For a small office, I’d look at it this way:
@mikeappsreviewer and @codecrafter already covered the “feel” of both pretty well, so I’ll just poke at some edges they didn’t lean on as much and slightly disagree in a couple spots.
1. What actually bites you in a small office
The real problems I see in <20 AP offices are usually:
- Terrible channel planning (everything on 1/6/11 in 2.4, 5 GHz on auto chaos)
- APs cranked to full power so clients cling to the wrong AP
- One or two dead pockets everyone complains about near conference rooms
- No one wants to pay for a “proper” design, they just want “make WiFi not suck”
For that world, Netspot App is usually enough. It lets you:
- Walk the floor with a laptop
- See RSSI / SNR heatmaps
- Spot the “too hot” overlap zones and the dead spots
- Grab simple screenshots to justify “we need 1 more AP here” to management
You don’t need Ekahau-level RF nerd knobs to fix that class of issue.
2. Where I actually disagree with the Ekahau love
People often oversell predictive design for small offices. Yes, Ekahau’s wall modeling is nice, but in a typical SMB floor with drywall, glass, and maybe one elevator shaft:
- A quick rough placement, then a Netspot App survey after install, is usually faster and cheaper than trying to model every wall type perfectly.
- You often end up adjusting APs after real users show up anyway, because furniture, people and doors change the RF more than your pretty model.
I only reach for Ekahau in “small office” scenarios when:
- There are multiple floors with weird shapes and you need roaming to be really clean for WiFi calling
- You’re producing a formal design doc for a client who will ask “why here?” for every AP
- You know you’ll replicate that design pattern across a bunch of near-identical sites
Otherwise, the prediction work can feel like doing CAD to hang a single picture frame.
3. Hardware & workflow reality
One thing not stressed enough: the friction of the tool matters.
- Ekahau + Sidekick is fantastic technically, but it’s bulky, needs charging, license management, firmware, etc.
- Netspot App lives on your existing laptop, no dongles, no “where did I put that thing.” That means you’re actually more likely to run quick surveys after changes, which is way more valuable over time than a single perfect design day.
I’d argue that for someone who wears many IT hats, the tool you actually use monthly beats the “perfect” tool that sits in a case.
4. How I’d decide for your specific situation
If your office is:
- Single floor (or simple 2‑floor)
- Typical drywall
- Mix of laptops / phones / a few VoIP handsets
- No formal SLA or compliance pressure
Then:
- Get Netspot App.
- Rough in APs where you logically expect coverage (open areas, near conference rooms, avoid right on top of each other).
- Do a passive survey: check for
- RSSI around -65 dBm or better where people work
- SNR above ~20 dB
- No crazy co‑channel overlap on the same channels
- Adjust channels and transmit power, maybe move or add one AP, resurvey quickly.
If you tell me instead:
- “We’ve got a lot of WiFi calling and barcode scanners that roam between floors”
- or “Legal is asking for design & validation reports they can file away”
- or “This is the first of 15 similar branch offices we’re rolling out”
Then yeah, bite the bullet, learn Ekahau, and lean into its documentation and predictive work. In that scenario, the overhead starts to pay back.
5. Very blunt summary
-
For one small office and basic “fix the dead zones, stop the random drops”:
Go with Netspot App and spend the saved money on one more well placed AP. -
For a small office that behaves like a mini campus (voice over WiFi, strict roaming, repeatable design, or compliance docs):
Then Ekahau makes sense, but that’s the exception, not the rule.
Netspot App plus a bit of common sense RF hygiene solves 90% of small office pain without turning you into a full‑time WiFi engineer.