Comment by StudentStuff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by StudentStuff | Hacker News Reader

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Ubiquiti's Unifi Cloud Controller depends on MongoDB, which they won't help you with (having had MongoDB eat it multiple times on my Cloud Controller in the last year). The Intrusion Detection System/Deep Packet Inspection wrecks performance & throughput (and is pretty basic compared to eg: Watchguard), IPv6 is disabled by default, and no VLAN tagging on the WAN port means providers like Centurylink Fiber can't be used without an intermediate device between your Unifi Security Gateway and the Optical Network Terminal.

The Unifi suite is great for a small to medium business that is game to splash out $600 to $1500 (having the Unifi switch is critical to seamless VLAN tagging internally), but for homes and larger businesses or those with fast connections that want more than a basic router, the Unifi lineup doesn't have the grunt.

From a smallish amount of experience with Ubiquiti's gear, the Wi-Fi parts are far better than the Unifi Security Gateway. And you can certainly use them just fine without a USG.

I can only assume they'll be moving away from MongoDB soon, given the licensing situation. And the new Cloud Controller Gen 2 is considerably more reliable, which it achieves by the highly dubious hack of containing an internal UPS so that it is less likely to shut down uncleanly and thus die a horrible death.

The IPv6 situation is, indeed, embarrassing. But that, too, is solved by just not using a USG.

edit: None of this is particularly unique to Ubiquiti, IMO. By committing to using the same system or vendor for routing and for wi-fi, you make upgrades harder and you get stuck with feature sets you may not want. Home networks where the wi-fi is the cable modem or the wi-fi is the NAT/router box have the same problem, and it's even worse if you start using the same object for NAT/routing, wi-fi, smart home stuff, and NAS. Yuck. I wouldn't want to run an enterprise network where I've committed to using the same gear for routing and wi-fi.

It's a bit of shame that it's so hard to do a good job with wi-fi gear from multiple vendors, but getting things like fast roaming to work right is a huge pain without someone's proprietary management stack involved.

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