[carlgreene]

This is not for me as I'm not a professional network engineer, but I do want to say that Ubiquiti has made home networking SO fun for me. Everything truly "Just Works."

My setup is definitely more on the prosumer side, but it's been so build out and inspect my network with their tools.

[petepete]

This is exactly how it is for me too. Everything truly "just worked" - except Sonos, but that's not a Unifi problem - they even have a dedicated page in their docs on how to set up Sonos systems, which I followed exactly, and it now works a treat.

[johnmaguire]

I wish I could say that Unifi has just worked for me, but any time I add a new Unifi device to the network (say a new switch, or just recently a U6 range extender), my network gets incredibly unstable until I manually restart every UniFi device on the network, sometimes multiple times. (i.e. Some devices won't connect to WiFi due to DHCP IP configuration errors.) And that's after getting the device adopted, which generally takes multiple retries.

I've also had three instances where upon rebooting due to a power outage or a system update, my inbound firewall / port forwarding was just broken. UniFi simply did not pass packets to my server. Once again, a full reboot of every UniFi device on the network resolved it.

I really want to like UniFi, and I appreciate how much access I have to SSH in and figure out what's going on (and I did take tcpdumps and have a support case open), but it has definitely not been plug-and-play for me.

I'm using a UDR7, U7 Lite, a number of managed UniFi switches, and just recently added the U6 extender.

[xyst]

I don’t know about it "just works." Still have to perform a monthly reboot of equipment otherwise performance kind of drops off.

Still 100X better than the competition though. My UDM has worked wonderfully with support for dual IPs and seamless failover

[simoncion]

Yeah, my experience with the UAP-AC-LITE and -LR was that it would get wonky if not rebooted every month or so. That (combined with the realization that its software load is pretty much just OpenWRT with the serial numbers filed off) caused me to dump the official firmware and switch to OpenWRT.

I was quite a lot happier after the switch, as I didn't have to hassle with UniFi and my APs stopped needing roughly-monthly reboots.

[mongol]

Tangentially related: is Mikrotik as bad for wireless as some say? I want to like them, even though their equipment seems complex, I root for a company from the Baltics that have carved out a respectable niche. But they appear to struggle with wireless?

[protocolture]

My biggest issue is threat surface. You can design around it, but Mikrotik WAP's do everything a Mikrotik router can do. If they get compromised they can run scripts, create blind proxies etc, and mikrotik has a habit of resurfacing CVEs from memory.

My experience is very binary. I had some Mikrotik RF installs that Just Worked, and never needed attention. And some that were just problem children constantly demanding reboots.

Mikrotik code isnt the most stable beast in the world, but if you keep it at a certain point in time you are usually safe. But then that brings you back around to the security issues again.

[cyberax]

I've been using Mikrotik in various capacities since 2008, I even made IoT devices using RB450 boards before the word "IoT" was coined. I also love supporting a small company that is successfully competing with the giants.

Their long-distance wireless and outdoor wireless are great, but their regular WiFI access points and software are at most adequate. They are not keeping up with the state of the art.

[nubinetwork]

I haven't tried their CAP or HAP lines, but I'm happy with my RB4011. /shrug

[jammo]

It's particularly a problem with multiple access points, if it's just one and you need 'ok' coverage you're good.

[c-hendricks]

Can someone explain what "just works" when compared to other networking gear? IE I use ASUS and their mesh, and it all "just works". Have a mix of routers over 10 years and they all mesh together.

[timeinput]

I started with TPLink gear in a mesh mode, and it kinda sorta maybe worked? I had an access point on the ground floor, a range extender + option to connect RJ45 (for devices with out WiFi), on the middle floor, and an additional meshed AP / range extender on the top floor. The top floor meshed thing basically didn't work, the RJ45 thing got me like 50 Mbps while wireless was getting me 200 Mbps. It 'just worked', but it didn't work well.

In that same house switching over to Ubiquiti just worked, and worked well. I had the same setup (mesh nodes on every floor), but performance was substantially better (2-4x).

I've moved house, and now have wired APs on every floor, and get phenomenal performance. The management UI to see what is where / how its connected, and when something doesn't work is very good. It also enables things that were hard / difficult with other non-'prosumer' gear. Like I can have multiple WAN ports, and plug in a cellular modem, so that when my internet doesn't just work (which happens way too often) it auto-fails over to the cellular modem, and continues just working.

The reason I went with Ubiquiti in the first place was their Unifi Protect line of cameras, and again those 'just work' from the wireless small ones to domes / etc plugged into wired connections they all just seamlessly connect to my dream machine, and provides a great UI, and the data is on prem which I want.

The only thing Ubiquiti doesn't do the way I want is DHCP + DNS, so I have a seperate raspberry pi doing that.

After years of fussing around with either linux / pfsense / ... routing + firewall solutions, and different AP / meshing configurations the ubiquiti stuff is very hands off.

[aksss]

I think the idea is that the Ubiquiti equipment is far more capable than normal consumer-grade equipment like ASUS, and still manages to "just work". So your ASUS may also "just work" but is has a fraction of the capabilities as the unifi system in terms of feature load-out and scope of native device integrations.

