Ubiquiti UniFi network devices are great choice for those who are looking for premium home network setup. I have been using UniFi system for over four years and up until recent had pretty much entire network system built with UniFi gears.
My personal experience with UniFi has been very pleasant and I have no regrets on my own. However, UniFi is not just for everyone. It does not solve every type of network problem one maybe facing at home, and depending on the problem, UniFi could actually be a wrong choice. So today, I’d like to share my personal opinion about who is UniFi for. This is primarily for those of you who have not committed to UniFi yet.
Background
The initial experience
After trying several consumer mesh systems with the last one being Asus AiMesh, I felt my top priority on networking was “stability” and “reliability”. So over the four years ago, I gave a try to my very first UniFi equipment, UAP HD.
Prior to that I had WiFi 6 AiMesh system utilizing the back then top of the line routers from ASUS. Since UniFi did not offer WiFi 6 product then, this felt to me was going back yet I was desperate and also curious.
To my surprise, despite UAP HD being WiFi 5 wave 2 product, it actually outperformed on throughput testing on various products and even on WiFi 6 client. So I immediately sold my old setup and started building UniFi network.
Beta tester
Since it was very early, perhaps beta stage of UniFi Dream Machine series, there were still features missing that were available on Asus such as VPN client. The worst time was the first year or so where one of firmware upgrade made my entire network so unstable, I had to revert back to older firmware.
However, since then UniFi system became much more feature rich, more stable and reliable. I have not had any real issue for at least the last couple years. It certainly serving me well.
UniFi Addiction
Initially, I focused on making better WiFi experience. I’ve purchased several UniFi WiFi 5 Wave 2 AP models before they released their first WiFi 6 model.
After exhausting WiFi 5 AP models, I started to focus on wired network upgrade, and started building 10G capable network. When Ubiquiti released their first WiFi 6 AP, I had immediately purchased couple and sold older ones.
The most recent my UniFi setup serving 3800 sqft 2 story house consists:
- UniFi Dream Machine Pro
- USW-Aggregation Switch
- USW-Pro 24 PoE Switch
- Flex-XG Switch
All stationed in the UniFi’s toolless 6U rack in my storage.
PoE supplied UniFi devices included
- 3 Flex-Mini switches
- 3 U6 Pro
- 1 U6 Mesh
- 1 SHD access points
In our home, there are little over 40 WiFi devices. Amongst those, three devices supports WiFi 6E. five devices are capable of connecting to 10 GbE. We use primarily Apple products. We also have 7 Sonos and 5 B&W WiFi speakers. We have Xfinity 2 Gbps down, 200 Mbps up for ISP. Given its a residential area, I do see many neighbor’s WiFi SSID but all the signal strength are fairly low.
I would describe UniFi system as
- Stable
- Modular
- Prosumer graded
- Affordable
- Network platform
I will go into detail about each in rest of this article, but if any or ideally at least couple combination of the above catches your eyes, then you are off to good start considering UniFi. On the other hand, if none of the above is the reason you are seeking for new network setup, UniFi may potentially be not for you.
Modular System
UniFi system is highly modular. If you come from a typical consumer home network system, you may be familiar with single, internet service provider provided router doing all its job.
However, functionally, they consists:
- Modem
- Gateway
- Router
- Switch
- Controller
- Wireless access point
With UniFi setup, each components may be represented by individual unit. For example, if someone has fully UniFi invested system, they may have combination various UniFi product. One example may look like below.
The benefits of modular system are the scalability and flexibility. I have been able to gradually add and swap various pieces of network over the course.
Although there are consumer gears like Asus AiMesh system where you can add/swap various router units to upgrade network over the time, UniFi modularity is more flexible as they can be vender agnostic so long as you are ok managing non-UniFi gear on its own UI. The ability to swap/upgrade individual component at a time, in my personal opinion is a real “future proof” in technology.
Prosumer System
UniFi is often referred to as Prosumer, SMB gears. What does that really mean to us as a home user?
a person who buys electronic goods that are of a standard between those aimed at consumers and professionals.
