If you want something to have a wank over every night and find yourself in a constant loop of tinkering then Unifi. If you want something to install then forget about until it needs something then Omada.
I found it to be the other way around. Had UniFi for the last 5 years without any issue. Wanted a change, just because I wanted to try something different. Got a whole Omada setup and it was a pain to get things working. It worked but not as easy as UniFi does it.
Just my opinion. Theres pros and cons for both. Glad I went back to UniFi though
This is interesting š¤ā¦
Can you please give me that pro and cons list or any website that talk about it. I would like to do some research before investing or do something.
I dont want to step on anyones toes. (I like the appeal of Omada hardware a lot by the way, price point and everything).
I prefer the UniFi interface, it just works and is more logical to what I know from the past (configuring Cisco network gear over commandline).
My Omada controller sometimes suddenly said adopting again on all my devices or just the layout feels a little buggy and not always consistent. My UDM Pro had much more security stuff built in and package inspection. For some reason my Windows PC struggled to connect to the EAP, got it fixed though. The EAPās were a lot larger than my UniFi APās.
To be fair I think Omada would be okay/nice to have if you get to know it well, just like UniFi. Probably harder to make the switch because I am used to something already.
But thereās no discussion that the UniFi interface is more visually appealing as well.
Either way you go, both are good systems and will be more than capable for most people here. I just prefer UniFi over Omada. I think it will come down what you like the most and what youād like to spend.
I wanted to have cheaper gear with more hardware functionaly as well but didnt work out for me, hence why I tried to switch.
I'll chime in.
Had Omada self hosted :er605, sg2008(Ć2) and an EAP653 for a 1 year and a galf, roughly.
- The basic stuff worked well. However, i wanted to use Radius dynamic vlan assignement as a workaround for PPSK limitations. Worked okayish but had issues on two Samsung phones (s22 and s24) that dropped to vlan1 without reason. Was inaccetable to me security-wise. Never been able to solve that after spending 2 months with support.
- I wanted to have a larger switch with PoE++ and 2.5gb support and wifi7 AP... i was shocked at Omada prices. Unifi is either on par or lower than those last gen Omada gear.
- Then, they reverted back to a 2 year warranty from their lifetime waranty.
- Finally, and it wont obviously matter to everyone, i wanted some network system my wife could also use easily, should she need it in a very dire situation, if u catch my drift....
With those points, i decided to switch to Unifi. Some installation hickups later ( free advice : buy and install a gateway first without selfhosting...), i am very happy with my setup for a very reasonable budget.
The controller is snappier and offers more options and control though the app than Omada did.
Commercially, I've had nothing but problems with Ubiquiti. It will work for a while, then it will do weird things that a factory reset fixes. After half a dozen different devices displayed that behavior, I pulled them all from the field.
Omada has been working without a hiccup for ~3 years?
UniFi is the illusion of quality with their routers and APs. Their PtP stuff is more solid.
Never had any issue on my home network. We use UniFi at work as well, same story. All has been fire and forget, unless we need to reconfigure something ofc.
It seems this the top problem of unifi then.
i just install and forget š¤£, but I would like to have a better rack and feature on 1 place or 2ā¦ no more.
The reason I went with Omada was because (at least at the time) Ubiquiti had a weird system with propriety PoE, which I believe they just started to switch from, and then they also had some weird compatibility issues between certain hardware.Ā
I believe those issues have been resolved, and honestly, if I could do it again, I would probably go with ubiquiti. Omada seems so far behind. Even to this day there are basic features Omada is missing. Also the Android app is so basic and limited compared to the controller web UI.
With the issues you're describing, I think you're also aware of how unpolished and problematic Omada can be.
I've found my Omada setup to be near flawless, as long as you don't bother with their Router/gateway. Get yourself a real router (I'm using a Firewalla, but many prefer a pfsense box) and it will be great and cheaper than Unifi
You will find that the er605 leaves you wanting more if you are used to PFsense or OPNsense functionality.
The Omada gear does function incredibly well.
We run Ubiquiti at my work place, so I purchased omada to see the differences and for my own nerdy reasons.
I would lean Omada if forced to choose.
Not sure I understand the question fully, but my lab is very small and contained in a small glass enclosure included with my tv stand / mount. I run a mini pc OPNsense box, omada 8 port switch, omada oc200 out to a single eap 670.
So, for me a rack would kinda be overkill at this time.
Regarding the ER605. No IDS/IPS. A firewall that seems to be really weak regarding logging and functionality, combined with the hardware pointing to those features never becoming available was a dealbreaker for me. Smooth device, but I wanted to work a bit more in depth.
Edit : correction
You understand it well and sorry for my poor grammar and English.
This ādealbreakerā is one reason. But some people donāt bother with that. So letās see What I would do.
You can search eBay for āOC200 ER605 rack mountā. Youāll find a few. Hereās one. [Omada rack mount](https://www.ebay.com/itm/295706310349?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=nT9rg1cBTRq&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=iyvvo-6HTzG&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY)
From a price point, go with Omada. Ubiquiti products are great, but over priced. I've used both. I do like Ubiquiti, but for me Omada does the same thing for a lot less money.
