Networking · alternatives
Alternatives to Cisco Meraki
20 networking tools sit alongside Cisco Meraki in this directory. Below is what separates each from Cisco Meraki on the figures we hold, price, model, tier count and rating, and a direct comparison for every one.
- Alternatives listed
- 20
- With a free tier
- 12
- Cheaper to start
- -
- Cisco Meraki starts at
- On request
Why people look past Cisco Meraki
Only what the record supports. Each point below is a figure on the Cisco Meraki entry measured against the tools listed beside it.
There is no free tier
The record for Cisco Meraki carries no free tier, so evaluating it means paying first. 12 of the 20 alternatives below can be used without paying.
There is only one tier
Cisco Meraki publishes a single plan, Meraki hardware plus licence at On request. There is no smaller tier to drop to if the fit is wrong or the budget moves.
What each alternative does differently
Ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry. Differences are drawn from price, pricing model, tier count and rating, the fields the category listing carries. For a feature-level difference, follow the head-to-head link on each card: those pages read both full records.
Open source firewall software with a free Community Edition and a separate commercial Plus edition sold by Netgate
- Can be used without paying; Cisco Meraki cannot.
- Sold on a Open source Community Edition, free; commercial Plus edition sold separately by Netgate model rather than quote, hardware plus mandatory recurring licence.
- 2 tiers to Cisco Meraki's 1.
Router and network operating system with a one-time perpetual licence rather than a recurring subscription
- Sold on a One-time purchase, per licence level model rather than quote, hardware plus mandatory recurring licence.
- 2 tiers to Cisco Meraki's 1.
Effortlessly manage 100+ APs in the same way you manage an individual AP
- Sold on a one-time model rather than quote, hardware plus mandatory recurring licence.
Open source infrastructure monitoring, free at its core, with paid support and modules sold separately by Icinga GmbH
- Can be used without paying; Cisco Meraki cannot.
- Sold on a Open source core, with paid repository, module and support subscriptions sold separately model rather than quote, hardware plus mandatory recurring licence.
- 2 tiers to Cisco Meraki's 1.
Free, community-driven network monitoring with commercial support sold by a third-party partner, not the project itself
- Can be used without paying; Cisco Meraki cannot.
- Sold on a Open source, no licence fee; commercial support sold by a third-party partner model rather than quote, hardware plus mandatory recurring licence.
Software-defined mesh networking, free up to 10 devices and one network, then billed per device
- Can be used without paying; Cisco Meraki cannot.
- Sold on a Free up to 10 devices and 1 network, then per additional device per month model rather than quote, hardware plus mandatory recurring licence.
- 3 tiers to Cisco Meraki's 1.
Every Cisco Meraki alternative at a glance
A dash means the catalogue entry carries no figure, not that the answer is nothing.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Tiers | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cisco Meraki (this page) | On request | Quote, hardware plus mandatory recurring licence | 1 | |
| pfSenseFor firewall hardware that keeps functioning without a recurring licence once purchased | Free | Open source Community Edition, free; commercial Plus edition sold separately by Netgate | 2 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| MikroTik RouterOSFor routing hardware with a one-time perpetual software licence rather than mandatory recurring subscription | On request | One-time purchase, per licence level | 2 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Ubiquiti UniFiFor cloud-managed networking hardware without a mandatory recurring per-device licence | On request | One-time | - | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Icinga | Free | Open source core, with paid repository, module and support subscriptions sold separately | 2 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| LibreNMS | Free | Open source, no licence fee; commercial support sold by a third-party partner | 1 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| ZeroTier | Free | Free up to 10 devices and 1 network, then per additional device per month | 3 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| OpenVPN | Free | Open source core is free; Access Server billed per simultaneous connection | 3 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Catchpoint | Free | Free tier plus published entry tiers, enterprise quote-only | 4 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| NetBird | Free | Per user per month | 3 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Nebula | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 2 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Headscale | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Twingate | Free | Per user per month | 3 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Zabbix | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 2 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Netdata | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 2 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Domotz | On request | Per collector or per managed device per month | 2 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Juniper Mist | On request | Quote, hardware plus required Wi-Fi Assurance subscription | 2 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Auvik | On request | Quote, per managed device | 1 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| Kentik | On request | Annual contract only, per tier | 2 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| PRTG Network Monitor | On request | Per sensor tier, billed monthly on an annual contract | 5 | vs Cisco Meraki |
| ThousandEyes | On request | Quote, unit-based consumption on annual or prepaid contracts | 1 | vs Cisco Meraki |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry; Softwr hosts no reviews of these products. How each figure is used is set out on the Cisco Meraki badges page.
