NETGEAR Switches Reviews

In my house, there are LAN wires throughout the house, along with eight or nine LAN ports or LAN points, to take care of which we needed NETGEAR Switches. When dealing with internet services from multiple ISPs, NETGEAR Switches help us to join the connection and help with the load balancing part.

The most valuable features of the solution are its ability to take care of the LAN ports or LAN points and deal with the internet services from multiple ISPs.

The gigabyte range NETGEAR Switches claims to provide its users is not actually a gigabyte output. Until and unless you go for a high-end model of NETGEAR Switches, it does not provide any speed, which is not something that is good. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement.

The product's scalability has certain shortcomings that can be improved.

I have been using NETGEAR Switches for a decade. I use the solution's latest device, which was purchased two years ago, and it works fine.

It is a stable solution. At times, the USB ports go off and stop working, but it is fine.

The product's scalability is okay. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

The number of users of the tool depends on the number of ports. The higher model of NETGEAR Switches was extensively used, but the lower model was not that extensively used.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The setup phase took 10 to 15 minutes.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

The setup phase involves plug and play, where you connect the device to multiple LANs, and it starts to work. One can go to the admin module of the UI and configure it according to one's preferences, after which it is ready.

I took care of the solution's implementation phase.

I have experienced a return on investment through the use of NETGEAR Switches.

There are no licensing costs. It only involves the costs of the devices.

NETGEAR Switches are good and efficient, so it is worth trying.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

We use this product for the entire IT network and for CCTV. We have many integrators and are resellers of NETGEAR Switches, and I design solutions for our customers. Our company is based in India, I'm an information technology professional and we are end users of this product. 

NETGEAR has most of the good security features that other switches have and it's cost-effective. 

I'd like to see a more robust solution. They need to focus on sustainability and security at the port level with more visibility and controllability of the switch. I'd like to see a warranty similar to that provided by other solutions. 

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

The solution is pretty stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

The customer support is good. They are responsive, fast, and they're knowledgeable about the product. 

The initial setup is not complex in any way. There's no maintenance required once the solution is deployed. 

NETGEAR is competitive and cost-effective in comparison to Aruba and other solutions. It's not the most expensive, but it's not cheap. You're getting what you pay for. 

Compared to NETGEAR, Cisco has lots of other features within the switch where you can include lots of securities. The switches are very sustainable and can run for  years and years if the environment is okay. There are a few securities that we use to build a firewall or some other level where we can put lots of security on the port, as far as the loop and hacking goes. If anything happens in the network, there are lots of things that can be controlled at switch level. NETGEAR has less of these kinds of options. 

My recommendation of NETGEAR to a customer would be dependent on the kind of solution they have, their budget, network size and the length of time they expect it to work. The product is more suitable for medium size organizations. Enterprise organizations generally look for other solutions in that sphere. 

I rate the solution six out of 10. 

We use it for networking. We use the switches from NETGEAR for 10GB internet. We are using the M4300.

We implement our own solutions. We resell to clients in the audiovisual sector. We specialize in audiovisual productions, 3D animation, compositing, and the like. Our clientele is all in the same sector.

We upgraded from a previous, 1GB-only solution so it should be a lot faster but I don't have any benchmarks on it. In the past, there were some complaints from employees that the network was slow but I haven't had any more complaints about it. That's a metric, of sorts.

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.

You have to know a bit about networking of course, but for me the ease of use is about a nine out of ten.

It's very stable. I haven't had almost any issues since it was up and running. 

I had one issue with an extra WiFi deployment that I did, which caused network interruptions, but it had nothing to do with the core installation. It was just the WiFi equipment that brought down the network because of loop creation, but that had nothing to do with the main switches.

Currently, I have five Ethernet switches running. I think it scales up to eight within one stack, so that is more than enough for our purposes. Instead of going with discrete switches, which have to be managed separately, one of the big advantages of this product is that you can put it all in one stack. The whole switch stack is viewed as one big switch, which is really good for us. So it's very scalable. In the future, I could even add three more switches and I think they have a new product now that has 96 ports. It's way more scalable than we will ever need in our company.

I have not needed to contact technical support yet.

We used HPE previously. The reason I switched to NETGEAR was because of pricing differences, which are huge, when you go into 10GB networking. It was mainly a price-oriented decision. I also read a lot of positive reviews in the forum I visited, so that was another factor which made me decide to go with NETGEAR.

The setup was very straightforward. I just configured a few IP addresses, maybe a few settings on the ports, and that was it. The whole system was set up in about one hour or so. It went very smoothly.