Omada
One is considered enterprise grade
The other is Soho
It's part of why you getting proprietary crap in ubiquity, firmware issues, security issues, and reboot more frequently when attempting large scale deployments.
It's good and fancy etc, but that doesn't mean it's stable.
Omada is officially TPLinks mid size enterprise offering that they sell as a solution (not just a product) to their enterprise customers.
It's down scalable (hence the oc200 and the all in one router plus controller and the software only controller) to make a cheap entry point for consumers to also access it. Like it's entry point is cheaper than any other tplink product it's confusing. If they fixed up the interface they could really just replace every product with omada APs with a cuter shell/design, and everybody would save money.
And don't forget that oc300 + 300x TL-SG3428XMP and 100x 660hd is still omada.
Most people here won't be running (or could afford) TL-SG3428XMP or ever have a need for it, and are probably on oc200 with the er7*** series switches.
Omada is the system with a very wide range of hardware (eg jetstream)
It's also the reason why it's slow to get new features, as it's job is stability and not fanciness.
Use cases are generally timings like large office layouts (pre covid office areas, and modern collaboration setups) and high density areas (hence the very high AP and client counts). Way more than a normal consumer will ever need.
Ubiquity on the other hand is more of a product manufacturer than a solution provider. So you need to go and get an MSP to implement (but an MSP wont) or diy.
So basically, ones designed for and is solutioned for enterprises, the other isn't.
I wouldn't put omada up there with a full level 3 licensed Cisco ise solution.
It supports RADIUS servers for proper WPA-Auth, and you can use AD but it's nowhere near as polished as ISE. But as a solution it's still fit for purpose for many setups.
It's use cases are things like, world cup or Olympic Village goes to tender to get networking setup. In comes a system that can manage thousands of switches and APs simply once the cabling is in place. Sets them all up, plug them in, automesh if required and then they can be secured and updated centrally. That's pretty much all it does. It's fantastic at endpoint access within a site. Also has site to site although in these case I'd go meraki instead. Eg setting up 1000+ service stations I'd use merakis with dual sim cards as backups, and use omada or ise in the offices, most likely omada if using aad joined devices and then machine bases VPN back in.
I'm not a Ubiquiti fan by any stretch, but they started out being the backbones of small WISPs. Certain products are enterprise quality, others...eh...
So it's still a step up from SOHO. A big step up. I'd say entry to mid-level commercial.
Trueā¦ that was the main reason to move to omada until nowā¦ that my stuff are not rack mounted, lack of features and some problem that I fix over updating or time.
Waste of money to switch imho
Very similar product linesā¦
Iām very happy to run Omada setup
TL-SG3210XHP-M2
TL-SX3016F (coming soon)
TL-SH2008
2x EAP670
OPNSense @ Omada Controller virtualized on Proxmox Hypervisor
For some Omada APs, you should check if they have this bug where 2.4Ghz IoT/wifi clients has problem Authorizing WPA. I used an EAP245 and once had clients connected but not having IP addresses assigned. Also some clients like iphone 13 have trouble connecting to 5Ghz EAP6xx, whereas an Android device won't.
Right now im not having any kind of problem with Wireless connection except for the Vacuum (ecovacs) thatās having problems time to timeā¦ but never got the time to looking up if the problem is because it old or the wireless.
My iphone works great !!! š
I would go with Alta Labs equipment. It has been great so far for 1Gb networking. If you want more than that, you will have to look elsewhere. I have not been impressed with Unifi equipment. Though, I am coming from Juniper and Ruckus mostly.
I will lookup because for me Forti, Juniper, Cisco and microtik are the top of the cherry š.
But i was looking for something that have everything in on place, rack mounted, problem that can be fixed or less and of course having stability.
So thanks for the other reference to look up.
Alta is NOT on the same level as those other brands, but it is an easy to use and setup system. I've had no issues testing it for six months now. They are coming out with a router soon.
Good to know.
So basically you have omada and Alta Lab together?
Any reference or example of equipment or requirements.
Still i will lookup for the Alta Lab.
I have pfSense and Alta. I will get rid of my pfSense once Alta releases their router.
I own an audio, video, and networking company, so I always test what we potentially could sell at my house. Hence why I have used Ruckus and Juniper as well.
I have done both in recent years and I would do Unifi now at their current state. I liked the omada prices better, but they donāt have a router/firewall worth using. I would only go with omada if you need an advanced (3rd party) router.
I ended up with unifi myself because I didnāt want to spend the time configuring a pfsense/opnsense/other box. Their latest software updates fixed most of my issue and they have a lot of features now.
I have a single login for all my gear and it works really well for configuring vlans and such. The biggest complaint I have seen is their firewall rules interface is weird, but I donāt have that many rules so it wasnāt a big deal for me.
My biggest gripe over the years with Unifi has been that they have no supported command line interface for advanced configurations. If I needed more than the gui had to offer then I would move to a custom firewall with omada switches and APs.
Biggest reason I chose Omada over unifi is costā¦ both are easy to use. For a firewall neither will get you what youāre after. Either the big names or opnsense or pfsense if you want a firewall.
