to make it work. The cameras are good though, I've had no issues with any of them including the ones outside that exposed to -30c in the winter and 40c the summer. Not comparable to Sony or Axis for features and configurablity but the image quality is in the ball park and they are literally 1/4th the price.

You are right, the Unifi cameras will NOT work with any system but their own which is a let down. I am still debating to go that path or go with a blue Iris with some plugins route.

 

[newtekie1]

I've been having issues trying to get past 20mb on my 2.4g network which considering the setup I have is pretty bad

A very large factor in this is your environment. If you live in a house in the middle of nowhere, you'll get good 2.4GHz speeds. But if you live in any kind of area with neighbors close to you, 2.4GHz is going to be shit. It's too congested. In my house, because of all my neighbors, 2.4GHz might as well be dead to me. You should be using 5.0GHz whenever possible as it has far more channels and less overlap.

Now, about Ubiquiti vs. OpenWRT. Well, I've used both, I currently have both deployed. But now, I won't deploy another firewall/router from either. My Firewall/router of choice now is pfSense or OPNSense. I still use Ubiquiti for their WAPs and the devices to manage them, as well as their cheap PoE smart switches. But that's it.

 

[rhkcommander959]

Unifi Ubiquiti is spendy. APs are good, cameras are expensive but work fine but object detection is.... a work in progress.

Cloud key gen 2+ or UDM Pro for controller, have done a few systems on both for Protect with 15+ cameras, but needed to go to the new 4-drive NVR for more storage. The 5TB 2.5in Seagate drive runs too hot for the cloud key gen2+ so either slap a heat sink on it or get a powered eSATA enclosure and run a nice fat 3.5in drive with an adapter SATA data cable to the ckg2+, back to the enclosure.

Switches, don't get me started. I feel like they are purposely releasing things with limited features to then come out later and market something "new and amazing". Having PoE at <60W for the whole switch is skimpy, I can't imagine supporting 120-150W would have been a huge engineering burden. Some of their older switches did up to 500W. They just released a 2.5g switch finally but it's only got 8 ports... you have to go up to the 48 port switches to get full PoE across all ports. I've got old ass netgear, hpe, cisco switches with more power but whatever. But they finally added AR to Android! Augmented reality, the newer switches have a 1.8in screen you can use your apple or Android device with the Network app, scan a QR code and virtually see in AR on your device which ports are wired for what. Fun gimmick but I've only used it a couple times.

Speaking of PoE, they kind of dropped the ball with the transition from 24V passive to PoE+ ++ +++ ++++++++++

Access is very early still, I've made it work with older door security just fine - maglocks and door latches, but multisite is a joke. I was able to trick multiple Hubs over VPN with a real firewall. They want you to pay extra for a feature that should be supported easily for free.

Talk is basically dead, never really lived.

They push out a lot of half baked stuff lately, but for most people they're fine. Its not home-user level and not enterprise level, prosumer I guess. The updates are getting better in quality I guess over the last couple years. New UI changes keep happening too...

Sounds like I'm hating on them but really I'm not. I'll probably go with them when I wire up my house. After working through the kinks and bugs, and not allowing auto updates it's been mostly reliable for four months straight so far on the last system I did. Except one of two 48 port switches randomly dropping cameras to the UNVR, did an update and good to go...

For most people it's overkill, and perhaps Underkill for medium business and up. Small businesses would be fine, but can they justify the costs? Some will get by with home user hardware. A decent switch, two APs, a pair of 3- pack bullets, and a ckg2+ controller alone is doable for probably $1800 give or take, assuming any of that is in stock! Stockijg issues aren't as bad lately, but they are out of stock on a lot still.

At least there's no subscriptions, yet.

Oh and you can get the camera feeds over rtsp.


Edit: mostly a rant, I've ran many systems around Unifi and have had growing pains with them, but if you can afford them it'll be a good solution. Their APs were their namesake, and Protect works very nice although the cameras are very expensive.