Oxford Languages
The definition of Prosumer sounds arbitrary. I believe the key to understand is to know the pros and cons of “consumer” and “enterprise” gears.
| Consumer | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|
| Pros | – Rapid technology adoption – Plug and Play ease – Wide range of selection | – Stability – High density performance – Highly configurable – Maximum security |
| Cons | – Less stable – Less feature | – More complicated to setup – Much more expensive |
| Example Brands | Router: ASUS, TP-Link, Netgear, Linksys etc. Mesh system: Orbi, Eero, Deco. Ubiquiti AmpliFi etc. | Cisco, Meraki, HPE Aruba, Ruckus, Extreme Networks etc. |
| Consumer | Prosumer | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stability | Less priority | High priority | Top priority |
| Complexity | Simple | Medium | Complex |
| Cost | $-$$ | $$ | $$$$ |
Prosumer products are attempting to find the happy medium between the two categories. Prosumer systems have improved stability and more feature offering when compared to the consumer products without requiring the enterprise premium price. When compared to the enterprise system, the cost saving comes from performance trade off, less feature offering Ubiquiti UniFi is paradigmatic prosumer product.
Affordable System
At first, UniFi gears may not look budget friendly. Especially, if you are considering to get all pieces together. However, when comparing to the “enterprise” gears side by side, it’s easy to see as how affordable UniFi is.
Let’s take a look at the latest WiFi standard, WiFi 7 access points as a reference as they are not affected by second hand market price change yet*.
*For the last generation e.g. WiFi 6, WiFi 5 Wave 2, second hand market like Ebay has much more compatible price to UniFi line ups. E.g. at the time of this writing, Ruckus R650 (WiFi 6 4×4 5 GHz, 2×2 2.4 GHz) on Ebay can be purchased $200-$300 range, R350 (WiFi 6 2×2) equivalent A350 seen as low as $130. HPE Aruba AP-535 (WiFi 6 4×4) used was also sold under $200.
Network Ecosystem
Rather than viewing it as a single category of network device, UniFi should be viewed as a networking platform or ecosystem where various categories of networking devices can integrate and provide coherent, unified user experience. Under each category of devices, UniFi product line provides various options to allow custom network setup that fit the one’s home need.
The platform or ecosystem does not just refer to the number of choices provided to user in each category, but it refers to the user experience improvement when you have more UniFi devices. If you have your entire system built UniFi products, they can all be managed from a single UniFi admin app.
The UniFi ecosystem goes beyond networking. They have home surveillance camera series like UniFi Protect. Perhaps if you are interested, they also have door access system.
UniFi may not be for you
UniFi (prosumer) isn’t necessary the perfect system for everyone. They can’t just offer better system for cheaper. So there are trade-offs. Let’s take a look at 8 example reasons where UniFi isn’t build for.
UniFi may not be for
- cutting edge
- mesh system
- plug and play
- busy neighbor environment
- better coverage (by single AP)
- the best throughput
- wishful thinker
- hyper-focused need
Cutting Edge
Unlike consumer gear, prosumer and enterprise gears emphasize whole system stability so they won’t adopt the latest technology right a way. For example, WiFi 7 consumer routers were already available to purchase in early 2023. In contrast, UniFi just got their very first one in 1/2024. If you want to get the latest technology as soon as they become available, you must go with consumer gears.
Mesh System
For the best performance on Wireless mesh network, the link between access points should have the highest possible throughput, lowest latency and the best stability while still offering practically maximum throughput capability to clients connected. In general, this has been supported by dedicated wireless backhaul using high MIMO connectivity. UniFi simply has not supported dedicated wireless backhaul.
So if you are looking for the best mesh setup for stability, performance, It is better to look at consumer mesh systems like Orbi, Eero, TP-Link Deco’s high-end models.
Plug and play, hands free
The power of UniFi setup is ability to customize your home network such as creating multiple VLANs, setting up VPN server, firewall, access control rule and so on. The power and flexibility to control comes with responsibility to users.