[sedatk]

Adding a new Unifi device to the network is just a matter of powering it up, responding to "adopt this new device?" prompt on your phone, and that's it. It's literally Plug'n'Play in 2025. Even if other brands let you do that with similar number of steps, the UX is so behind that it's impossible for you to discover the steps that easily. Ubiquiti uses UX quite intelligently to make complicated things feel simple. My experience hasn't been close to Ubiquiti's with any other brand I've tried.

[samhh]

For a start I wouldn’t trust brands that by default market mesh over wired backhaul.

[pshirshov]

> Everything truly "Just Works."

Right. Just like 5Gbit PPPoE uplinks over VLAN. In fact there is no Ubiquiti router which can handle 1.5Gbit+ PPPoE for some reason. So, I have a mikrotik in front of UDMPM just to termiate PPPoE and I had to buy a IPv4 /29 subnet to avoid double not.

Everything just works, sure.

[pshirshov]

* double NAT.

[encom]

I got some decommissioned Ubiquiti gear (a switch, some ap's) from work, but it requires UniFi to do anything. I looked into that briefly and it appears to be some eldritch horror of an application. Anything I can't use from a terminal is worthless, so all of it is going in the trash where it belongs.

[simoncion]

Depending on the model of AP, you might be able to run OpenWRT on it without too much hassle.

[daveidol]

Do you think it'd be worth upgrading over TP Link Omada hardware?

[jakeydus]

I made the switch to Ubiquiti from TP Link last year. 1000% worth it. The "Just Works (tm)" thing is true, but the ceiling of what you can do with it is so much higher. I'll also say that the Unifi nerds out there are legion and you can find support and comment threads all over the place for pretty much any project you want to do.

[beala]

All the complaints about Ubiquiti in this thread from a few months ago dissuaded me from investing in their gear: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44746603

I ended up going with TP-Link Omada and have been happy so far (a managed switch and wifi 6 WAPs). I am a bit concerned about their security track record given how bad their soho products are, so I ended up sticking with my opnsense router at the perimeter as the first line of defense.

I’m curious to hear what you think you’re missing out on with Omada.

[baq]

Not omoda, but TP-Link - recently built a deco setup - 3x be65, 2x be25, one WiFi mesh node, the rest is wired 2.5gbe backhaul and performance is excellent, though I’m not a fan of only being able to configure stuff from the app, and there isn’t that much to configure anyway. It just works, but if it wouldn’t, I’d probably have to return the whole set.

[mbesto]

I've used both and was super interested to use Omada because of its price and performance. Honestly, Ubiquiti is just so much easier. The whole controller model for Omada tries to be way more "enterprisey" at the cost of a SOHO ease of use.

[xoa]

Based on having migrated multiple clients from UniFi to Omada but still has UniFi deployed across a few sites too, I'll give you a different take from the replies you've gotten so far. TP-Link's Omada is a newer, direct competitor to UniFi, and when it came out Ubiquiti was an absolute fucking dumpster fire in terms of, well, everything. Their software, hardware, and even the forums (which they killed in favor of the current mess). Their gateway/routing/network service story sucked, they were missing key features, their firmware was rotting in basic ways (like ssh being so old it literally included only insecure ciphers and you couldn't even connect to it anymore without + options), and finally were also starting to make more and more concerning and ugly choices that pointed towards serious organization issues (constant UI bike shedding churn in favor of ancient features and bugs they'd agreed were important) and enshitification (tying software applications to required hardware). However, they were also the only player doing that sort of fully self-hostable unified configuration networking. I migrated all the gateway/routing/simple service stuff to OPNsense, but then was stuck.

TP-Link stepped in and have been working hard on Omada being a direct competitor. It's clearly inspired liberally from UniFi but that's A-OK by me, it's healthy for both to be going head to head. In my experience it had somewhat fewer features, particularly initially, and they definitely don't cover the full breadth of cool and useful niches that Ubiquiti does either. But what there is has worked well and been more reliable for me, particularly in a mixed environment. For example Omada worked perfected day 1 with automatic L3 controller discovery using a simple DHCP Option 138 set on my OPNsense unit pointing right at my controller FQDN. It was easy and built-in to supply a proper certificate for the Web GUI. I never got either of those to work with the UniFi controller. The switching has been rock solid reliable and the WiFi more performant, better coverage, and features like PPSK were added way before Ubiquiti did and have a much better interface.

However, Ubiquiti does seem to perhaps be turning things around a bit. Their router hardware is no longer garbage, even if it is of course far less then you can do yourself. From what I can see in simple ongoing tests they do a better job on the software side for router features now as well, so if you're all-in on both systems for the total single-pane experience UniFi might once again be better. Their announcement of the "UniFi OS Server" 3 months ago (in Early Access) and publicly last month was both a surprise and heartening. Rarely does one see companies that start down the path of lock-in reverse course at all. If they make it possible to run all their various controller applications on your own hardware I'd definitely start to add more back into my mix.

So if you've got decently modern Omada hardware (and you probably do because not like it's been around that long, in terms of networks anyway) I'd be in no massive rush to switch to UniFi unless you see some key specific things you'd like. If you think you ever might want to roll your own other infra same thing even harder. But if you're thinking about a bunch of upgrades anyway then worth keeping an eye on and looking carefully at the various feature mixes each have.

And that's a really statement that makes me super happy to say, because I think each is now driving the other, which is really healthy for this ecosystem!

[v108]

Same experience for me.

I am eyeballing the new NAS to play with soon.