The whole deployment was in phases. I first set up the core switches and hooked them up to the old switches and then gradually changed everybody over to the new stack. The total time was about a month, before everybody was switched over. It all went very smoothly. It could have been done in a day if nobody had to keep working. There wasn't an option to shut down the company for a complete day, so I had to do it gradually.

I planned the migration ahead of time. I calculated the time it would take to get the units here. We actually did a complete overhaul of our server room. We moved it inside of the building, so I had to switch over to the old switches to the new server room. So there was quite a lot of planning involved, mostly on the timing of when the steps would be taken. I had to do some calculations about how much time every step would take. There was quite a bit of planning, but it all went quite smoothly, so no complaints here.

I don't think anybody without knowledge of networking would be able to set up the system as I did it. Expert is a "big" word, but you have to know something about networking before you can use this kind of product.

I did everything myself. I had some help from people on a forum called Spiceworks. I contacted NETGEAR directly and they put me into contact with the Benelux departments. But I did the integrations myself. We are also a reseller of servers and networking equipment and the like. So I'm quite good at that stuff.

The price-to-performance of this solution, on a scale from one to ten, is about nine. 

The pricing is quite good. We don't have any kind of licensing on the device, as far as I know. There's one product which you can purchase a license for, it's NETGEAR Insight, to manage the switches remotely on the Internet, but we don't need it. I just manage them locally.

It helped us save some money, of course. The total cost of the deployment was about 11,000 euros or so. If I had gone with HPE it would have been at least twice as much. I think Cisco might have even been more expensive.

At the beginning, I was looking at Cisco vs NETGEAR but I didn't get any response from Cisco. I also looked at HPE, but it was a bit too expensive for a 10GB. I did a minor bit of research about their products, but it quickly became obvious that NETGEAR was the way to go for us.

I didn't consider Ubiquiti. Ubiquiti is okay for smaller deployments but, as I said, we are scaling up in the coming months to about 50 workstations, a few office machines and about ten servers, so I don't know if Ubiquiti would have been an option for us. I know they have high-end gear also, but I didn't look into it.

Just buy it. If the network is the same scale as my network, about 100 PCs and about ten to 15 servers, it's an ideal solution for that. Also, go look on Spiceworks for help. Ask for Kieran. That is somebody from NETGEAR who helped me out a lot.

I don't think anything is missing in the product. I don't think there should be any improvements.

At the moment, we have about 15 users and we will scale up in the coming months to about 50 users. In terms of deployment and maintenance, it's just me. I do everything related to IT in the company.

Everybody uses the product because it's our core switch. I think we have some overhead in regard to the number of clients that are connected at the moment. In that context, I think its usage is about 30 or 40 percent, at the moment.

We don't use the high-bandwidth AV over IP functionality.

Overall I would give it a nine out of ten. Nothing is perfect. If it were perfect, I would just have to plug in some cables and the system would manage itself. Then I would call it perfect. But you still have to put some work into it, and that's normal.

The solution is used as a networking device.

The solution is good.

The security features must be improved.

I have used the solution for ten years.

The tool is stable.

More than 200 people were using the tool in our organization. We were using it regularly.

We have upgraded to Cisco because it has better security features.

The setup is not complex, but it is not easy. The deployment can be done in half an hour.

Our network engineers deployed the solution.

Overall, I rate the product a seven out of ten.

This particular unit controls all of the fiber optics coming in from each of our buildings for the property that we are managing.

At this particular facility, what they had was a Cisco router coming in, and then a gigabit switch. That switch went out to these 10 x 100 fiber optic switches, which were outdated. That bottlenecked the whole network at the network room, and then it went out to a media converter, and then to a gigabit switch, and then it went out to the clients' routers inside their homes. It was a pretty complex network.

The idea was to find the right product so I could eliminate all of those extra pieces and devices and the troubleshooting that went with them, and pare it down to only two pieces of equipment. The right equipment was the NETGEAR M4300-96X. It allowed me to be able to troubleshoot much quicker. It allowed the operations to be very seamless.

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 which we created.

Another great function of this particular switch is that we have roughly 100-plus VLANs running through it and it's never had an issue. No hiccups, nothing. It just works like a well-oiled machine. It has saved us a lot of time and money and it allows our customers to be more efficient and save money too.

The most valuable feature to me is the modular side of things, being able to replace a module and a transceiver at our beck and call. If something goes down, or a piece of equipment is broken, I don't have to replace the whole switch. I can just replace the part that's broken or the part that is no longer working. I can get them back up and working within a matter of minutes, versus having to replace everything and reprogram everything. It's a huge time-saver.

The switch itself actually works fantastically. Getting into it works well, the console works well. The console user interface is very easy. A "question mark" is the big key to that whole console. If you don't know anything, it actually walks you through what to look for and how to look for it, when you're in different sections of the console.