Although you won’t need to be networking pro, you need to know what you are and will be doing. Otherwise, suboptimal configuration in UniFi can easily result in worse performance than other options available in the market.
In networking, especially WiFi, there are many environmental variables, one setting doesn’t fit all. Even one setting that works very well for someone may be unusable for the other. In fact, optimal setting at one instant could be suboptimal in another moment.
This is why UniFi system is really for those who wants to “learn” and “practice” rather than just copy others setting and wish everything work. If you are not willing to “learn” or trying to “understand”, you are unlikely to be able to get true performance benefit of UniFi. If you want just simple plug and play, and no tweaking, you want to go with consumer graded gears.
Busy WiFi neighbor
UniFi as well as other prosumer graded gears do not come with the real automatic radio resource management system. This means they cannot react to change in WiFi environment on their own and change transmission power or channel dynamically.
For the initial home use setting, this may not be a big issue so long as you are willing to spend sometime. This is because most home have only handful access points at max, and UniFi provides nice visual tools to help this setting. However, if you live in a dense, WiFi busy neighboring environment where neighbors WiFi setup continuously changing, you may need to readjust at least channels manually with UniFi.
So if you feel like you are currently experiencing constant performance degradation issue that are related to surrounding WiFi interference, UniFi setup will simply add more manual work for you.
In this situation, you want a system with automatic, dynamic radio resource management capability.
Although frequency of the WiFi environment check and logic for determining the radio parameters being uncertain, consumer mesh system like Eero does this for you. So on average they would better suite your need.
If you need RRM while also have ability to manual adjusting capability, enterprise graded access points without license or subscription such as Ruckus Unleashed and HPE Aruba in Instant mode on the second hand market maybe considered. Especially, if you look at the last generation options i.e. WiFi 6 or WiFi 5, you can actually find better prices than UniFi on enterprise gears while they have better performance for the matching category device against UniFi products.
Better coverage per AP
[math]EIRP =Transmission Power + Antenna Gain – Cable Loss [/math]
The area of WiFi coverage per device is primarily determined by sum of total transmission power and antenna gain of the device for given radio band. Each country has their regulation for the maximum EIRP allowed on a given device.
With lower frequency radio being more range friendly, for the maximum Wi-Fi range, 2.4 GHz plays the main role. However, many of UniFi AP’s 2.4 GHz band have lower than maximum EIRP so if you are looking for absolute range of coverage, you could actually get reduced coverage per AP .
This is because UniFi and enterprise APs are designed to be deployed in multiple units in smaller range, so each clients get higher performance rather than stretching one router or AP to their extreme. So the proper way to improve area of coverage using system like UniFi is to deploy multiple access points with each having wired connection.
If you are looking for the best range of coverage and its the sole reason for looking for new system, you should look your existing router’s EIRP, and if its not maxed out, try search for consumer router unit with higher EIRP. If you don’t have ability to wire multiple access points, then look for consumer mesh network system.
The best throughput
Many home users, including myself tend to jump right into the throughput comparison and decide one system is better than the other. If this is the sole reason you are looking for UniFi setup, you can find better options than UniFi.
[math]WiFi Efficiency = \frac{Actual Throughput}{PHY} [/math]
With everything being equal, the real throughput is multiplication of WiFi efficiency (%) and link speed (PHY). WiFi Efficiency is a term I like to use to describe all factors put into single term how close the AP can get to the maximum theoretical throughput. Practically, this falls between 50-70%. With UniFi setup, this is in the range of 50-60%. However, there are higher Wi-Fi Efficiency systems, such as enterprises graded gears.
The results like above is expected/predictable. UniFi lines currently use more budget friendly chipset while enterprise APs usually use enterprise class chipset. Therefore, this is where the quality of hardware difference showing up in performance. In fact, some of the higher end consumer routers also use enterprise chipset as well.
So if you are purely looking for the best throughput, and you know the bottle neck is your WiFi access point, then you might want to look search system using top of the line chipset. You maybe able to save money, and perhaps even get higher throughput performance than equivalently spec’ed UniFi product.