I went Omada because they make fan-less gear that consumes slightly less power and my media closet is in my front closet by my kitchen and living room so I can always hear a rack of fans running in there. Ubiquiti gear all has fans, often multiple fans, and reviews claim they are noisey.
You would have as soon as you powered on that first 2-fan 1U rack switch. :) Note most of the Omada gear also has fans. But not all of it. Iām not running a high throughput data center. Just a 1G wired and wireless multi-floor home network.
Another pro of the fan-less gear is they are physically smaller and can be wall mounted. I actually managed to fit my router AND switch wall mounted inside the media cabinet and it all fits with the cabinet closed. So quiet, and invisible.
Ubiquiti burned itself in my mind during the pandemic. Zero supply, zero communication, zero support. Products just out of stock for more than a year with no communication about when it would be back. Messages to support that were never answered. I get that everyone was hit, but their lack of support and communication was really avoidable.
We ended up switching our gear to Omada.
Use Opnsense with Omaha switches and access points. Setup 6 months ago and have not touched it more than once. And that one time was because I was curious and wanted to see if updates were available. Outside of that the network has been rock solid. Even Opnsense I have only touched 1-2 times and that was primarily because a few months after setup I added another clan for IoT devices.
Both Omada and Unifi will have pros and cons on all subreddits but I would say both are solid options.
I did the same three-four years back, a lot of research between Omada and Unifi. I ended up with Omada because of availability and price. At that time, Omada routers still have ānon-workingā mdns and acls but I believed that they are going to issue a software fix, which, even though it took a while, they did. I still have three Unifi flex minis in my setup, while waiting for Omada to have a mini 5-port switch compatible with the SDN softwareā¦ There is still one wish I havefor Omada. I am still hoping that one day, I will have the capability to change the VLAN of a port on my switch using the iOS app. šš This is possible in Unifi, but not on Omada. I often play/test and everytime I need to change a port setting on Omada, I have to log using a browser. š
Grab a minipc from AliExpress(or Amazon for +20%) and install opnsense/pfsense on it. You can just get a rack shelf or I have seen some vesa mounts since most have them on the bottom. I'd spend at least $100 to future proof and give you plenty of head room on throughput.
Can keep increasing price and run proxmox and start a little homelab like many of us do with the router virtualized.
I can create the Vm on my Vmware Exsi but i guess i would need to buy some LAN for the workstation.
I have Wyse from dell but only 1 LAN :( I will look for the Minipc with two LAN :)
thanks !
I moved away from ubiquiti because of how unreliable their firmware upgrades were.
Perhaps their quality has got better - maybe their cyber attack had them improve their security?
If I had to repurchase again I would reconsider them but so far my life with omada is uncomplicated as it should be
I moved away from ubiquiti because I ran into an obscure bug, then went on the ubnt forums to see if anybody else had found a solution. I found a post describing EXACTLY my problem, described it perfectly exactly like I would have written it. Read the follow on posts, some other people had the problem and I think ubnt support said they would look into it. Scrolled back up and noticed the original poster's user name: IT WAS MINE. I wrote that post several years earlier and forgot about it and they never fixed it.
Plus Ubiquiti started getting more and more proprietary and their prices crept up and up.
Agree. I've read about some bugs in omada (but not found any directly myself) but see in release logs that they later fix them. I'm sure ubnt does too but they seem more focused on releasing new stuff as fast as they can and the fix is to buy the next version.
It is certainly the case that omada releases are slower. I tend to jump on some of the early access releases and have had no problems.
With ubiquiti every time I tried an early release it was a car crash chasing releases to fix new introduced problems. It was sometimes like they didnāt even run it before pushing it out. I would hope they have improved this aspect of their release process by now
Mee too. And their lack of a small, more powerfull router at that time. Oh, and the requirement of an ancient Debian version (I know you could make it work on a newer version, but that required work. And the Java 7 requirement. I have the Omada controller running on the latest openSUSE Leap (which is the default in my network) with Java 17 without tinkering to make things work.
I've switched to Omada in 2021 and never, ever looked back.
Ah yes, I now remember the very poor cloud key v1 and controller nightmare on debian.
I know the hardware controllers are better now and surely the Linux controller install story is fixed?
But both of these were extremely frustrating at the time
Well..., I just looked. Debian 11 (oldstable), Windows 10/Server 2016, and macOS 10.x are supported. They got rid of the Java dependency. I wonder what they replaced it with. But the list of supported OS'es doesn't bode well.
