NETGEAR Switches Reviews

We provide solutions for our customers who use this product for a variety of reasons but the main use case is for network connectivity. We are system integrators based in India and I'm the founder and managing director of the company. 

The company provides a lifetime warranty which is the main advantage for us. It's also easy to configure. 

This solution doesn't have a CLI interface. Cisco, for example, has this feature. If I don't want to use a web-based interface and I have to configure using CLI, it's lacking in NETGEAR. 

I've been using this solution for almost 12 years. 

This is a stable product. 

The scalability is good. 

The technical support is good, they are responsive. 

The initial setup is relatively easy. 

The cost is based on a per unit model. I believe it works out to be the Rupee equivalent of around $350 per unit. It's comparable to what Cisco or Ubiquiti charge. 

We evaluated Cisco which has more features than NETGEAR. As a brand name, Cisco carries added value and more brand awareness than NETGEAR. Cisco doesn't offer the lifetime warranty we get from NETGEAR. The choice between the two is really about an organization's requirements. If you're dealing with audio and video products, then Cisco is definitely the way to go. But if you're dealing with data and camera networks, then NETGEAR comes out on top. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

I use the solution in my company to connect devices together. I have experience with the very basic switches provided by NETGEAR.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that its performance was okay.

Though the tool's useability is good, it has certain shortcomings where improvements are required.

There are certain shortcomings in the stability offered by the product, and improvements are required since I sometimes have to do the power reset.

I have been using NETGEAR Switches for a few months.

The product's stability is fine. Users should not face any stability-related issues when using NETGEAR Switches. My previous organization has used the product for a very long time, and it was there even during the phase when I was about to leave the company.

The product is easily scalable. With time, I was able to add additional NETGEAR Switches and increase the number of products in our network. You need to have a crossover cable to increase the number of switches, but you can directly add NETGEAR Switches, which is really cool.

I used to work in a library where there were around 127 nodes connected to NETGEAR Switches.

The tool is very easy to deploy as it is a very basic switch. I just need to put in the rack and plug in the cables to it.

For the product's deployment phase, you need to unpack the product and get the product ready to be mounted on the rack. After the product is mounted on the rack, you can plug in your ethernet and power cables and conduct a test.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

From unpacking and unboxing to racking up and plugging the cables, it takes less than thirty minutes to deploy it.

My assistant and I were the two people involved in the tool's deployment.

I deployed the tool in my company.

Speaking about the ROI, I didn't have to spend money replacing NETGEAR Switches that had issues, especially in a short span of time. Based on the tool's reliability, the product is good to use.

I wouldn't know anything about the price. I didn't purchase it directly.

I haven't used the tasks for applications under NETGEAR. I have always used the switches provided by NETGEAR.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Speaking about reliability and uptime, the tool I deployed in my company has been working for around five years now. The product is reliable.

The product is good, and I recommend it to others who plan to use it.

I rate the tool's ease of use an eight out of ten.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

My company uses NETGEAR Switches for internal networking purposes.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to use.

The product's stability has certain shortcomings that need improvement.

I have been using NETGEAR Switches for more than twenty-five years. I don't remember the version of the solution.

It is a scalable solution.

More than 200 employees in our company use NETGEAR Switches.

I have contacted NETGEAR's technical support for help with routers and not switches. I like NETGEAR's technical support.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

A team of three people formed from those who work as managers, admins, engineers, or developers in our company help with the deployment and maintenance of the solution.

Our company's IT department carried out the product's installation phase in-house.

I have seen my company experience a return on investment from the use of NETGEAR Switches.

It is a slightly expensive product.

My company needs to purchase no licenses to use the product.

I use D-Link Switches and Wi-Fi routers from NETGEAR.

If the solution can be made available at a better price, then I would recommend the product to others who plan to use it.

I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.

We are using it for a small to medium-sized office with over 60 users. We also had IP phones with firewalls and it was good.

The solution is reliable and it is easy to setup.

The problem with the solution is that when it is faulty, it doesn't indicate so and the Internet starts to drop. One needs to do a lot of troubleshooting before understanding that a switch is faulty. If a switch is faulty, it should give an indication.

The scalability and warranty should also be improved.

I have been using the solution for a long time. We are not using the most recent version because when we checked it, it was out of warranty.

The solution's stability is good when the switch works fine.

It is not a very scalable solution. We have an office with 60 users, including IP phones.

I have never contacted the technical support team. I have to go to the local reseller for any issues or queries.

The solution's initial setup is straightforward.

The deployment takes three to five minutes. We need to confirm our company via email first. It takes months to be configured.