Besides the modules, the software and the web interface, are actually very easy to use. They make life, programming, and everything very simple.

Right now I'm working with their technical support. When the power does go out, or if we do a soft shutdown, some of the transceivers or the monitor don't recognize when it turns back on, so I have to physically unplug it and plug it back in and then it works. We're working with NETGEAR's engineers to figure out why that's happening. 

Besides that, everything else is working great. It's on a UPS so it hardly ever goes down.

The M4300 is a workhorse. It works extremely well and it's very efficient. Besides the little problems that we still encounter when it powers off and powers back on, as long as the UPS stays working, it's never really given me any problems. I would purchase it again, absolutely.

The scalability is endless. Anywhere from putting in the gigabit ethernet ports, which we do have in the switch, to setting up full fiber optic 10 gig ports through the transceivers - depending on what fiber you're running - it is fully scalable. It can be very inexpensive or it can be very expensive depending on how much you're putting into it. But even at that point, it's going to do the job and probably better than most Ethernet switches out there.

Tech support is phenomenal. They've been great. They've always been there when I've needed them. They've called and remoted in if I needed them to look at certain issues. They've been wonderful. They've always performed at 100 percent for me. They've always been great to me and our company.

We took over this job and the solution that was there was probably the worst design I've ever seen. It was pretty much bottlenecked at the network and bottlenecked at each building in the complex. They were maxing out at 90 megs when there were 250 megs going through the full network.

We removed the media converter and the gigabit switch and got a full NETGEAR GS110, which has the fiber optic transceiver input. We had the ethernet ports on it too so we didn't have to use two pieces of equipment, just the one. We programmed VLANs and it works flawlessly. I've never had any issues with any of them.

For this particular property that we're working at, the setup was pretty complex because you can't have them all talk to each other. So the initial setup was making sure that each building has a specific IP address and a VLAN so that each person and each unit can't see the computers on someone else's network in a different building. Before I even designed the network I talked to NETGEAR's tier-three or tier-four engineers about how to make this work properly, and they were very helpful in making the setup easy.

The two pieces of the puzzle were that the switch was very easy to work with, and the firewall where we had to make sure that the policies were in place. But once they were in place, setup was actually really easy. For 270 units, it took us less than a month to install it, and get it programmed, and up and working 100 percent.

In terms of implementation strategy, I designed it in my computer system first. I took the layout that we got from our monitoring software, which basically monitored all of the different pieces of equipment there were on the network, and it looked like a big spaghetti bowl of networks going east and west. That is not what a network is supposed to look like.

My design was to make it look like a Christmas tree, with one point where the internet is coming in, and then it reaches the firewall, and from that it goes to the switch. From the switch it goes out to all of the different little switches, and then from the little switches, it reaches the customers' routers.

It's like a "family tree" type of design where you have the main point and then it just starts trickling down, versus going from one point where the internet is and then just spreading out east and west. With the old setup, there was no real way to troubleshoot the network. I made a simple to design from Point A to Point B, Point B to Point C, and then from Point C it goes out to all of the different points throughout the network, which was VLAN'ed out to each building. Then, each building has its own IP address.

It was very easy once I understood how it's supposed to be set up. We have a lot of different clients in various units, like a stockbroker or a financial person, so we had to lock down the network and make sure that no one else could see what they're doing and make sure that they didn't have cross-communication between each building.

I wouldn't say you have to be an IT expert, but you definitely need to know what you're doing. You definitely need to understand the concept behind the functionality of what the switch can do, especially VLANs and making sure what type of traffic is going through the network and through the firewall, so you can make sure that the communication is tagged properly.

You should have some years of experience working on a network like that in order to put it in place. I don't think a beginner would be able to get it to work efficiently. Even me, as a professional who has been in the industry a very long time - for over 15 years - it still took me a little bit of time to make sure that it was set up properly, by talking to the engineers to make sure that the functionality was working like it's supposed to.

We got the deployment done with two staff members; for the actual switch itself, one person is enough, easily.

It was just us, just our company. I did the full implementation myself. When I ran into any issues or needed to some questions answered I reached out to NETGEAR's engineering staff and they helped me.

We saw a return on investment immediately, as soon as we implemented the system, because we weren't going onsite to troubleshoot the existing problems. Being able to design it from scratch and utilizing good equipment allowed us to show the client that, in the end, we can cut back on our hours. We don't have to be there all of the time, which will save them money. And the time saved allows us to do other projects for them, which we're doing now.

I would say it has saved us about 30 to 40 percent.