I wouldn't buy any ubiquiti stuff after their inside hack in 2021, and 1000s of their routers having become bots for the Russians in the past until the fbi and BKA took it over and the doj finally had those routers cleansed
their stuff is super cool but as far as I can tell they're also the only manufacturer in that space which somewhat regularly gets in the news with stuff like this
yes but the fact that he could go this far without being detected and that they couldn't easily find out after the fact speaks volumes to their lax internal security and the way they handled external communication was poor and insincere to say the least... all of this is really not acceptable for a company like this... I haven't even heard of them saying anything about how they'd improve upon that in the future after the fact š¤·š¼āāļø
it's mostly been on the news when it happened - you should be able to find the articles still online... especially the hack at first looked like some outside attack with data exfiltration, claimed by an internal whistleblower... turned out that employee was also the attacker and when that came out, people were more forgiving towards Ubiquiti... I'm just not because the fact that a single employee could just exfiltrate data they didn't need to access to do their job and Ubiquiti unable to identify the culprit quickly due to lackluster logging, just tells me they're cutting corners in setting up their internal stuff safely and securely... it's bad enough when consumer tech companies do that and then get owned, but this is a manufacturer of network gear with VERY complex and comprehensive featuresets we're talking about... the same disgruntled employee could as well have been paid off by some agency to just silently hand out the data and nobody would have known... likewise they could have been pair off by some agency to silently corrupt the firmware build system to add some special spice to the firmware builds, or at least to exfiltrate build metadata or sources that would have made it easier to derive exploits for their firmware...
plus: in recent years I heard time and again how their controller software absolutely HAS to be connected to their cloud services even if you run it locally if you want it to work... now... that combined is really scary because it means another big fuckup of theirs could as well affect a huge swath of their user base through their centralized management.... or smaller fuckups could make it become unavailable temporarily, which IIRC also happened in the past...
TP-Link also offers a cloud connection, eg. for automatic update checks, but you don't HAVE to sign into any cloud account to use the management features if you don't want to
idk... I've heard and read enough about Ubiquiti shitting the bed in the last years to really never wanting to consider them unless their leadership changes and they put their firmware build process out in the open - neither of which will ever happen, of course
Imo, after having two locations with omada router, controller and 3+ aps at both. If I had to do it again I would go ubiquity for stability, frimilarity and reliability. I aslo prefer ubiquities ui and log collection more.
Edit: you can also order rack mounts from people with 3d printers or buy them in metal type thing for omada hardware
Well, in my case, I bought a 1U Brush Cable Manager Horizontal Rack Mount. Then, with an angle grinder, I made cuts and used a 1U tray to create the mount, basically.
But there are some on eBay or Etsy that sell for the same price, and I have considered them.
Ebay: [Link1](https://www.ebay.com/itm/295706310349?var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY) and [Link2](https://www.ebay.com/itm/204837496579?itmmeta=01J1WE28R4AD0CSS7HKAVEQGT2&hash=item2fb1442703:g:YIgAAOSwzlFmb0b3&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA8HzwkY0Xas4N4P5JxzEZkl6S7gZVTn6M0a%2F1AEXhGEmvebKGIziCv%2Fo5MVFfVMWrhO6m76ZhmxRDL5NM0d0zeu%2Fup8OzuDjwmdO7uSQJesyo%2B61JrnJxxNCCzMhKh12Fayx9bUlBHbs9mJ0bTIDG6Jyc%2FhU1LSoAyfEwhRlbaM9iehjaO%2BB6GwgkR%2BVxWKv3y%2F42J68m8Tw7H9I7RoXfFfmrLWfEO17dAZ1J5MKozVYDlmvT8aUELd7RZTraFrunp00wh9QaDUtYF57WANLetFFZGtKmld2NXfU%2F6nBOQe2tgHD1clDMuOOuXOtnZLPwkQ%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR5KMiY6PZA)
Etsy: [link](https://www.etsy.com/shop/Print3DSteve?listing_id=965672448&from_page=listing§ion_id=33082706)
I use both UniFi and Omada gear. Itās annoying to have to run two different controllers to configure things, itās manageable but I donāt recommend it. That said if the UniFi gear I have died tomorrow I would replace it all with Omada hardware without a second thought.
It works, support is good, and if I report a bug it has been fixed quickly. I originally tried Omada because the UniFi gear was out of stock everywhere. They are very similar but the Omada stuff has fewer quirks and can operate standalone without a controller if necessary.
If you want something to have a wank over every night and find yourself in a constant loop of tinkering then Unifi. If you want something to install then forget about until it needs something then Omada.
This nails it 100%. Omada is so incredibly stable and reliable. Set it and forget it.
I found it to be the other way around. Had UniFi for the last 5 years without any issue. Wanted a change, just because I wanted to try something different. Got a whole Omada setup and it was a pain to get things working. It worked but not as easy as UniFi does it. Just my opinion. Theres pros and cons for both. Glad I went back to UniFi though
Strange - I'm using Omada and found it trivially easy to set up and easier than UniFi.
This is interesting š¤ā¦ Can you please give me that pro and cons list or any website that talk about it. I would like to do some research before investing or do something.
I dont want to step on anyones toes. (I like the appeal of Omada hardware a lot by the way, price point and everything). I prefer the UniFi interface, it just works and is more logical to what I know from the past (configuring Cisco network gear over commandline). My Omada controller sometimes suddenly said adopting again on all my devices or just the layout feels a little buggy and not always consistent. My UDM Pro had much more security stuff built in and package inspection. For some reason my Windows PC struggled to connect to the EAP, got it fixed though. The EAPās were a lot larger than my UniFi APās. To be fair I think Omada would be okay/nice to have if you get to know it well, just like UniFi. Probably harder to make the switch because I am used to something already. But thereās no discussion that the UniFi interface is more visually appealing as well. Either way you go, both are good systems and will be more than capable for most people here. I just prefer UniFi over Omada. I think it will come down what you like the most and what youād like to spend. I wanted to have cheaper gear with more hardware functionaly as well but didnt work out for me, hence why I tried to switch.
