Are Ubiquiti devices still the best value for homelabs and small businesses these days?
this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
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No. TP-Link Omada is usually better and cheaper these days and offers nearly identical features.
And TP Link can be used standalone,the controller is just a gimmick.
For pure networking (not WiFi) Mikrotik is also a reasonable alternative,but requires more knowledge.
For home, second hand Ubiquity might be. You can get flying saucers taken off from corpo upgrades for dirt cheap.
That's where literally all my stuff comes from. Cameras, switches, APs, so much unifi in this house and I barely paid for any.
Cameras? Maybe it’s a UK thing, but the only ones I can ever find on eBay are yellowed G3s for silly money.
G3 domes and bullets, perfect condition in unopened boxes. Straight from the local schools to my friend.
I bought several before knowing what I was getting into. They work well but are designed by people worshiping Apple. Everything is locked into their ecosystem. You can't even ssl into the access point to configure it. You need to run their Java controller app to configure them or worse buy another product (cloud key) just to configure the access points you purchased. Then they try really hard to get you to setup your network admin password on their cloud servers ( they have already had security breaches where the passwords leaked).
For a small businesses that pay someone off-site to manage their network they seem fantastic. But they are the opposite of homelab ethos.
But again, they work really well. The access points do channel strength negotiation automatically every night by talking to each other.
They bricked 2 of my pro APs with a bad update. Said fuck you after that and decided I'm done with them. I'm still looking for an alternative to the edge router x.
I'd say it's best to only buy routing devices supporting openwrt. Some Ubiquity devices seem compatible, so maybe you are in luck. In my opinion it's just best to stay away from preinstalled commercial software and just install Linux. You get away from the whole process of enshitification, gain long term support and an incredible set of features commercial software will never provide (at a reasonable price) imho.
I can ssh into the APs, although I’m not sure about configuring them independent of a controller as I haven’t tried. I use a free google cloud tier to host the controller, which can be managed via web gui and phone app. It may use some Java elements in the controller but it wasn’t hard to set up.
I’m not sure about configuring them independent of a controller as I haven’t tried.
That's my point. With regular ap's you can do everything via ssh. Ubiquity doesn't seem to document the command line. The website doesn't list any commands. It only says "only do it with a Ubquity engineer helping you".
You can configure them independently of a controller by ssh but the config will be lost on a reboot or when the device next polls the controller
Edit: and apparently someone else has said you can use the app to configure them without a controller at all
Requiring a phone app, java app or Cloud Key to configure an AP isn't home lab ethos. That it looses config on reboot if you configure it by ssh is weird given you don't need a controller running once they are setup. They can be rebooted without a controller and still work fine.
Where did you find the command line documentation? I was never able to find anything.
I really love what Ubiquiti is trying to do, but I understand where you’re coming from. I ditched the EdgeRouter X because I just couldn’t do anything really advanced with it.
Openwrt works on the edgerouter-x. Dig it out of the closet and flash it.
I just built a DIY router on Alpine Linux. I don’t want to deal with an entire web UI and all that trash. I just want minimal Linux and some ip6tables.
It’s not really documented anywhere officially. I’ve found the knowledge over the years from searching the ubnt forums. But I stopped using unifi equipment a few years ago for similar reasons.
This forum thread is probably the best starting point I can give you but configuring unifi APs via ssh for any reason other than maybe a botched IP configuration is a bad idea
Good luck if you don't have a dream machine and you aren't using 192.168.0.0/16. If the APs don't find a dream machine they won't get an IP from DHCP for some godforsaken reason and revert to 192.168.1.20 and won't do anything until you configure them with ssh. Except you have to ssh on a lan that doesn't exist which is a huge pita. This is why I have omada APs now.
I don’t have a Dream Machine nor a 192.168.0.0/16 network but my access point receives an IP via DHCP from a non-Ubiquiti router just fine. In fact, the controller running in Docker doesn’t even come up itself after a power failure so I’m really lost on what you’re talking about here.
Well I'm glad that the unifi APs like your setup better than they liked mine. Maybe they fixed it in the last 2 years. Either way there's no way I'm buying anything else from them.
I can’t fault you for that. I’m not trying argue they’re perfect devices by any means.
I was able to SSH into mine and I'm running their Docker container with a Unifi Controller instead of a cloud key.
If you were actually able to set it up via ssh, then you should be able to point me to the documentation for the Ubiquity AP cli.
I'm not sure if you are a fanboi or a shill but it is dishonest to claim that you say you could configure your Ubiquity AP when Ubiquity itself refuses to provide documentation of the cli interface.
Another poster said the same thing and linked to the same thread I found years ago which says in effect, "There is no official cli documentation for the APs. You might be able to sneak a few commands by digging through the forums."
If you were actually able to set it up via ssh,
I never said that.
I'm on Ubiquity's payroll, definitely. I'm expecting a check in the mail any day now.
Docker
Yes, the Java app dockerized.
FWIW that java app isn’t much memory hungry and it's not cpu-intensive at all. There are no issues with running java apps at all if you spend 5 minutes figuring the basix flags on how to set the memory limits or run it in a memory-limited cgroup via some containers runtime.
I never claimed it was. But Java comes with its own baggage of Oracle shenanigans (they could start licensing drama with open source forks just like they did a few years ago) and java security patches means maintenance. All of which would be completely unnecessary if Ubiquity let you setup the AP with ssl.
The controller interface is amazing. But it, or a phone app should not be required to set up an AP.
You don’t even need the controller to set them up anymore. You can run them as standalone APs by configuring with the app.
You miss out on a lot of features that way, but they work fine.
Oh for sure. I ran them without a controller for years. I only set it up to do a wireless bridge.