Cisco Meraki is the most widely deployed cloud-managed networking platform in the world, powerful, feature-rich, and operated through a single dashboard. It's infrastructure you buy and manage, not a service that operates for you.
Cisco Meraki fits teams that want to own and operate the network themselves on a widely adopted, cloud-managed platform, with a configuration model and dashboard skill set that is relatively easy to hire for. The main trade-off is the operating model: it typically leans on hardware you buy plus per-device licenses you have to keep current, and your team or a partner stays responsible for day-to-day operations, the eventual refresh, and the hardware lead-time and supply risk of buying gear yourself.
Sizing up Cisco Meraki against the field? See how to choose a NaaS provider and the NaaS pricing guide, or estimate your price.
Cisco Meraki is the benchmark for cloud-managed networking. It pairs enterprise-grade hardware, access points, switches, security appliances, cameras, with a unified cloud dashboard that's widely understood across the IT talent market. It is powerful and proven.
It is, however, a platform you operate rather than a service delivered to you. Hardware is purchased upfront as CapEx, each device carries an annual license, and your IT team handles configuration and day-to-day management. For teams that want control and have the expertise to use it, Meraki is excellent; for teams that want networking off their plate, the operational model is heavier.
Wi-Fi, switching, SD-WAN, security appliances, cameras, and MDM, all under one platform.
A mature, widely-known cloud management plane with deep configuration control.
Hundreds of integrations, broad API access, and an enormous partner and reseller network.
Meraki skills are common in the IT labor market, easing hiring and support.
Engineer-level control over VLANs, policies, and security rules.
Backed by Cisco's scale, roadmap, and global support infrastructure.
Organizations with network engineers who want full control of the configuration.
Environments already invested in the Cisco and Meraki ecosystem.
Teams that need SD-WAN, cameras, MDM, and security under one platform.
Comparing Meraki to a managed subscription? At hardware-refresh time, many teams evaluate NaaS providers like Meter and Nile to avoid the next CapEx cycle. An advisor can model the total cost both ways.
A Bridgepointe advisor pulls real, competing quotes from Cisco Meraki and every other NaaS provider, at no cost to you.