We performed a comparison between Arista Networks Platform and Cisco Nexus based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: In this comparison, the two products received similar ratings across all categories. However, users of Arista Networks Platform reported seeing an ROI while users of Cisco Nexus did not.
"The user-friendly policy manager lets us apply different controls for various user groups easily."
"It is very stable. It has good hardware and very stable code. It provides good value for its price. They are a very lean type of organization, so they are very responsive, and they're able to focus more on their platform versus having multiple products out there."
"The solution is very stable."
"The best part is the single operating system that they have. Regardless of your model, it's the same operating system functioning across the board, which means you don't have to worry about backward compatibilities between your older switches and the new ones that you deploy."
"Arista Networks Platform offers straightforward deployment, and has good features. Support for the platform is also good."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"I like the spine as a leaf model and low latency. The hardware is robust and meets expected latency in all environments, mainly if you belong to the media or trading industry. For multicast-based solutions, Arista is number one."
"The most valuable aspect of Arista Networks products is their ease of configuration, especially when compared to Cisco products. When we implement advanced features for data centers such as BGP EVPN and VXLAN, Arista's configuration process is similar to that of Cisco's process, but at the same time it is simply much easier, clearer, and more understandable."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability."
"The most valuable features are the solution is robust, you are able to use it for fabric architecture as well as SPAN on exit with the controller."
"We used older versions of Cisco Cloud. The reason why we switched was just adapting with the times."
"Current flexibility and the opportunities for future planning and scaling make this product line an ultimate opportunity."
"You can scale the product."
"The setup was very easy, but managing it in operations was very complex."
"The in-service software upgrade (ISSU) feature is quite valuable."
"The setup is straightforward. I'd like to see the firmware and code upgradability to be slightly more intuitive."
"The solution is quite expensive. One of the negative aspects of it is the pricing."
"The intent-based networking management, together with the provider of these solutions that are already free, would be beneficial."
"The community is good but is not good enough. It still needs to grow more."
"I want the solution to include a unified controller."
"The solution needs to improve their product range."
"An area for improvement in Arista Networks Platform is its integration, e.g. it needs to have more integration with its new products. Incorporating more security and cloud is also another area for improvement in the platform."
"Its price can be better."
"They should have a more stable code."
"Cisco Nexus needs to add the SDN capability and lower the price."
"I would like to see the integration of the products into something where it's seamless where an engineer never touches the switch again, never does CLI and you move to an application based network organization."
"The solution has room for improvement in terms of the learning curve."
"There are too many different model numbers and too much complexity."
"They need to understand that when we call them and have an issue, it's our production and sometimes they want us to do repairs that would cause other issues. That's the biggest problem."
"Ease-of-use and making things more human-readable is most important."
"I would like to see Duo directly integrated with the Nexus hardware, instead of it being through the proxies, like how Duo works today."
"The cost of the support can be improved. We had critical operations, and we needed 24/7 support for 365 days, which was quite expensive. We had to go for a very costly support contract, which was really a concern. The availability of spare parts, especially in a remote location such as Egypt, can also be improved."
Arista Networks Platform is ranked 2nd in Data Center Networking with 21 reviews while Cisco Nexus is ranked 3rd in Data Center Networking with 101 reviews. Arista Networks Platform is rated 8.6, while Cisco Nexus is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Arista Networks Platform writes "Affordable for enterprise-sized companies". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Nexus writes " Offer high performance capabilities and enables efficient data transmission and processing". Arista Networks Platform is most compared with Cisco Catalyst Switches, Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches, Aruba Switches, Cisco Ethernet Switches and Meraki MS Switches, whereas Cisco Nexus is most compared with Cisco Catalyst Switches, Juniper QFX Series Switches, Dell PowerConnect Switches, VMware NSX and Juniper QFabric. See our Arista Networks Platform vs. Cisco Nexus report.
See our list of best Data Center Networking vendors.
We monitor all Data Center Networking reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.