When it comes to price-to-performance of the solution, overall, it's outstanding. That's one of the reasons I designed the network this way and chose this particular device. The overall cost was not that expensive compared to some of the competitors out there. Add to that the usability and functionality. And being able to troubleshoot the switch if there is a problem is so much easier because it's a modular switch. There are not too many modular switches out there.

The pricing is phenomenal. It's not only good for the company providing the solution, but the customer gets a good deal too. There's a good profit margin for the business to be able to resell it to a client or to offer a good price to the client. It's a win-win for both the company providing this particular equipment to the customer and for the customer.

The cost of hardware and additional services is low. We have three-year support that's built-in with NETGEAR, which is great. That might be standard in the industry, but as far as their help goes, they've been wonderful.

Right now, on the little switches, we're only using the switch. We're not really utilizing Insight because of the cost.

I looked at a lot of the competitors out there including NETGEAR vs Cisco Ethernet Switches and Barracuda; you name it. I looked at all the different switches. NETGEAR was the one that caught my eye, especially with that modular switch.

I looked into Ubiquiti, but we already had Ubiquiti access points on the property. Personally, I didn't like the way that the controllers and the software were set up. I definitely like the NETGEAR stuff better.

The price point, compared to a lot of the competitors that didn't have the modular switch, was about 20 to 30 percent less expensive. The functionality and the tech support were big things too, in my decision to go with NETGEAR.

If you're building out a network, utilize the skillsets of a consulting company that knows what they're doing, that understands what your problems are so that they find the right solution and the right products. Don't go to ABC Company and get a cookie-cutter package that's not really going to solve the problem that you have. Each does something different so having the right product on the network and knowing what the functionality of that product is, that's the big key to the puzzle.

Regarding the high-bandwidth AV over IP functionality, the property that we're managing has 270 units and they're all streaming on the network, either 4K or HD movies. They have Netflix and a lot of them use Amazon software or Amazon Fire, or they use a Roku or different streaming platforms through their TVs and on their network. High-bandwidth AV over IP allows the switch to just do its job, and the switch works really well.

We're not doing any routing through the switch, although it also has that capability which is great. Right now we have a firewall that's on the network that is controlling the routing but the switch does a phenomenal job, especially with the AV side of things. It has never held us back and the speed through it is pretty phenomenal. Most of it is through fiber optics so we're getting almost the full speed, which right now is at 250 by 250, at everyone's complex. Most of them are getting about 200, and we just upgraded the network to one gig, up and down, so we can't wait to see what the switch is able to do.

This solution is serving about 300 users. It doesn't take much for maintenance. As long as you do the firmware updates, and normally there aren't too many, it's good. We've put in place a lot of little things so backing it up is easy, it's automatic. The configuration file is easy. There's not much to do to maintain it because it does it automatically. It automatically backs up and it automatically updates the firmware. As long as the configuration file is saved, if there's ever an issue, uploading it is very easy too.

We don't have plans to increase usage at this time. We're using about 85 percent of the switch when it comes to the functionalities of what the switch does. We're at the point where we don't need to utilize it more because I designed the network to future-proof it ahead of time. Once I installed it I didn't have to change it anymore, because I knew that we were going to be getting the one-gig circuit. All of the equipment that's there is already built for a one-gig circuit. Once we get the new internet I just change the IP addresses and that's it. I won't have to touch it again.

It's helped us tremendously, in terms of the equipment, knowing that we can rely on the NETGEAR product. It will allow our customer to save a ton of money, in the long term, because we were able to remove all of the extra equipment. We were able to put in one piece of equipment, versus utilizing four different switches to run the network, switches which were bottlenecking the full network itself. It's helped us tremendously to be able to show them that we're a reliable company and that we offer great products. It does the job that we said it was going to do, and that's why I would continue using the NETGEAR product.

I would rate the M4300 a ten out of ten. Even with the issues I mentioned, it has saved me time and money, and it has saved our company money over any other switch. This switch, with the modular input of the fiber optic and the ethernet in the same switch, has saved us having to purchase extra equipment and troubleshooting that extra equipment. It's one piece of equipment, one point of access for us to go in and troubleshoot if we need to.

Our company integrates audio and radio systems, such as professional audio or installing PA systems.

M4250 is a new product line specially made for Audio and radio over IP systems. This switch is Layer 3, so it is a totally managed system.

The M4250 switches need more SFP models. There are only four to eight models in the M4250 product line. Some bigger installation systems need fiber to transmit much longer, so we need more SFP models.

We have been using NETGEAR Switches for about two years. The current model we are using is in their new product line.

I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

Technical support in China is not aware of audio over IP switches, so we need to learn how to set up the switches ourselves.

