Cisco Catalyst Switches vs Juniper QFabric comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Catalyst Switches and Juniper QFabric based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two LAN Switching solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. Juniper QFabric Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Scalable product.""All features are very strong. It is very easy to manage. It is also certified and popular. Cisco has come up with a new management console to manage the switches. I still haven't tried it, but in my opinion, this is the best way forward. You can use software to manage the switches instead of the common line configuration. You can manage it through software, which is very easy.""These switches are flexible and user-friendly.""There is a lot of improvement in the network segment after replacing the older switches. I have not seen any kind of issue with these switches since deployment. They are pretty much stable.""They don't ever fail and they have a long service life.""I never had downtime with Cisco Catalyst Switches in the last eight years, and I'm pretty impressed with its reliability.""The scalability is excellent.""I have found that the protocols that Cisco Catalyst Switches support are beneficial for my customers."

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"QFabric supports redundancy and includes all of the enterprise and service provider features that customers would want in data center or service provider network.""The solution is easy to use and has good performance.""The 40 gig backbone InterConneX was valuable for our use case. It is even faster now. QFabric has spine-leaf technology or topology, which basically makes every single hop only one hop away in terms of connecting from one device to another. It is a pretty good and robust solution. It works pretty well in terms of scalability, and their technical support is amazing.""Juniper QFabric has various advantages including scalability, simplicity, performance, and flexibility.""The vendor maintains the product well.""It is known for being agile, flexible, and cost-effective when working with various vendors.""It's user-friendly.""The solution is stable."

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Cons
"They should also have a graphic interface for the switches too without the command line.""An area for improvement would be the documentation and training on configuring this product.""Cisco needs to improve compatibility with other solutions and other vendors like SolarWinds. We've had problems using Catalyst with SolarWinds. Some devices can't be put on SolarWinds due to some ID Values and so on.""The solution is expensive.""Any improvements that they make should be in the wireless area of the product.""If we have a major problem, fixing it takes two or three days and six to eight engineers from Cisco. When they escalate a ticket, it goes through too many levels. Every time the issue is passed along to a new person at Cisco support, they ask the same questions repeatedly.""Its initial setup can be simpler, and it would be great if we can work with a reference architecture. Cisco has the capability to provide a very integrated solution. They have DNA Center, Cisco ISE, Cisco Prime, FMC, and AMP. We are looking at all the products, but it is rather complex to pick out the right licenses that you need. The license structure is a bit complex. Sometimes, there is an overlap in products, which does not really make sense. For example, you have DNA Center and Cisco Prime, and it is not really clear what you would use for what exactly. There is a lot of information on the Cisco website, but it takes a while to go through all this and look at the presentations that are available from Cisco Live. These presentations are appreciated, but sometimes, they are a bit too much like bullet points. You don't exactly know what's behind it, so you have to do a second guess. Overall, there is a lot of information but not always to the point.""It is kind of expensive."