The deployment was done by an in-house team. We did it on the Internet because we had qualified switch controllers and technicians. Everything was done efficiently.

I recommend this solution. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We're a network integrator and supplier for our clients. We've installed these switches for various scenarios. We have installed them for core switching and remote switching, and we have also installed them in various standalone organizations where there is no core or distributed switching. There is just the main switch, and that carries the whole network.

In our previous deployment, we've had three NETGEAR 48-port switches that we installed as standalone switches. They were basically managing everything, such as the internet, firewall, switching, and then distribution to the other network.

In terms of the version, I have worked with GS724.

Its setup, usage, and access are most valuable. It is a very easy switch to set up. 

It is easy to do VLANs, software upgrades, etc. It is also easy to integrate it with other NETGEAR products.

One thing that NETGEAR does very well is that their switches come with a lifetime warranty, like HP. If a switch has not been neglected or misused, NETGEAR will replace your switch if it fails, which really helps.

Its integration with other products can be improved. A lot of time our clients have got an existing access point solution, but they want NETGEAR switching. They don't want to buy NETGEAR access points. The third-party integration would be a big assistance.

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.

I've worked with NETGEAR switches for the last six years.

Its stability is very good. I've never had a NETGEAR switch fail during all the time I've used them.

It is very scalable.

I never had to use NETGEAR's technical support in all the time I've used it. I presume it's good, but I never had to use their technical support.

Its initial setup is straightforward. Deployment is usually fairly quick because it has a very straightforward setup. Your cable runs will obviously take you longer, but deployment is very quick.

The deployment strategy is always to connect switching first, and then as we terminate our points, we connect our points so that people immediately have access to the internet. The strategy is always to first install a firewall, then install a switch, and then install cabling. This way when your cabling is up, your people are already protected, and they're behind the firewall. 

For its deployment and maintenance, you don't need a lot of staff members. Usually, two members are enough. Specifically, if I've got a cabling team, there may be three people, but I don't need a lot of people to do an implementation. I can usually have two people on-site, and they'll implement and sort the switching out themselves. They are usually cable technicians and network technicians.

You get what you pay for. From a price comparison, there are cheaper switch makers on the market that are definitely less expensive than NETGEAR. They give you the same functionality, but they don't come with a name. 

There are solutions like Ubiquiti that are very good. They have the ease of setup, and I find NETGEAR battling a little bit in comparison to Ubiquiti.

Cisco is obviously very expensive, and for a lot of people, it is usually for their core network.

If you're new to switching, then obviously, there is a learning curve, like with any product out there. If you're an existing user of the equipment, it is really easy to use. It is easy to implement and work with. It is easy to run. It is a nice system to work with.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

I'm using the switches in small business environments and I'm using them with the cloud management. That way, I can get notifications when there are problems without even being on site, and I can also manage them remotely.

The improvement is that, if there's an issue, I don't have to go onsite to look into it. It saves time, which translates to money. If I'm on the road for any significant time, my clients are going to get trip charges. My being able to remotely manage it means they can save those costs, and it could be back up more quickly because it might be something minor that I can remotely resolve.

The cloud management is the reason I switched to them, although the regular NETGEAR product line that I've used would be less expensive. I love the cloud management feature.`

They are easy to use and deploy. The deployment can be done through the direct interface of the device or through the cloud management if that mode is selected. But it's nice, if there is an issue, to be able to go in through the remote. The fact that the remote doesn't require a static IP - even though most small businesses do have static IPs, you do run into some that don't - is nice. They initiate the contact to the outside world, without requiring a static to get in.

The switch has been really easy. Anybody who has been in the business can hop on there and change stuff right away.

I've used and sold NETGEAR stuff for a long time and I was really excited about the cloud product. But, 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. They just don't lend themselves to a rack environment.

I'm absolutely amazed that they did what they did because they've been building switches for years and this totally violates all of the design parameters on all their other products. You can't have a device that's expected to go into a rack environment - and they ship with the rack mount - yet the jacks are on one side, and all the indicator lights you need to look at are on the back. You usually can't see the back side of a rack. You can't get back there to see, so it's just crazy. It's like they designed it to hang on a wall, rather than to be mounted in a rack. They're really missing their bigger opportunity by doing that. It's so bad that I have to consider whether or not to use them. What good are indicators if you can't look at them? And you can't do so in the current design because they're on the back side.

If you look at their entire product line, nothing is like that. It just makes no sense at all. If they would put the power on the back and the indicators on the front, it would be like every other switch they manufacture, and it would resolve all those issues. 