Cheaper ways to solve the same problem
What you would be giving up
Cisco Meraki is most often brought in for a multi-site retail or education organisation that wants one dashboard to manage networking hardware across many locations without local it staff at each site, an it team that values zero-touch provisioning for rapid rollout of new sites over local configuration control, an organisation that has already standardised on cisco and wants meraki's simplified cloud management alongside existing cisco infrastructure, a managed service provider running meraki across client sites who bills the licence cost through to clients as part of a managed contract. Anything replacing it has to cover the ones you actually depend on, and a cheaper tool that misses one of them is not cheaper.
Two things this page cannot settle. It compares on price, model, tier count and rating, because those are the fields the category listing carries, feature-level differences need both full records, which is what the head-to-head pages load. And the ratings are third-party aggregates imported with each entry rather than reviews written here, so a 0.2 difference between two tools is noise rather than a finding.
If Cisco Meraki is broadly right and the question is cost, the Cisco Meraki pricing breakdown covers every tier and what each one adds. If you want the whole field rather than a shortlist, the Networking category lists everything the directory holds, and best networking tools ranks them.
Cisco Meraki runs on web, ios, android. Platform coverage is not carried on the category listing for the alternatives, so it is one more thing to check on each head-to-head page rather than here.
Questions about Cisco Meraki alternatives
- What are the main alternatives to Cisco Meraki?
- 20 other networking tools are listed in this directory, led by pfSense, MikroTik RouterOS, Ubiquiti UniFi, Icinga. They are ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry, not by any Softwr ranking.
- What is the best free alternative to Cisco Meraki?
- 12 of the alternatives listed here can be used without paying: pfSense, Icinga, LibreNMS, ZeroTier, OpenVPN.
- Why do people look for an alternative to Cisco Meraki?
- On the figures on record, 2 things stand out: there is no free tier; there is only one tier. Each is set out with the numbers behind it above.
- What would I give up by switching from Cisco Meraki?
- Cisco Meraki is most often brought in for a multi-site retail or education organisation that wants one dashboard to manage networking hardware across many locations without local it staff at each site, an it team that values zero-touch provisioning for rapid rollout of new sites over local configuration control, an organisation that has already standardised on cisco and wants meraki's simplified cloud management alongside existing cisco infrastructure, a managed service provider running meraki across client sites who bills the licence cost through to clients as part of a managed contract. Anything you replace it with has to cover the ones you actually rely on, the side-by-side comparisons linked from each alternative below put the two feature records against each other.
- Is there an open-source alternative to Cisco Meraki?
- None of the networking tools listed here are recorded as open source. That is what the licence field on each entry says, and the field is not always filled in, so it is worth checking directly for any tool you are serious about.
- How were these Cisco Meraki alternatives chosen?
- They are the tools filed in the same category, Networking, ordered by the aggregated rating on each entry. There is no editorial shortlist, and nothing on this page is paid: no sponsored placement runs on alternatives pages and the order cannot be bought. Softwr has not used these products.
- Where can I compare Cisco Meraki against one of these directly?
- Every alternative below has a side-by-side page against Cisco Meraki covering price, platforms, features and what each one is used for. Those pages read the full record for both products rather than the summary shown here.
- Does this list cover every networking tool?
- No. It covers what this directory holds in the Networking category, 20 tools beside Cisco Meraki. The category page lists the rest of the catalogue as it grows.