Ubiquiti USW Pro Max 24 PoE: Specs, Features, Pros & Cons
The feature people notice first is lighting: each of the twenty-four ports is edge-lit in a color you assign by network or VLAN, so a glance at the rack shows which port carries cameras and which carries guests. It reads as decoration until the first time you trace a patch cable in a dim cupboard, at which point it stops being decoration.
The substance beneath is a large, capable switch. Sixteen gigabit ports and eight 2.5 Gigabit ports, all twenty-four supplying power, with two thirds of them (eight of the gigabit ports and all eight 2.5 Gigabit ports) supporting the higher standard at up to sixty watts each, drawing on a four hundred watt pool, enough for a serious camera and access-point deployment rather than a token allocation. Two fiber uplinks carry traffic onward, making twenty-six sockets in total.
This one is not fanless, and its own consumption is substantial once it is supplying that much power, so budget for the switch as well as the devices hanging off it and plan on a rack or a cupboard rather than a living space.
The gap in the specification is at the top: there are no 10 Gigabit copper ports, so the fastest wired devices connect at 2.5 Gigabit and anything quicker has to travel over fiber.
It is aimed at a whole-property installation (a house with cameras throughout, or a small business) managed through the same controller as the rest of the ecosystem, with full VLAN support and link aggregation. For a handful of devices it is far more switch than needed. For wiring an entire building, the port count and power budget are the point.
Category strengths
Where the Ubiquiti USW Pro Max 24 PoE beats the median
- More PoE ports ?24 vs 4 (median)
- More total ports ?26 vs 10 (median)
- A much higher switching capacity ?112 Gbps vs 40 Gbps (median)
- A much higher PoE budget ?400 W vs 135 W (median)
- More gigabit ports ?16 vs 0 (median)
- A much higher forwarding rate ?83 Mpps vs 32.73 Mpps (median)
- More 2.5G ports ?8 vs 0 (median)
- More SFP/SFP+ ports ?2 vs 0 (median)
- Has rack-mountable ?
- Has cloud management ?
Where the Ubiquiti USW Pro Max 24 PoE trails the median
- No fanless ?
- A much higher power consumption ?50 W vs 26.5 W (median)
How this VS Score was computed
Score 87: each known spec is measured against the median of all network switches (17 products), then weighted; 50 means level with that median. In classes of six or more, a value beyond the class’s 10th–90th percentile range counts as that limit, so one extreme product cannot set the scale. 97% of the scoreable weight could be used; unknown values, features not applicable to this class and proxies (battery capacity where a rated life exists) add or remove nothing.
| Specification | This product | Cohort median | Score weight | Points moved |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total ports | 26 | 10 | 2 | +100.0 |
| Gigabit ports | 16 | 0 | 1.5 | +75.0 |
| Switching capacity | 112 | 40 | 1.5 | +75.0 |
| PoE ports | 24 — capped at the class’s upper range (16) | 4 | 1.2 | +60.0 |
| PoE budget | 400 | 135 | 1.2 | +60.0 |
| 2.5G ports | 8 | 0 | 1 | +50.0 |
| Forwarding rate | 83 | 32.73 | 0.8 | +40.0 |
| VLAN support | Yes | 59% of the class have it | 0.8 | +40.0 |
| Fanless | No | 80% of the class have it | 0.7 | −33.6 |
| SFP/SFP+ ports | 2 | 0 | 0.5 | +25.0 |
| Management level | Fully managed | Smart managed | 1 | +25.0 |
| Link aggregation | Yes | 53% of the class have it | 0.5 | +25.0 |
| Quality of Service (QoS) | Yes | 62% of the class have it | 0.5 | +25.0 |
| Cloud management | Yes | 50% of the class have it | 0.4 | +20.0 |
| IGMP snooping | Yes | 60% of the class have it | 0.3 | +15.0 |
| Rack-mountable | Yes | 35% of the class have it | 0.3 | +15.0 |
| PoE standard | PoE++ (802.3bt) | PoE+ (802.3at) | 0.8 | +13.6 |
| Power consumption | 50 | 26.5 | 0.5 | −11.5 |
| 10G ports | 0 | 0 | 0.8 | +0.0 |
| MAC address table | 16 | 16 | 0.3 | +0.0 |
Not scored: Jumbo frame support (standard for the class (100% have it)); Metal housing (standard for the class (87% have it)).
Editor’s note
The USW Pro Max 24 PoE is what happens when someone at Ubiquiti asks why rack switches have looked the same for thirty years, and Etherlighting is only the visible part of the answer.