Wishful Thinker
Never buy any technology for their anticipated features. UniFi software continues to evolve and it is one of the exciting part of the system; however, nothing is guaranteed.
For example, UniFi used to call their radio resource management system, WiFi AI. Since then they took the term out. WiFi AI, nor current RRM in UniFi does not do any real useful transmission power management, nor channel optimization. Think new features as a surprise gift rather than “expected”. Otherwise, you could be waiting forever or disappointed.
Hyperfocused need
UniFi system’s main strength is unlocked when using multiple UniFi devices as a one system. This is analogous to situation like those who are committing to Apple ecosystem. In such setting, UniFi provides integrated, relatively simple management while still giving more than typical consumer grade flexibility to users. However, if you have a very specific, hyper-focused networking need, there is a good chance that you could find better alternative than UniFi.
For example, if you want full control in intrusion detection/prevention systems or other router/gateway specific needs, dedicated router/gateway systems like PFSense, OpnSense or others offer more functionality and options to choose from.
If you just need a single access point as either add-on or replacement of your existing WiFi network while planning to keep existing router/gateway, there are so many options to choose from. You can find cheaper but similarly spec’ed access points, different spec that UniFi’s current line up may be lacking. If you need unequivocally superior performance unit for equivalent generation models, go with enterprise, unlicensed APs e.g. Ruckus Unleashed or HPE Aruba (ref).
If you see a good potential option on UniFi line up, but really need a single device type and not care about full ecosystem, TP-link Omada supposedly have slightly cheaper price points on many of the equivalent gears than UniFi while providing equivalent performance, and extensive list of options. I personally do not have direct experience with them.
UniFi may be for you
UniFi is a great system, but it chooses user. If I were to describe in one sentence who is UniFi best for, I would say its for “network hobbyist”.
UniFi is great for
- features beyond consumer gears
- stability
- network learning and practicing
- aethetics
Features
Before purchasing the first UniFi product, you should list what feature you are looking for? For example, if that includes things like VLAN, VPN support, some IDS/IPS, UniFi gateway series could be great option for the price.
Stability
UniFi system is more stable and reliable than many consumer products (though might not match the level of enterprise gears). My system up time has essentially been the time since my last upgrade for last couple years.
Although UniFi’s new firmware releases have became much stable and reliable, they are still not perfect, but even enterprise systems are not perfect. So you are still expected to avoid updating until you see other user’s experience, take a backup. But your experience most likely would improve from consumer gears.
Networking learning
UniFi is great for network learner. It has rich features that one can play with. Its clean graphical user interface, and some basic but visually appealing analyzing tools get me excited to just look at them.
Another fun part of learning is someone to talk to whether learn from them or together, share your knowledge/experience. Ubiquiti UniFi have large community forum and supporters. So you have always someone to share your excitement, ask questions as a network hobbyist.
This would be much harder with enterprise graded gears if you were causal user because typical users on those gears make living of it, and they often take certification exams. So the depth of material becomes more like college class.
Aesthetics
Whether the Ubiquiti’s CEO’s background having worked in Apple in his early days has influence or not, UniFi product lines have clean, stylish look that Apple product are often acclaimed of. This translates into many of UniFi gear’s hardware design, and also software UI.
Freshness
UniFi continues to release new hardware products and software features. So you won’t get bored with this. Sometimes they may release something that you never knew you wanted it.
Conclusion
Ubiquiti have took their stance with UniFi product line. They have decided to focus on users who feel consumer graded system features and stability are lacking, but not wanting to pay the full premium, put time to learn nor need of the full enterprise system.
If you don’t really need any special feature, you might want to stay with consumer gears. They provide you more plug and play experience. In fact, it’s just some performance related issue, you should try tweaking your own system first as it is something you are expected to do with UniFi anyways.
If budget is not an issue, I would personally go with enterprise system. They have better performance and stability. There are even ones that works without license or subscription. As a home user, the learning curve for what I have seen so far are not much more than to configure UniFi properly.
If you are willing to, wanting to learn and play with networking, stability comes before throughput, and see the value of modular networking platform, UniFi could be an ideal system for you.