As of now I’m a happy user of a MT hap ac lite router which is enough to cover my whole apartment with wifi signal. Things are about to change as I’m moving to a two floor house and I got a bit puzzled. I’ve set up a similar thing at my friends house with MT as a router and Ubiquiti UniFi APs and it works fine. Was just wondering if MT router and MT cAP or wAP would be any better to set up at home or not. Any advantages of MT router + MT APs over MT router Unifi APs apart from having the same OS on both? I mean, the way Unifi APs are handled via their software is worth every penny you have to pay for them. The setup I need will consist of a router and three AP (two indoor + one outdoor). MT cAP lite / wAP are cheaper than Unifi but putting away the money problem what’s your say. Use MT only or mix it? And why?
I maybe have enough time in my life to be proficient in one product line. If I had to handle two, I’d just be a dilettante in each of them.
An all-MikroTik network gives you a lot of capabilities that you don’t otherwise have. With ROMON, you can examine any device on the network from any place inside or outside the network, regardless of NAT walls or addressing errors. The station bridge feature allows you to extend your LAN seamlessly to additional buildings with a single point to point connection, but it only works on other MikroTik equipment. You have the ability to see receive signal strength at both ends of a wireless connection from either end, because they report back to each other. When a popular new capability hits the market, you don’t have to wait for two separate manufacturers to deliver it before you can use it. If you need to script or develop automated processes, you only have to do it once for all your devices, not multiple times.
I realize the trade-offs. I know that MikroTik doesn’t have the most leading edge radio technology. But the trade-offs are worth it to keep my business and my life from becoming needlessly complicated. I can manage bigger projects and more subscribers with fewer employees. That’s my two cents.
Sounds like if you were talking about a huge multi building network, yet I’m talking about a house with three APs and one router. Yet, I do agree that having one line of products to manage and maintain sounds “easier” than two.
Well, yes, that is my experience base, and that’s where I’m coming from. But even on a house by house basis, when I sign up a new subscriber, I put a MikroTik CPE on his roof, and (if possible) a MikroTik Wi-Fi access point in his house, because I can diagnose problems all the way to his end-user devices from the operation center. It saves me a lot of time and travel. Maybe someday you would want that level of control inside your house while you are traveling.