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"The pricing structure could be more budget-friendly.""The disruptive upgrade was an issue for us.""They are working on the virtualization of the actual fabric layer. They are moving away from the original spine-leaf design to a different infrastructure. Instead of having three tiers, which was the director of the interconnected nodes, they cut them back, and they still have that kind of structure.""It works too much on rebooting and there is some memory leakage.""Having support for all OpenFlow versions would be beneficial.""The stability needs to be improved.""I do not use GUI's very much for switch stacks. I am always in the CLI. However, I do know that Juniper in the past has lacked on their GUI's, but they have been working on it.""It would be nice if Juniper provided the system integrator with training, similar to that of Cisco."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "​The price should go down instead of up. ​"
  • "It has a very high cost, but understandably, due to its very good quality."
  • "Cisco's prices are not cheap, but the stability is worth it."
  • "Pricing could be better."
  • "If you consider Cisco's price with the Dell, you will definitely lose with Cisco. But Cisco has a major area of equipment in general. Cisco has routers, firewalls, NAC, certain video conferencing, Apple phones, and different security solutions. But Dell doesn't have such areas, Dell only has switching architecture."
  • "Generally, Cisco Catalyst would be relatively expensive compared to the competition, it would be on the expensive side."
  • "Pricing is an issue I have been facing, in comparison with HPE or Juniper. The Nexus series is out of the question right now. Scalability is more an issue on the pricing side and less on the technology side."
  • "Catalyst is very expensive."
  • More Cisco Catalyst Switches Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "In terms of price, the QFabric solution is going to be probably in the middle of the road for a fabric solution."
  • "The price for Juniper QFabric could improve. There are subscription, maintenance, and add-on feature fees."
  • "Juniper QFabric is a high-level solution but it could be less expensive."
  • "The pricing is high."
  • "The pricing is high and it is possible to find better pricing option solutions on the market, but the licensing model is quite flexible."
  • "The price is relatively high, but it offers an advantage over its competitors by providing better performance and functionality."
  • More Juniper QFabric Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Hello Mesfin It depends on the real scenario, the cisco 2960 is a very good device and they usually have routing functions but there are many different models within the same 2960 line, and on the… more »
    Top Answer:The most valuable features of the solution are BGP, VPN, and spine-leaf architecture.
    Top Answer:The vendor maintains the product well.
    Top Answer:The price is relatively high, but it offers an advantage over its competitors by providing better performance and functionality. I would rate it three out of ten.
    Top Answer:The stability needs to be improved.
    Ranking
    1st
    out of 16 in LAN Switching
    Views
    11,301
    Comparisons
    5,661
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    449
    Rating
    8.8
    10th
    out of 16 in LAN Switching
    Views
    707
    Comparisons
    585
    Reviews
    3
    Average Words per Review
    240
    Rating
    9.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Cisco Catalyst, Catalyst
    QFabric
    Learn More
    Overview

    Cisco Catalyst Switches are a reliable and scalable network switching and routing solution, focusing on VLANs and VLAN switching. They are used as access switches, distribution switches, and core switches in various environments, deployed on-premises, and used for long connections. The switches are easy to configure, install, and upgrade and offer good pricing. 

    The most valuable features include warranty and firmware support, stability, security, good performance, flexibility, etc. The Cisco Catalyst Switches have provided a stable solution for the organizations and are widely used, trusted, and well-known in the networking industry.

    Juniper QFabric System is composed of multiple components working together as a single switch to provide high-performance, any-to-any connectivity and management simplicity in the data center. The QFabric System flattens the entire data center network to a single tier where all access points are equal, eliminating the effects of network locality and making it the ideal network foundation for cloud-ready, virtualized data centers.The highly scalable QFabric System improves application performance with low latency and converged services in a nonblocking, lossless architecture that supports Layer 2, Layer 3, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capabilities.
    Sample Customers
    Afni, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Baylor Scott & White Health, Beachbody, Bellevue, Del Papa Distributing, Explorer Pipeline, Mindtree, Omaha World Herald, Radio 538, Sony Corporation, Telecom Italia, Telenor Arena
    MCB Bank
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company13%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    University10%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization52%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Government4%
    Manufacturing Company4%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business41%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business11%
    Midsize Enterprise57%
    Large Enterprise31%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business40%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise64%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. Juniper QFabric
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. Juniper QFabric and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cisco Catalyst Switches is ranked 1st in LAN Switching with 166 reviews while Juniper QFabric is ranked 10th in LAN Switching with 9 reviews. Cisco Catalyst Switches is rated 8.6, while Juniper QFabric is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Cisco Catalyst Switches writes "Reliable and stable catalyst switch; can be easily installed". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Juniper QFabric writes "Performs well, is easy to set up, and the vendor maintains the product well". Cisco Catalyst Switches is most compared with Arista Networks Platform, Dell PowerConnect Switches, HPE ProCurve, Cisco Nexus and ExtremeSwitching, whereas Juniper QFabric is most compared with Cisco Nexus and Cisco FabricPath. See our Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. Juniper QFabric report.

    See our list of best LAN Switching vendors.

    We monitor all LAN Switching 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.