Hi
I have a simple question. I want to know your idea about.
Why you use Mikrotik devices or OS ?!
Does it have any more vantage in comparison to Cisco ?!
Regards
- Because it is simple yet allowing us to do any kind of routing we need.
- I don’t know about Cisco, but all i know, that Cisco cost a lot more, which makes me sick of it, i don’t like to buy expensive things while you can do it on cheaper way.
Cisco is Cisco, nobody can argue that Cisco is not a worldwide leader in networking.
If you don’t want to spend 20 times more money to accomplish same task you would on Cisco routers, Mikrotik is your choice!! It works and nobody can argue this also
For example I have a customer pharmacy company, customer has a drug stores and small clinics all over the country. One day he came and told me that he wants VPNs with all branch offices (He has 240 branch offices) Cisco 871 routers cost him more then 100k$.
We accomplished same task on Mikrotik, it costed him 25k$ from which 10$k was my integration price.
Main reason why Cisco is so popular is Cisco partners , partners prefer to sell more expensive solution, more expensive means more margin
Cisco is also popular because you can call TAC and get them to do absolutely any configuration for you as long as you have a SmartNet contract on the device. There’s also the 4 hour RMA process.
I use MikroTik because it’s the best bang for your buck in Hotspot implementations.
Good points …
One of the router capability is handling PPP connections (PPPoE, PPTP, PPP, …). It causes more CPU usage.
I think MikroTik because of its powerful processor can handle it too well in comparison to Cisco.
The question is does Cisco have any capability that MikroTik does not ?!
in other word, Cisco is for lazy people who doesn’t care to learn routing
That is if you have deep pockets to purchase SmartNet. My entire network is routed and switched on Cisco hardware. All of it was bought refurbished or used with no support contract. I studied and implemented OSPF, BGP, and MPLS in my network all on said Cisco hardware.
GRE tunnels. 
Why lazy people ?! I don’t think so.
If you want to work with Cisco, you should know the concept of routing and I think every router from every brand has this nature.
MikroTik just has good design for working in its OS and also great features on it. Powerful CPU and also fantastic tools is too good.
I was a fan of Cisco, but now, I am a serious fan of MikroTik.
That makes no sense whatsoever.
Edit: elaborating because this wasn’t supposed to be rude.
With Cisco (and some other vendors) your options are to know what you’re doing, to pay a contractor, to use user generated help (forums, mailing lists) or to pay for very expensive but fairly good vendor support.
With Mikrotik you can’t pay for guaranteed 24/7 non-stop support until you have a solution, but have all the other options available.
You also cannot rely on 4 hour RMA from the vendor with Mikrotik, though you could try to get a similar deal from a distributor (I know of none that offer it in the US).
You certainly cannot claim that every RouterOS user knows what they are doing, or wants to really understand the product. Which is fine. Routers are tools. If you just need two routers between a small office and an even smaller branch you shouldn’t have to spend weeks learning something you will never need again.
There’s also the 4 hour RMA process
Where i live there is no RMA service inside a week from any supplier.
Then again, knowing this, i have lots of spares, so it is neither a plus or minus for me.
Cisco is good. Nicely made kit, horrible to configure, expensive.
Mikrotik is good. Build quality varies between series, easier to configure, and a Lot Cheaper.
For me the price/performace tradeoff falls in Mikrotik’s favour every time whe it comes to Cisco or Mikrotik.
However, if i had to show people around and try and sell them the business (or a slice of it) then i’d have a tiny Cisco 857 or something in a Big Box and a huge Cisco banner plastered on it, because Sales Bullshit always wins over Common Sense.
Why you use Mikrotik devices or OS ?!
ROS or IOS are both, as far as i can tell, based on Linux.
Linux rocks, so it just comes down to what interface to the real OS you want (ROS, IOS DD-WRT etc), and what price you wanna pay.
Imagine I have 2 router (MikroTik & Cisco) and both are the same (not completely but about 90% similar).
In this situation, in normal or general use, I will take MikroTik because of its price.
Generally when you pay for expensive device, that device has a thing that the others doesn’t have (feature or support issues).
What all of you said, shows that Cisco devices are expensive with no reason !!! (I mean just about the OS and features)
You really want a feature comparison?
Top off my head: GRE, mGRE, DMVPN, GET VPN, stable IPv6 on nearly all features. That is just stuff I have actually used. Hardware wise you get ASICs and CEF. In their firewalls the VPN features are much more solid, you get proper layer seven protocol inspection for supported protocols. DNS inspection very elegantly solves hairpin NAT solutions.
Crap, though. Why am I in this thread defending Cisco? I like Mikrotik. If you need just routing it’s an outstanding choice.
Pluses:
Cisco:
secure, reliable, consistent, documentation and examples, excellent support response and warranty service, bugs registry and workarounds
Mikrotik:
very low cost, ease of use, multitude of features - flexible
Minuses:
Cisco:
costly, requires more pieces to accomplish the same task, certain features are cost prohibitive
Mikrotik:
varied quality of software and hardware, warranty delegated to distributors, lack of security features
Cisco offers comprehensive support for nearly every telco interface in existence. Their training and education effort is exceptional and unmatched. Their documentation is complete and covers every aspect of their products and interfaces.
Cisco IOS is not built on Linux. It may have begun on Unix but was rewritten and has been closed source and proprietary for more than a decade.
Mikrotik ROS is an exceptional effort by a small company to bring value and stability to the router market and they have done quite well. It is Linux based.
Our network core is built on Cisco routers and switches but we use Mikrotik where we can. Currently there are about 300 RouterBoards and about 50 Cisco routers and switches in our network.
Tom
What happen if you replace those 50 Cisco routers with 50 Mikrotik routers?
I have about 60 Cisco switches and 10 Cisco routers in my network. Most of those routers I would definitely not replace with MikroTik, and really cannot, because MikroTik doesn’t have a product which competes with the Cisco products I use.
Cisco 12000 Series Gigabit Switch Routers
MikroTik also doesn’t make any 24-48 port layer 3 switches, so replacing those is out of the question as well.
MikroTik hardware has found a home in the access layers of my network as a 3.65ghz AP, and MPLS CE / PE routers. I don’t have a reason to move it into my distribution or core, and that’s okay.
Surely you are joking. Mikrotik is good at small ethernet routers and miniPCI radio support but not… OC12, OC3, DS3, Mux, and Inverse Mux, T1, DSL, high speed switch fabric, fiber cards, redundant power, DC power, etc.
Tom
Surely you are joking. Mikrotik is good at small ethernet routers and miniPCI radio support but not… OC12, OC3, DS3, Mux, and Inverse Mux, T1, DSL, high speed switch fabric, fiber cards, redundant power, DC power, etc.
Tom
I think if MikroTik wants to design other devices such as Switches, fiber cards, etc they have a long way 
Router OS can use fiber Ethernet on PC platform. But SDH fiber links are not supported. So their use is not possible for providers backbone using SDH or even PDH links (E1, E3, STM1 - STM256…)
As the futur is Ethernet, we’ll see more and more Mikrotiks at small and medium providers access networks.
But today, Router OS is not powerfull enough yet for core routing, because it does not support 10, 40 and 100 Gbps wire speed routing. Wire speed routing is mandatory for the global quality of Internet. You cannot use PC machines for Internet routing, or you will degrade the general quality of Internet. I know some providers do this…
Even 1 or 10 Gbps core routing at wire speed needs ASICs, DSP or FPGA circuits, not available on the different Router OS platforms.
Cisco is really more advanced, full IPv6 support, multilink PPP server support, Provider Backbone Bridge support (802.1ah), and wire speed routing beginning with 7600 series.