The substance underneath is strong, but the shared budget can run only six of the PoE++ ports at full draw at once. A building's worth of Wi-Fi 7 access points, PTZ cameras and displays fits as long as most of them draw well under the per-port maximum, which is precisely the deployment Ubiquiti has in mind. Switching capacity is 112 Gbps with a 16K MAC table, and the L3 side does inter-VLAN and static routing.
This is a UniFi device to its core: management happens through the UniFi Network application (a gateway, Cloud Key or self-hosted controller), and there is no standalone web UI, so as a lone switch in a non-UniFi network it makes little sense. The Layer 3 feature set stops at static routing, with no OSPF or BGP. And it's a 1U chassis that can draw 450 W with PoE in use, for which Ubiquiti publishes no cooling or noise figure, so I would not park it on an open shelf in a quiet office and hope.
For an existing UniFi installation that needs serious PoE++ density with 2.5 GbE for modern APs, this is close to a default buy. Outside that ecosystem, TP-Link's Omada equivalents deliver similar port maps with a standalone UI.
Specifications
Quality bars show where each figure sits between the lowest and highest of the 17 network switches this VS Score is measured against.
Ports
Power over Ethernet
Performance
Management
Design & power
Networking assessment
What the specification table does not say on its own: what this device needs to connect, what speeds are realistic, what costs extra, and where it falls short. Every statement below is read from the verified sheet or written by an editor — nothing is estimated.
Test environment
Research-based assessment: this brief is derived from the manufacturer’s published specifications for the Ubiquiti USW Pro Max 24 PoE and the documents listed under Sources and verification. We have not run this unit on our own network, so nothing here is a measurement of ours.
Connection requirements
Management level: Fully managed. Expect a web interface or cloud dashboard to configure it, which is where VLANs, link aggregation and QoS are set up.
Ports: 26 in total, of which 16 are Gigabit.
PoE budget is 400 W shared across the powered ports — add up the draw of the cameras, phones and access points you intend to hang off it before assuming they all fit.
Throughput expectations
Switching capacity is 112 Gbps, enough for every port to run flat out at once — the usual case for a home or small-office switch.
Jumbo frames are supported, which helps large file transfers between NAS and desktop.
Firmware and subscriptions
Set-up and day-to-day management run through the manufacturer’s cloud service, so that account’s availability and privacy terms are part of the product.
Security support
VLAN support allows work, IoT and guest traffic to be separated on the wired side.
Security-update cadence is not something manufacturers publish as a specification; see Support and updates below.
Known limitations
Not offered, according to the spec sheet: fanless.
Support and updates
We have not found a published firmware support-lifetime commitment for this model. Update policies differ widely between brands; check the support page linked under Sources and verification before relying on it for a long deployment, and treat a device that has stopped receiving security updates as due for replacement.
Sources and verification
Where the specifications come from
- Official product pagetechspecs.ui.com
- Retailer listing (cross-check)amazon.com
Verification
- First published
- Specifications last checked
- Sheet completeness
- 22 of 22 specifications verified; the rest show as Unknown and are never estimated or scored
- Page type
- Product specification page — Compiled from the manufacturer’s published specifications and the cited sources; this is not a hands-on test.
- Basis
- Research-based: specifications and editorial text were compiled from the documents listed here and the manufacturer’s published data. We have not tested this unit ourselves; where independent measurements are mentioned they belong to the linked publication.
Network Switches with similar specs to the Ubiquiti USW Pro Max 24 PoE
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The bottom line
The Ubiquiti USW Pro Max 24 PoE earns a VS Score of 87, above the median of the 17 network switches it is measured against (a score of 50 is level with that median).
- Who it’s for
- Existing UniFi deployments that need PoE++ density: sixteen high-power ports and eight 2.5GbE ports can feed a building of Wi-Fi 7 APs and PTZ cameras, and Etherlighting's color-coded ports help in a busy rack.
- Who should look elsewhere
- Non-UniFi networks: there's no standalone web UI, so without a UniFi controller it's a very pretty unmanaged switch. Also skip it if you need dynamic routing (OSPF/BGP) or a silent unit for an open shelf, since Ubiquiti publishes no noise figure.
- The trade-off that matters
- Ecosystem lock for ecosystem polish: the port map is strong, but every management function assumes UniFi Network, so the switch is only as good as the system around it.
- The main alternative
- TP-Link Omada SG3428XPP-M2: a comparable 2.5G PoE++ port map with a standalone web UI, the sensible pick outside the UniFi world.
The VS Score is calculated from the weighted specifications above, each measured against the median of comparable network switches — a shortlisting guide, not a substitute for your own priorities. See how we score.
