First off, let it be known that I have no dog in this fight. I use both Mikrotik and UBNT, and find they both have their strengths. That being said...
Care to explain your reasoning, other than what you spoke on already? Perhaps I missed a key area or two, but I didn't see anything you mentioned that would sway me one way or another conclusively for all use-cases.
How so? Simply due to less powerful CPU? Or are you speaking of queuing/shaping mechanisms? Do you find simple queues, trees and/or HTB in RouterOS to be as effective at minimizing bufferbloat as fq_codel + HTB in EdgeOS, or more so?
Not looking to take pot shots here. Genuinely interested in your responses. Thanks SEM.
I've used both too. There are differences, for instance if you're trying to create something complex, this is much easier to do in mikrotik than in ubiquiti. Ubiquiti also lacks the layer 2 control that mikrotik has. The only thing i havent forgiven mikrotik for is the lack of DNSSEC, but lack of UDP openVPN is fine since after using openVPN on a linux server im ditching it as i got sick of trying to configure it on linux and support is really really poor.
Mikrotik actually responds to criticism. I saw their new CCR1036 online (same model though) but with the upgrades that the original first 2 were criticised for (me and others) that they now include a dual PSU with a fan in the PSU area too, a full sized USB port and a rj45 management port, havent checked if they've changed anything internally. They also hold mum and had i known early i would've applied to speak and gotten a free RB4011.
More importantly, its really like comparing 2 very different routers. UBNT works well replacing a home router, its actually the segment that UBNT will do well in should they focus their audience there. Their style of pushing their ecosysstem for both software/controllers makes them far more suited for places without their own tech team. Mikrotik however does have their own software but are never pushing their ecosystem, which makes them different from both UBNT and cisco and this is one reason why i dislike UBNT, because at the price point that you are paying for UBNT you are getting vendor locked in and that is bad, plus in terms of expertise mikrotik is router focused, meaning they work on their routers to do be a router first, other things 2nd. With UBNT thats not the case, their ecosystem is first which is powered by a linux OS running their interface, and their products arent function first like mikrotik. If you take a closer look at their devices, there are so many features that differ their target audience. For instance most if not all mikrotik routerboards come with serial/IPMI, and have a lot of redundancy like backup routerOS and more which you do not get with UBNT. If you move to their wifi units, its the same deal. Mikrotik exposes so much functionality to you that you would expect from an enterprise wifi router, ubiquiti doesnt let you configure the same options and yes i've actually helped my college configure UBNT outdoor APs before with their nice interface but it doesnt expose any advance options that you get when configuring a mikrotik AP.
So whenever i suggest either UBNT or mikrotik i check on whos asking and what they need. Just because the MIPS on UBNT isnt great for QoS and other non hardware accelerated tasks, you can still get one thats fast enough for your home needs and this price difference is where mikrotik shines too. When it comes to QoS and other features, its because that the MIPS architecture really is much much less than ARM especially server ARM. When you compare what their cores contain, how differently complex and sized their instruction pipelines and decoders are, you can clearly see that ARM is actually better and i explained this before in another thread a few years ago the order of which CPU is faster for routing, which is faster for running software. to me ubiquiti sucks as a router, but does not make it totally useless, however mikrotik wins over ubiquiti when it comes to networking in so many areas, from the features or how well they function as a router to being able to run dude on the router and get some really good network data and even other features as well. This is one part that people tend to forget when they talk about ubiquiti controllers that mikrotik has had theirs for quite a while that is compatible with other vendors via common features like snmp and can be configured to detect any services you like when scanning.
