Nobody competes with them as 'Apple for networking', but MikroTik is if anything a bit cheaper and better on the actual specs etc. - just without the snazzy UI and easy GUI (highly-G) config.
There's probably a lot of people who'd love Ubiquiti gear ('gadget nerds', Linus Tech Tips viewers, gamers, etc.) to whom I wouldn't recommend MikroTik, but to anyone who's.. idk, heard of iptables, I would.
All the gamer-marketed WAP/routers with a million antennae are somewhat competitors in the former category too I suppose.
While I can't speak for a less technical user, I'm throwing away a nearly brand-new Ubiquiti access point on the basis that it took me like five times as long to set up client isolation as it did to manually set up PPPoE and VLAN tagging for my fiber connection on the Mikrotik I bought at the same time. Also the Mikrotik didn't install an nginx server on my laptop. I'm replacing the Ubiquiti with another Mikrotik box even though they're apparently not that great for wifi purely on the basis of the UX.
Mikrotek makes sense when you really really really care about having the cheapest possible 10g switch.
AFAIK, there is nothing that competes apples to apples with the UDM in terms of a entry level managed switch / router / WAP offering (or the UDR, which does UDM + Telephony or distributed global management)
Yeah OPN/pfSense make ..sense too I think, haven't used them personally though. But there's some hardware (primarily thinking non-router/firewalls) you couldn't have or wouldn't want them to run on, and so you might buy MikroTik, and then use them for everything so as to have only one config system to learn.
I have the SXT for example (4G antenna/modem/router) so if I wanted a managed switch or another router or whatever I'd be more inclined to get a MikroTik one just to simplify my time configuring them, similarly to but even without Ubiquiti's snazzy auto discovery etc.
> Nobody competes with them as 'Apple for networking'
Apple used to ;_;
I was still using my Airport Expresses until they gave out. Didn't care if they didn't have the latest wifi standards, they were way easier to manage than Ubiquiti or anything else.
The founder of Ubiquiti used to be a radio engineer on the AirPort product at Apple. Part of the reason he left was because the line became devalued in Apple's product lineup and would ultimately be shelved.
As a hard-core Apple Airport user for a long time, the Apple stuff was great until it wasn't. For example, wanting to put the Xbox in the DMZ. You can do that on the Airports, but it's not called "DMZ" (IIRC) and it's not at all obvious. Whereas Ubiquiti is like the industrial version of an Airport or something, because if you do want to put devices in a DMZ or on a VLAN, you can do it and without a lot of effort. Of course, Ubiquiti's stuff has limitations, so the next stop is...MicroTik? Cisco?
But, yeah, if Apple had kept the Airports going, I'd have had little reason to look elsewhere, and would probably still use them.
I've seen the term "default host" on other routers too, so it's fair enough. AirPort settings were pretty full-featured for a consumer device, just lacked advanced routing stuff that I'd not use in a home anyway.
It started falling apart when they made the new AirPort Utility, which hid some settings. I had to go install the old version.
There's probably a lot of people who'd love Ubiquiti gear ('gadget nerds', Linus Tech Tips viewers, gamers, etc.) to whom I wouldn't recommend MikroTik, but to anyone who's.. idk, heard of iptables, I would.
All the gamer-marketed WAP/routers with a million antennae are somewhat competitors in the former category too I suppose.