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."The pricing is quite good."
"These switches are stable. They work well and are easy to use."
"They are pretty good. They are stable. Cisco has been around in the industry for a long time, so they are reliable, as well."
"One main feature with Cisco is you know you are going to get a very good switching infrastructure that is secure."
"We use a lot of security features available with Cisco Catalyst Switches."
"We find the product very easy to configure."
"The most valuable features include the redundancy one and the spanning tree."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is communication."
"The ability to mix and match is invaluable. So, we didn't have to run massive super extensive switches in the data closets where it wasn't necessary. Being able to manage it all from one place, as all your network configuration settings went live across your entire building from one management console was really handy."
"Their online portal is one of the most useful features. The portal is very user-friendly, so even someone with not a lot of tech experience can go in and see what's going on with the switch."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to use."
"As far as remoting into it goes, it is very efficient because I can do it from anywhere, through the remote software. I can get right into it, I can change settings really quickly, if a customer needs to add another device into it or if I need to make changes on the VLANs that we created."
"The remote troubleshooting features provide a single pane of glass where I can see my all my clients' equipment. If they're reporting a problem, I can go to the Insight Pro interface online and I can bring up that client and I can see all their devices and the status of all their devices."
"I'm satisfied with the stability of NETGEAR Switches."
"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."
"One of the biggest benefits of the remote management is that it's easy to use and you can use it from a mobile device or tablet with the app they've developed... If one of my engineers is out in the field at a client and an alert comes in from another client, that engineer can take that alert and look at it in real-time."
"I think that the price should be cheaper and they should include at least one year of basic service for technical support for each product, and not just the 90 days from the time of purchase."
"In an upcoming release, adding SD-WAN capabilities would be a big advantage for our company."
"The price is high and it should be improved."
"The cost of this product is very high and not all companies can afford it."
"Reporting could be improved as well as integration possibilities with other platforms."
"In the future, I would like to see better security for this product."
"The product could always be more secure."
"I would like to see better efficiency. They are powering all the PoE ports 100% of the time instead of powering only when there is a draw on them. It has too many options. Therefore, there is a reasonably high barrier to entry in terms of learning about this stuff. A lot of times, you need to be a CCNA, which is like your ticket into the industry, but it is not the easiest thing to get."
"The scalability and warranty should also be improved."
"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."
"The tool needs to improve its network management. The tool can be also more simplified."
"The technical support could be more helpful."
"Perhaps in the future, we will have even more different types of switches and be able to fulfill more collections."
"There are a lot of systems that are moving into different areas. There are a lot of cloud-based things happening. One nice feature that I've seen in other switches is artificial intelligence on the actual porting. They've got AI technology that will tell you when a port is down. They not only tell you when a port is down; they also tell you when a port is running slower. You can do a cable-fault check, or you can do other checks. It would be nice to have this information in NETGEAR. This feature might already be there in a new release of the NETGEAR's firmware, but I haven't seen it."
"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."
"My one issue with it is that not all the features of the switch can currently be managed via the portal. For some of the more advanced features, you still have to configure the switch."
Cisco Catalyst Switches is ranked 1st in LAN Switching with 171 reviews while NETGEAR Switches is ranked 5th in LAN Switching with 51 reviews. Cisco Catalyst Switches is rated 8.6, while NETGEAR Switches is rated 8.4. 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, Ubiquiti UniFi Switches, Cisco Ethernet 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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