UniFi has a few options for QoS within the controller, all can be used to make sure that not too much bandwidth is being used by clients. There are currently three different options, proper QoS options planned for UniFi Network 9.x, which is currently in EA (beta).

Smart Queues has been around in UniFi since the days of the USG models and is fairly simple in its implementation. It is mainly designed to help manage sites with low bandwidth connections. Ubiquiti suggests against using Smart Queues on internet connections with more than 300Mbps.

It is mainly designed to prevent certain clients from taking up all the available bandwidth and saturating the connection, which in turn makes everything really slow for everyone else.

To enable Smart Queues, go to Internet, then select the WAN connection you wish to enable it on, then under Smart Queues type in your current expected bandwidth in Mbps. Once done, click Apply Changes.

WiFi Speed Limit works in a different way, as it is configured per SSID and it is a lot more basic than any QoS or traffic management options. To enable, go to Settings > Profiles > WiFi Speed Limit. From there you can create a new profile, then that profile can be assigned to a particular SSID.

Speeds specified are per client connected to that SSID, rather than for the entire SSID. Bear this in mind for SSIDs with a lot of clients, as the upstream connection could get utilised easily.

WiFi Speed Limit profiles are controlled by the AP and can be used in UniFi deployments where there are just UniFi APs and no other UniFi devices.

In recent UniFi updates, Ubiquiti has added quite a few more advanced features, relating to traffic rules, QoS and more. As mentioned above, QoS will get a bit more advanced once UniFi Network 9.x goes live.

However, we can rate limit certain networks or clients based on what they want to access. For instance, you would use this if you wanted to limit access for everyone to something like Windows Update.

To enable these features, go to Settings > Security > Create Entry. From here, a new Speed Limit rule can be made with various rules, such as region, application, IP address or domain name. This rule can then be assigned to specific clients or networks.

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