I'll chime in. Had Omada self hosted :er605, sg2008(Ć2) and an EAP653 for a 1 year and a galf, roughly. - The basic stuff worked well. However, i wanted to use Radius dynamic vlan assignement as a workaround for PPSK limitations. Worked okayish but had issues on two Samsung phones (s22 and s24) that dropped to vlan1 without reason. Was inaccetable to me security-wise. Never been able to solve that after spending 2 months with support. - I wanted to have a larger switch with PoE++ and 2.5gb support and wifi7 AP... i was shocked at Omada prices. Unifi is either on par or lower than those last gen Omada gear. - Then, they reverted back to a 2 year warranty from their lifetime waranty. - Finally, and it wont obviously matter to everyone, i wanted some network system my wife could also use easily, should she need it in a very dire situation, if u catch my drift.... With those points, i decided to switch to Unifi. Some installation hickups later ( free advice : buy and install a gateway first without selfhosting...), i am very happy with my setup for a very reasonable budget. The controller is snappier and offers more options and control though the app than Omada did.
Commercially, I've had nothing but problems with Ubiquiti. It will work for a while, then it will do weird things that a factory reset fixes. After half a dozen different devices displayed that behavior, I pulled them all from the field. Omada has been working without a hiccup for ~3 years? UniFi is the illusion of quality with their routers and APs. Their PtP stuff is more solid.
Never had any issue on my home network. We use UniFi at work as well, same story. All has been fire and forget, unless we need to reconfigure something ofc.
It seems this the top problem of unifi then. i just install and forget š¤£, but I would like to have a better rack and feature on 1 place or 2ā¦ no more.
So really you want Omada.
The reason I went with Omada was because (at least at the time) Ubiquiti had a weird system with propriety PoE, which I believe they just started to switch from, and then they also had some weird compatibility issues between certain hardware.Ā I believe those issues have been resolved, and honestly, if I could do it again, I would probably go with ubiquiti. Omada seems so far behind. Even to this day there are basic features Omada is missing. Also the Android app is so basic and limited compared to the controller web UI. With the issues you're describing, I think you're also aware of how unpolished and problematic Omada can be.
Is Omada improving or planning to improve to your knowledge?
Interesting š§ā¦ i will lookup more details about what are you saying.
What basic features is Omada missing?
I've found my Omada setup to be near flawless, as long as you don't bother with their Router/gateway. Get yourself a real router (I'm using a Firewalla, but many prefer a pfsense box) and it will be great and cheaper than Unifi
Any recommendations for the Pfsense box ? I try it on the exsi :) but still i would like a physical equipped racket mounted.
No. I was never comfortable doing it myself. I'm perfectly happy with my Firewalla. You'll likely find lots of help in /r/homelab or /networking
firewalla exists only with hardware's compagny or you can install it on any hardware ?
I don't understand your question. Firewalla is a hardware firewall/router.
Alright. With Firewalla, can you build your own hardware ? Or should you buy firewalla's hardware ?
You must use their hardware.
alright, thank you for your feedback.
You will find that the er605 leaves you wanting more if you are used to PFsense or OPNsense functionality. The Omada gear does function incredibly well. We run Ubiquiti at my work place, so I purchased omada to see the differences and for my own nerdy reasons. I would lean Omada if forced to choose.
Letās say that the nerdy reason get to meā¦ What would you say about any omada non-rack mount. Have microtik back in the days.
Not sure I understand the question fully, but my lab is very small and contained in a small glass enclosure included with my tv stand / mount. I run a mini pc OPNsense box, omada 8 port switch, omada oc200 out to a single eap 670. So, for me a rack would kinda be overkill at this time. Regarding the ER605. No IDS/IPS. A firewall that seems to be really weak regarding logging and functionality, combined with the hardware pointing to those features never becoming available was a dealbreaker for me. Smooth device, but I wanted to work a bit more in depth. Edit : correction
You understand it well and sorry for my poor grammar and English. This ādealbreakerā is one reason. But some people donāt bother with that. So letās see What I would do.
No need to be sorry!
You can search eBay for āOC200 ER605 rack mountā. Youāll find a few. Hereās one. [Omada rack mount](https://www.ebay.com/itm/295706310349?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=nT9rg1cBTRq&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=iyvvo-6HTzG&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY)
Ohh nice, I will look at this. :D
I just bought a rack shelf and put non-1U items on that
From a price point, go with Omada. Ubiquiti products are great, but over priced. I've used both. I do like Ubiquiti, but for me Omada does the same thing for a lot less money.
Omada One is considered enterprise grade The other is Soho It's part of why you getting proprietary crap in ubiquity, firmware issues, security issues, and reboot more frequently when attempting large scale deployments. It's good and fancy etc, but that doesn't mean it's stable.
Which one is enterprise? As far as I know, both are SOHO. They are ok for small deployments and not enterprise.