We used Cisco and Huawei switches more than a year ago. We switched because Huawei does not have these kinds of switches.

One or two years ago, we could not get suitable switches for Audio over IP. Configuring the switches is now more difficult for us.

So, users of Audio over IP who have little experience with the Internet need setup and configuration of the switches to be much easier.

NETGEAR could make this serial of switches much simpler to configure for Audio experts.

The M4250 series of switches is not expensive and is even cheaper than Huawei. A license is not required.

The M4250 series of Audio over IP switches is much more efficient and cheaper than Cisco. I'm also looking for these kinds of switches from Huawei, but the market is not big enough to allow Huawei or Cisco to produce a new product line for Audio over IP.

NETGEAR is stable and very user-friendly, and we plan to increase the use of the NETGEAR Switches in the future. I rate the product an eight out of ten.

NETGEAR Switches is great because it comes preconfigured and designed specifically for AV and that suits our needs. NETGEAR offers multiple port options, is simple to configure, easy to handle, reliable and stable. The most valuable feature for us is the reasonable price. 

I expect we’ll continue to see an improvement in the configuration which could be simplified further. I would also like to see switches with more ports that provide room for new protocols of communications. It would be great to have more bandwidth.

Our primary use case of Switches is for work with a data protocol for audio or AVB protocol for audio. We also use the AVoIP, Dante, and Control.

NETGEAR is a preferred partner for our company which has offices nationwide and offshore. I work as a project engineer for an audio video integrator company.

The solution is stable and scalable. You can link multiple switches and create a bigger network.

We recently used Araknis and sometimes also use Cisco or Extreme Networks. Araknis is about the same price or even cheaper than NETGEAR, but they do not offer as many options as NETGEAR.

Licensing cost depends on the model and number of ports, whether it’s POE, POE Plus or POE Plus Plus. There are certain Cisco switches that are about the same price. 

AVB licensing is required to purchase separately on NETGEAR and Extreme Network.

I rate this product nine out of 10. 

This is a pure fiber solution. We use it for both SMBs and big organizations. We use it as a switch. 

It has the same features as many other brands. 

I like the way they work with customers.

The features are stable, and it deploys easily. It's very simple to implement in general.

The user interface is very good. 

The solution is scalable.

It is stable and reliable. 

Technical support is helpful and quick to respond. 

They currently don't have any stock. It's hard to get the devices. 

There's a lack of chips and, consequently, a lack of deliveries. They're out of stock at their European warehouse.

They also used to offer quite cheap routers, and now there is nothing under 150 euros. It's getting expensive. Many customers don't want to spend more than 60 or 70 euros on something like that. 

The scalability is limited to some extent. It's meant for smaller users. 

I'm working with home routers, and the Wi-Fi at the moment is Wi-Fi 6. With Wi-Fi 5 routers, there was a feature that was called device prioritization. This feature is missing with Wi-Fi 6 routers. I don't know why. Maybe the CPUs are not so strong or powerful, or maybe they believe that this feature is pointless since the devices are so powerful. That said, from my point of view, it is very important as a customer to have this feature.

I've been dealing with the solution for 12 years. 

There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's quite stable and reliable. 

The solution can scale quite well. However, it doesn't scale quite as well as Huawei, which can get much larger. 

I have found that technical support replies quickly, and they close their tickets once they've completed their tasks. They are great. 

I'm also familiar with Huawei. The difference is this product is more for SMBs. The user interface is great for non-technical people, and everything works smoothly. Huawei can be more complex for some users. 

I've also used Aruba as well. 

The solution deploys easily. It's a straightforward setup. It's not a complex endeavor, even for a home user. In the past, I had to explain to my manager who wanted to buy some Wi-Fi extenders. I showed her how to set up the device. She said, "Okay, it sounds easy. I will do this by myself." The next day, she said, "Yeah, it is several clicks, and everything works fine." It's so very simple. YOu only need one person to handle the deployment.  

We can implement the solution for people. Some of our partners are so small they may need assistance as they are non-technical.  

The product is more expensive than, for example, TP-Link; however, it is cheaper than Aruba, Cisco, or Huawei. All of these are more enterprise-level switches, which is why the cost is a bit more. NETGEAR is better for smaller businesses. That said, while it is not a cheap brand, it offers good value. 

I haven't really evaluated other solutions. I'm quite overloaded as it is. 

I'd recommend the solution as it is very simple and stable. However, it is important to choose the right partner to help implement the solution. It will help everything go smoothly during implementation. 

It's also pretty plug-and-play. If you do need help, you can always reach out to NETGEAR. They are pretty responsive. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.