Why I Chose UniFi (Again) — And Why It Might Be Right for Your Business

From a Promising Start to Unexpected Limits

My first major deployment with UniFi was for a large nonprofit and private school. We needed reliable Wi-Fi, VLAN control, and simple centralized management. UniFi checked all the boxes — affordable hardware, great-looking dashboards, and no licensing fees.

But it didn’t last.

We hit real-world scaling limits fast. The Dream Machine SE, UniFi’s flagship at the time, just couldn’t handle the load. With hundreds of devices on the network, the controller crashed every few weeks. That was unacceptable.

Here is some numbers to let you know just how much we processed.
60 Switches
120 Access Points
Slow day 400 clients busy part of the year upwards of 600

My Temporary Fix: pfSense + UniFi on a VM

To stabilize things, I offloaded firewall duties to pfSense and ran the UniFi Network controller as a virtual machine. That bought us breathing room, but I also started looking at other vendors.

Testing Other Vendors

Over the next several months, I tried:

• Extreme Networks – very solid equipment, but expensive and heavy on licensing

• EnGenius – surprisingly capable and more affordable, but not as streamlined.

For cameras, I switched to Rhombus because of its AI features. But in the real world, the resolution and usability didn’t meet expectations.

UniFi Rebounds (Big Time)

A year later, UniFi made serious improvements. They released enterprise-grade hardware built for demanding environments.

I deployed the UniFi Enterprise Fortress Gateway — and it’s been flawless. I also:

• Upgraded the server rack with Enterprise Switches

• Scaled up to over 130 UniFi Protect cameras

• Started phasing out EnGenius and Extreme Networks gear
  

Their newer AI video features made Protect way more usable for day-to-day security and footage search.

Why I Now Recommend UniFi for Businesses

Here’s why I’ve chosen UniFi as the foundation for all my installs:

What I Love:

• No ongoing licensing costs

• Unified dashboard for networking, security cameras, and access control

• Enterprise-grade reliability

• Modern interface that doesn’t overwhelm staff

• Improved AI tools for camera footage and alerts
  

VLANs

VLANs are an important part of any network setup. Yeah it's big in business but also should be used at home. I will not go into great details here as this is just me saying how easy VLANs are to setup in unifi but here is what they do for you. Every device on your network gets in IP address. This is how it communicates and talks to other devices as well as the internet. Sometimes you have things like a smart switch or a stove that needs internet access but you do not want it seeing anything on your network. Why? Maybe that stove does not have good security and can be hacked into. If the stove can not see anything on your network then neither can the hacker if they get into it. VLANs accomplish this by creating a nice box and you get to control what goes in and out of that box. If you want to let that box talk to the internet but it can't talk to the box your security cameras are in, well that's just good and easy security. With Unifi you can build VLANs in seconds and to deploy you just have to select then when building a wifi network or selecting a port on a switch.

A Few Downsides:

• Stock is often limited

• Their product roadmap is vague — features appear when they appear (Had I know at the time all these new features were coming I would not have wasted money on other vendors.

Looking Ahead

I’m currently exploring UniFi Access for door entry and badge control. Early results are promising, and I expect this part of their ecosystem to grow even more useful soon.

Want to Talk?

If you're curious whether UniFi would work for your office, school, or nonprofit, I’d be happy to chat. Even if it’s just to point you in the right direction.

Get in touch