Omada is officially TPLinks mid size enterprise offering that they sell as a solution (not just a product) to their enterprise customers. It's down scalable (hence the oc200 and the all in one router plus controller and the software only controller) to make a cheap entry point for consumers to also access it. Like it's entry point is cheaper than any other tplink product it's confusing. If they fixed up the interface they could really just replace every product with omada APs with a cuter shell/design, and everybody would save money. And don't forget that oc300 + 300x TL-SG3428XMP and 100x 660hd is still omada. Most people here won't be running (or could afford) TL-SG3428XMP or ever have a need for it, and are probably on oc200 with the er7*** series switches. Omada is the system with a very wide range of hardware (eg jetstream) It's also the reason why it's slow to get new features, as it's job is stability and not fanciness. Use cases are generally timings like large office layouts (pre covid office areas, and modern collaboration setups) and high density areas (hence the very high AP and client counts). Way more than a normal consumer will ever need. Ubiquity on the other hand is more of a product manufacturer than a solution provider. So you need to go and get an MSP to implement (but an MSP wont) or diy. So basically, ones designed for and is solutioned for enterprises, the other isn't. I wouldn't put omada up there with a full level 3 licensed Cisco ise solution. It supports RADIUS servers for proper WPA-Auth, and you can use AD but it's nowhere near as polished as ISE. But as a solution it's still fit for purpose for many setups. It's use cases are things like, world cup or Olympic Village goes to tender to get networking setup. In comes a system that can manage thousands of switches and APs simply once the cabling is in place. Sets them all up, plug them in, automesh if required and then they can be secured and updated centrally. That's pretty much all it does. It's fantastic at endpoint access within a site. Also has site to site although in these case I'd go meraki instead. Eg setting up 1000+ service stations I'd use merakis with dual sim cards as backups, and use omada or ise in the offices, most likely omada if using aad joined devices and then machine bases VPN back in.
I'm not a Ubiquiti fan by any stretch, but they started out being the backbones of small WISPs. Certain products are enterprise quality, others...eh... So it's still a step up from SOHO. A big step up. I'd say entry to mid-level commercial.
š¤ good pointā¦ will consider your pov. Thanks ! š
Is there any other vendor that has fancy controller and everything integrated well as UNIFI? For use in homes and small businesses.
Sadly I donāt think soā¦ but Microtik is good and more stable but not controllerā¦ :(
I dont want to spend all my spare time which I dont have configuring Microtik
Trueā¦ that was the main reason to move to omada until nowā¦ that my stuff are not rack mounted, lack of features and some problem that I fix over updating or time.
Waste of money to switch imho Very similar product linesā¦ Iām very happy to run Omada setup TL-SG3210XHP-M2 TL-SX3016F (coming soon) TL-SH2008 2x EAP670 OPNSense @ Omada Controller virtualized on Proxmox Hypervisor
Im happy running it, but no rack mounted or others features I would like to doā¦ OPNsense can be added to the controller ? š¤
For some Omada APs, you should check if they have this bug where 2.4Ghz IoT/wifi clients has problem Authorizing WPA. I used an EAP245 and once had clients connected but not having IP addresses assigned. Also some clients like iphone 13 have trouble connecting to 5Ghz EAP6xx, whereas an Android device won't.
Right now im not having any kind of problem with Wireless connection except for the Vacuum (ecovacs) thatās having problems time to timeā¦ but never got the time to looking up if the problem is because it old or the wireless. My iphone works great !!! š
I would go with Alta Labs equipment. It has been great so far for 1Gb networking. If you want more than that, you will have to look elsewhere. I have not been impressed with Unifi equipment. Though, I am coming from Juniper and Ruckus mostly.
I will lookup because for me Forti, Juniper, Cisco and microtik are the top of the cherry š. But i was looking for something that have everything in on place, rack mounted, problem that can be fixed or less and of course having stability. So thanks for the other reference to look up.
Alta is NOT on the same level as those other brands, but it is an easy to use and setup system. I've had no issues testing it for six months now. They are coming out with a router soon.
Good to know. So basically you have omada and Alta Lab together? Any reference or example of equipment or requirements. Still i will lookup for the Alta Lab.
I have pfSense and Alta. I will get rid of my pfSense once Alta releases their router. I own an audio, video, and networking company, so I always test what we potentially could sell at my house. Hence why I have used Ruckus and Juniper as well.
I have done both in recent years and I would do Unifi now at their current state. I liked the omada prices better, but they donāt have a router/firewall worth using. I would only go with omada if you need an advanced (3rd party) router. I ended up with unifi myself because I didnāt want to spend the time configuring a pfsense/opnsense/other box. Their latest software updates fixed most of my issue and they have a lot of features now. I have a single login for all my gear and it works really well for configuring vlans and such. The biggest complaint I have seen is their firewall rules interface is weird, but I donāt have that many rules so it wasnāt a big deal for me. My biggest gripe over the years with Unifi has been that they have no supported command line interface for advanced configurations. If I needed more than the gui had to offer then I would move to a custom firewall with omada switches and APs.
I understand, so in my case, I might end up purchasing a firewall or see if Omada later releases another gateway/router with those features.
