We performed a comparison between Cisco Catalyst Switches and NETGEAR Switches 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."It works well."
"The product’s scalability and performance are valuable."
"The product is also flexible."
"The ability to configure throughput is very flexible and improved the performance of our systems."
"These switches are stable. They work well and are easy to use."
"Since Cisco Catalyst Switches don't go online, they are secured."
"One main feature with Cisco is you know you are going to get a very good switching infrastructure that is secure."
"This solution has a pretty good rate of not causing unexpected behavior or failing. We're using maybe 900 switches right now. And, rarely, if ever, something fails, it's dependable."
"Its setup, usage, and access are most valuable. It is a very easy switch to set up."
"We have a wide range of switches for various applications, including a collection specifically designed for ProAV, as well as Multi-gig Switches, which are also quite well-known or unique."
"The ability to manage them is the big valuable feature. The ease of use is great."
"The solution is very powerful and versatile."
"The remote management tools are fantastic. The combination of the webpage as well as the app makes life so much easier. I don't need to go and visit sites to do upgrades or any sorts of changes. The firmware can all be deployed remotely. I can see the traffic on each of the switch ports remotely as well, so I can see if we've got problems, down to an individual port. It's very granular."
"The solution helps transfer data."
"The ease of use of these switches is very good because of the Cisco CLI. If you are familiar with CLI, then you can configure the switch that way. It also has a relatively straightforward web interface. Using the web interface is good for beginners or people who aren't familiar with Cisco CLI. However, having a common command line interface method is great for some of our more advanced guys who are familiar with it."
"The big winner for NETGEAR is their modular switch: the 96X version. That is something that you don't see in the market anywhere else, except for Cisco who has it at a high level for a high expense. The ability to customize your own switch with their modules is a big plus for what we do in the market right now. Instead of having to piece together standardized switches, trying to make something work, or fitting the design into the mold, the modular switches are aware that you can make a mark in the industry because you purchased one switch and design with different modules added and removed later on for functionality."
"Currently, Catalyst is completely proprietary with Cisco. They should have programmability options, through open-source controllers."
"The GUI should be addressed."
"The product could always be more secure."
"The addition of more security and privilege levels to Cisco Catalyst Switches is required as it is one of the areas with certain shortcomings."
"First of all, there are some features that take a long time to get implemented, and other vendors have them for a long time before them. For example, it took a long time to have a way to commit change with the timer, so it gets undone if the user doesn't accept the change after it's done. Like, having to say the changes be done, and everything works fine. In the end, everything works fine, but it didn't exist. That's just an example of stuff that came late to Catalyst."
"Cisco switches are expensive."
"The vendor must provide mid-level switches."
"The solution is expensive."
"NETGEAR Switches could be more secure. Scalability could also be better. This infrastructure is a bit old, and we need something that will be more secure. Something that will introduce WLAN, and we will need the knowledge to go with that. Some of the switches were used for more than seven years. I think it was just their lifespan that was exhausted. But other than that, there haven't been any issues that required us to complain or get concerned."
"The management of them, itself, is not so good. You have to go between many different browsers, even some super-old browsers, to be able to do it. That is a super pain."
"Being able to pass AVB traffic over these switches, that would be a huge add. There are not many switches out that support that. The GS728TP NETGEAR switches used to or still do support AVB, but it would be ideal if the 4300 Series could support it as well."
"They need to continue moving forward with their consulting in the AV realm to find out what is needed. They are some differences in the M4300 line and the larger M4500 line right now. They could produce a 1 Gigabit variety that could be a bit cheaper that might fit into that, since the majority of the projects that we see are still in that 1 Gigabit bandwidth threshold. Along with that, a great option would be if it would provide the same modular ability on a lower level."
"The web interface has been a little sketchy on occasion. Sometimes I have to reload the page to get things to show up properly, but the switch itself seems fine. The web user interface is a little wonky at times."
"Netgear switches could be cheaper."
"There are some design issues on which they really missed the boat. The problem has to do with rack mounting them because the lights and jacks should all be on the front, and the power on the back. The way they did it makes it really difficult to use them in a rack environment, because when the lights are on the opposite side of the jacks... you usually can't see the back side of a rack. You can't get back there to see, so it's just crazy."
"Their old firmware was a problem for us and we're still working on it. It didn't apply correctly so it took about half of our switches offline, which meant we couldn't use some of the functionality like the firmware updates. Unfortunately with that firmware, which they've sorted out, if you don't go through all the firmware and make sure it's past that point and back online, that's an issue with them. It's something to cautious about"
Cisco Catalyst Switches is ranked 1st in LAN Switching with 170 reviews while NETGEAR Switches is ranked 5th in LAN Switching with 50 reviews. Cisco Catalyst Switches is rated 8.6, while NETGEAR Switches is rated 8.2. 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 NETGEAR Switches writes "You can stack different models of switches which makes the scalability great". Cisco Catalyst Switches is most compared with Arista Networks Platform, Dell PowerConnect Switches, Cisco Nexus, HPE ProCurve and Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch LAN Switches, whereas NETGEAR Switches is most compared with D-Link Ethernet Switches, Cisco Linksys Ethernet Switches, Cisco Ethernet Switches, Ubiquiti UniFi Switches and Meraki MS Switches. See our Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. NETGEAR Switches report.
See our list of best LAN Switching vendors and best AV Over IP Switching vendors.
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