We performed a comparison between Cisco Ethernet Switches and NETGEAR Switches based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: NETGEAR Switches come out ahead in this comparison. They are easy to set up, flexible, and have excellent customer support. In addition, They are cheaper than Cisco Ethernet Switches.
"Multicast is a great feature of this product."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Ethernet Switches is its hardware."
"Multicast is an advanced feature that helps alleviate some of our work challenges."
"Tech support has always been good."
"The features that I have found most valuable with Cisco switches are that once you get your configuration you can rest assured that it will work. The OS is not going to be failing intermittently or anything like that. Once you get your configuration end-goal right, the firmware and the OS are usually very stable enough to work a long time without support. Support is needed once in a while. My experience is that the Cisco switches are usually rocket."
"The solution effectively provides a stable connection for users."
"The product is pretty much reliable and stable."
"Remote access is a valuable feature."
"The remote troubleshooting is pretty easy. You can turn off a port that might have a network loop created, or where there might be a bad NIC card that is creating issues. Being able to turn off that port remotely is fantastic, instead of having to replace the whole switch. Remote management is really easy."
"The most important feature is the failover, the LACP links. That's the dual set it allows. We have redundant core switches and, if one fails or one network adapter fails, the other one can take over without problems."
"For what I used this switch for, it did well."
"Netgear switches are highly reliable. We haven't done anything particularly sophisticated with them."
"The initial setup is easy."
"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."
"This is a cost-effective solution."
"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."
"I haven't heard from my engineers that they said it's excellent."
"One area for improvement could be integrating a single dashboard for both wired and wireless networks."
"The current state of Cisco Ethernet Switches leaves room for improvement, particularly in regard to central management and security. While they possess the capability to function as owners of Layer Two, they fall short in regard to security awareness. While there are some supplementary products available that can provide additional security measures, such as the deployment of virtual machines, these solutions are external and not integrated within the switch itself. For this reason, Cisco Ethernet switches could benefit from incorporating the same centralized management and security features as other companies, such as Fortinet, offer in their FortiSwitches. By being aware of potential threats such as MAC spoofing and ARP poisoning, the switch can provide a more comprehensive level of security."
"Switches should be made stackable, even if they are not of the same model."
"The installation is difficult and requires further training documentations."
"We've had hardware problems like SSDs, ports, networking, things like that."
"If we can have fewer bugs on our switches, that would be great. We had bugs that caused the switch to reboot. There is probably a problem with the software."
"The price of the solution has room for improvement."
"The product's scalability has certain shortcomings that can be improved."
"The main negative thing is the speed. When you use the portal, if you have a lot of customers and locations in the portal, and you need to scroll through those clients or those locations, it takes a pretty long time to load those pages and to select the client. That's the problem in the portal on the laptop, and it's the same problem in the portal on the app."
"It's worked for the most part, but we've had to power cycle a few devices. We've had to ask customers to manually power cycle them with the power cord, after some of the firmware updates. Their updating needs a little improvement."
"Though the tool's useability is good, it has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"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."
"Lacks switches with additional ports that provide room for new protocols of communications."
"If they could come up with ways to look at metrics on it while the video is capping through the system, that would be nice. There could be some interesting uses for that, but it's a long way off."
Cisco Ethernet Switches is ranked 1st in Ethernet Switches with 128 reviews while NETGEAR Switches is ranked 4th in Ethernet Switches with 50 reviews. Cisco Ethernet Switches is rated 8.6, while NETGEAR Switches is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Ethernet Switches writes "It's a solidly stable product from a leader in the field". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NETGEAR Switches writes "You can stack different models of switches which makes the scalability great". Cisco Ethernet Switches is most compared with Aruba Switches, Fortinet FortiSwitch - Secure Access, D-Link Ethernet Switches, Ubiquiti UniFi Switches and Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches, whereas NETGEAR Switches is most compared with D-Link Ethernet Switches, Cisco Linksys Ethernet Switches, Ubiquiti UniFi Switches, MikroTik Routers and Switches and Aruba Switches. See our Cisco Ethernet Switches vs. NETGEAR Switches report.
See our list of best Ethernet Switches vendors.
We monitor all Ethernet Switches 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.