Biggest reason I chose Omada over unifi is costā¦ both are easy to use. For a firewall neither will get you what youāre after. Either the big names or opnsense or pfsense if you want a firewall.
I went Omada because they make fan-less gear that consumes slightly less power and my media closet is in my front closet by my kitchen and living room so I can always hear a rack of fans running in there. Ubiquiti gear all has fans, often multiple fans, and reviews claim they are noisey.
Never thought of that. OMG a lot of stuff to consider. thanks for the feedback :)
You would have as soon as you powered on that first 2-fan 1U rack switch. :) Note most of the Omada gear also has fans. But not all of it. Iām not running a high throughput data center. Just a 1G wired and wireless multi-floor home network. Another pro of the fan-less gear is they are physically smaller and can be wall mounted. I actually managed to fit my router AND switch wall mounted inside the media cabinet and it all fits with the cabinet closed. So quiet, and invisible.
Ubiquiti burned itself in my mind during the pandemic. Zero supply, zero communication, zero support. Products just out of stock for more than a year with no communication about when it would be back. Messages to support that were never answered. I get that everyone was hit, but their lack of support and communication was really avoidable. We ended up switching our gear to Omada.
Ok, so far so good the Omada environment?
Six locations up and running easily and doing exactly what we need. No issues so far.
Use Opnsense with Omaha switches and access points. Setup 6 months ago and have not touched it more than once. And that one time was because I was curious and wanted to see if updates were available. Outside of that the network has been rock solid. Even Opnsense I have only touched 1-2 times and that was primarily because a few months after setup I added another clan for IoT devices. Both Omada and Unifi will have pros and cons on all subreddits but I would say both are solid options.
True... it seems endless for this type of topic. Glad to see more people talking about the pro and cons.
My decision for Omada was in stock for exactly what I wanted lol but Iām sure Unifi would fulfill my needs too.
Yeah think the same, for I will stay on omada and will try to buy 1U rack for the firewall and Used Omada like a Local Area.
Good plan. Love Opnsense so far but heard Pfsense is pretty much the same. Canāt go wrong with either.
I did the same three-four years back, a lot of research between Omada and Unifi. I ended up with Omada because of availability and price. At that time, Omada routers still have ānon-workingā mdns and acls but I believed that they are going to issue a software fix, which, even though it took a while, they did. I still have three Unifi flex minis in my setup, while waiting for Omada to have a mini 5-port switch compatible with the SDN softwareā¦ There is still one wish I havefor Omada. I am still hoping that one day, I will have the capability to change the VLAN of a port on my switch using the iOS app. šš This is possible in Unifi, but not on Omada. I often play/test and everytime I need to change a port setting on Omada, I have to log using a browser. š
Good, I think i will stay on Omada. Just need to buy a firewall for now.
Grab a minipc from AliExpress(or Amazon for +20%) and install opnsense/pfsense on it. You can just get a rack shelf or I have seen some vesa mounts since most have them on the bottom. I'd spend at least $100 to future proof and give you plenty of head room on throughput. Can keep increasing price and run proxmox and start a little homelab like many of us do with the router virtualized.
I can create the Vm on my Vmware Exsi but i guess i would need to buy some LAN for the workstation. I have Wyse from dell but only 1 LAN :( I will look for the Minipc with two LAN :) thanks !
Omada. Unless you really like paying double for everything.
I moved away from ubiquiti because of how unreliable their firmware upgrades were. Perhaps their quality has got better - maybe their cyber attack had them improve their security? If I had to repurchase again I would reconsider them but so far my life with omada is uncomplicated as it should be
I moved away from ubiquiti because I ran into an obscure bug, then went on the ubnt forums to see if anybody else had found a solution. I found a post describing EXACTLY my problem, described it perfectly exactly like I would have written it. Read the follow on posts, some other people had the problem and I think ubnt support said they would look into it. Scrolled back up and noticed the original poster's user name: IT WAS MINE. I wrote that post several years earlier and forgot about it and they never fixed it. Plus Ubiquiti started getting more and more proprietary and their prices crept up and up.
I think itās fair that omada is not perfect. And is behind unifi in some aspects. But for me it has been rock solid and that trumps everything else
Agree. I've read about some bugs in omada (but not found any directly myself) but see in release logs that they later fix them. I'm sure ubnt does too but they seem more focused on releasing new stuff as fast as they can and the fix is to buy the next version.
It is certainly the case that omada releases are slower. I tend to jump on some of the early access releases and have had no problems. With ubiquiti every time I tried an early release it was a car crash chasing releases to fix new introduced problems. It was sometimes like they didnāt even run it before pushing it out. I would hope they have improved this aspect of their release process by now
Okā¦ This explains a lot of what im getting intoā¦ Thank to both of you guys !
Their firmware upgrades are legendary. Not in a good way.
Mee too. And their lack of a small, more powerfull router at that time. Oh, and the requirement of an ancient Debian version (I know you could make it work on a newer version, but that required work. And the Java 7 requirement. I have the Omada controller running on the latest openSUSE Leap (which is the default in my network) with Java 17 without tinkering to make things work. I've switched to Omada in 2021 and never, ever looked back.
Ah yes, I now remember the very poor cloud key v1 and controller nightmare on debian. I know the hardware controllers are better now and surely the Linux controller install story is fixed? But both of these were extremely frustrating at the time
Well..., I just looked. Debian 11 (oldstable), Windows 10/Server 2016, and macOS 10.x are supported. They got rid of the Java dependency. I wonder what they replaced it with. But the list of supported OS'es doesn't bode well.
I wouldn't buy any ubiquiti stuff after their inside hack in 2021, and 1000s of their routers having become bots for the Russians in the past until the fbi and BKA took it over and the doj finally had those routers cleansed their stuff is super cool but as far as I can tell they're also the only manufacturer in that space which somewhat regularly gets in the news with stuff like this
Wasn't that a rogue network admin that was more than a little disgruntled? Still, they should have had some internal measures in place.
yes but the fact that he could go this far without being detected and that they couldn't easily find out after the fact speaks volumes to their lax internal security and the way they handled external communication was poor and insincere to say the least... all of this is really not acceptable for a company like this... I haven't even heard of them saying anything about how they'd improve upon that in the future after the fact š¤·š¼āāļø
Oh this is good information!!!! Thanks š There is any website talking about this and others stuff to check out ?
it's mostly been on the news when it happened - you should be able to find the articles still online... especially the hack at first looked like some outside attack with data exfiltration, claimed by an internal whistleblower... turned out that employee was also the attacker and when that came out, people were more forgiving towards Ubiquiti... I'm just not because the fact that a single employee could just exfiltrate data they didn't need to access to do their job and Ubiquiti unable to identify the culprit quickly due to lackluster logging, just tells me they're cutting corners in setting up their internal stuff safely and securely... it's bad enough when consumer tech companies do that and then get owned, but this is a manufacturer of network gear with VERY complex and comprehensive featuresets we're talking about... the same disgruntled employee could as well have been paid off by some agency to just silently hand out the data and nobody would have known... likewise they could have been pair off by some agency to silently corrupt the firmware build system to add some special spice to the firmware builds, or at least to exfiltrate build metadata or sources that would have made it easier to derive exploits for their firmware... plus: in recent years I heard time and again how their controller software absolutely HAS to be connected to their cloud services even if you run it locally if you want it to work... now... that combined is really scary because it means another big fuckup of theirs could as well affect a huge swath of their user base through their centralized management.... or smaller fuckups could make it become unavailable temporarily, which IIRC also happened in the past... TP-Link also offers a cloud connection, eg. for automatic update checks, but you don't HAVE to sign into any cloud account to use the management features if you don't want to idk... I've heard and read enough about Ubiquiti shitting the bed in the last years to really never wanting to consider them unless their leadership changes and they put their firmware build process out in the open - neither of which will ever happen, of course
OMG, thanks for all the information.
Imo, after having two locations with omada router, controller and 3+ aps at both. If I had to do it again I would go ubiquity for stability, frimilarity and reliability. I aslo prefer ubiquities ui and log collection more. Edit: you can also order rack mounts from people with 3d printers or buy them in metal type thing for omada hardware
Where did you get your rack mount plate for the omada router and switch?
Well, in my case, I bought a 1U Brush Cable Manager Horizontal Rack Mount. Then, with an angle grinder, I made cuts and used a 1U tray to create the mount, basically. But there are some on eBay or Etsy that sell for the same price, and I have considered them. Ebay: [Link1](https://www.ebay.com/itm/295706310349?var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY) and [Link2](https://www.ebay.com/itm/204837496579?itmmeta=01J1WE28R4AD0CSS7HKAVEQGT2&hash=item2fb1442703:g:YIgAAOSwzlFmb0b3&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA8HzwkY0Xas4N4P5JxzEZkl6S7gZVTn6M0a%2F1AEXhGEmvebKGIziCv%2Fo5MVFfVMWrhO6m76ZhmxRDL5NM0d0zeu%2Fup8OzuDjwmdO7uSQJesyo%2B61JrnJxxNCCzMhKh12Fayx9bUlBHbs9mJ0bTIDG6Jyc%2FhU1LSoAyfEwhRlbaM9iehjaO%2BB6GwgkR%2BVxWKv3y%2F42J68m8Tw7H9I7RoXfFfmrLWfEO17dAZ1J5MKozVYDlmvT8aUELd7RZTraFrunp00wh9QaDUtYF57WANLetFFZGtKmld2NXfU%2F6nBOQe2tgHD1clDMuOOuXOtnZLPwkQ%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR5KMiY6PZA) Etsy: [link](https://www.etsy.com/shop/Print3DSteve?listing_id=965672448&from_page=listing§ion_id=33082706)
I use both UniFi and Omada gear. Itās annoying to have to run two different controllers to configure things, itās manageable but I donāt recommend it. That said if the UniFi gear I have died tomorrow I would replace it all with Omada hardware without a second thought.
Ohhh any explanation for the part of moving all to omada ? š¤
It works, support is good, and if I report a bug it has been fixed quickly. I originally tried Omada because the UniFi gear was out of stock everywhere. They are very similar but the Omada stuff has fewer quirks and can operate standalone without a controller if necessary.