I want to use it. I just hope that they fix their design.

Another issue, when it comes to NETGEAR's competitors, is that other companies are offering the cloud management at no extra charge, whereas NETGEAR charges for it. You have to pay per-device for licenses.

I haven't had any issues with the stability. I just learned about the cloud model a few months ago and the first ones I rolled out were shortly after that.

In the size of environments I've worked with, it's been working great. For example, I had one where, in some parts of the building they've got some of the 8-ports, and in other locations, they've got the 24-ports and 48-ports. The product line is there. I've interconnected them using the 10-gig cross-connects for the 24s and 48s. It's the 24- and 48-port models that have a 10-gig SPF connection option. That's really nice because you get high performance between devices.

I haven't needed to contact technical support.

I was using NETGEAR's switches prior. The Insight is the newer product line. Their sales department contacted me when I first expressed interest in the product and they had one of their sales engineers do a webinar with me, showing me the product and the management.

I ended up going with NETGEAR because I've used their switches for a number of years. I've been around forever. 3Com was the original big company doing all of the switch technology. They didn't even have switches when I started. It was all hub technology back then. 3Com, obviously, was bought out by HP, so I used the HP line. I was introduced to the NETGEAR product line through another company that I partner with on jobs. They do the phone side, I do the data side. Because of IT voice technology, they had been using the NETGEARs. They introduced me to them and I liked them. They were a better price point. They were reliable. So I switched to NETGEAR. When I saw the advertisements for the Insight and the cloud management, it drew me into checking them out.

The concept of cloud management is great. If you could get one vendor that can cover all of the products, so you don't have multiple management windows, it would be nice. That's what I'm trying to do with NETGEAR, if they can just make some more improvements to the product.

I find the initial setup pretty straightforward. But again, I've worked on many pieces of equipment for 30 years, so it's easy for me.

You could deploy a switch instantly. You're not required to set any settings. You could just plug it in and use it. Somebody who doesn't know anything could use it. But if you want to take advantage of the management features, then it'll take a little bit longer. You'll have to set it up in either stand alone or Cloud managed mode and then configure it. But doesn't take long if you know what you're doing. It can be set up within ten minutes.

Most people in the business already know what their network structure is, so they know their IP subnets, etc. It's your option to throw your address on it or let DHCP assign it and then set up a couple things and you're done.

In terms of an implementation strategy, for my managed equipment I will always put a statically assigned address on it within the internal subnets of the company. That way, I'm not dependent upon DHCP being up and running at the time those devices reboot. On a typical network, all of the statics are documented, so I can pull up documentation to manage stuff. Of course, with the cloud management it gives you the ability to name the devices, so you can make descriptive names.

It takes one person to deploy and maintain it. I'm in an environment where I'm working with companies that don't have an IT staff. They're smaller than the size that can accommodate a full-time staff person. So, I'm the one supporting them.

Determining ROI gets tough when you get into some of these more expensive devices. Part of the problem is that it's a newer product line, so they don't have as many options as they will probably have in a couple years. Because there are fewer, there is a tendency to have more full-featured things that cost more, when you may not need all of the features.

The savings from the customer's perspective are when I can work on it remotely, without having to travel to their site. They're saving the trip charges and they can, potentially, be up quicker. That's going to save the customer money. The initial costs are more, but they can reap the benefits in the long term.

NETGEAR is not competitive when it comes to cloud management because Ubiquity is free. Peplink is free but you have to keep the device under warranty. After its initial warranty is up, you have to buy the extended warranty to keep it under cloud management. In that situation, the $10 a year on a router would be cheaper than keeping the device under warranty. But when you get into the access points in Ubiquity, they've got NETGEAR beat because it's free for that service. It's part of buying the product.

NETGEAR's new product is definitely more expensive than their standard product line. It's a new product line for them, so I'm hoping with the maturity of the product that those costs will come down. The standard product line is considerably cheaper. I'm not quite sure why, because there's not that much on the tech side. It really doesn't cost any more to build a managed device than it does to build a non-managed. That's usually all just in software implementations. Cloud-managed is going to be the mainstay. Everybody's going to go there. It's a matter of time until that's just the standard and everybody will expect everything to work in that environment.

Ubiquity is the one that's doing the free cloud management. I had been using some of their access points toward the concept of trying to get into unified management rather than all these different brands. I've been trying to do that with NETGEAR, with their access points, Ethernet switches, and routers. I'm just finding limitations, or it's not competitive if I have to pay $10 a year per device to manage the NETGEAR when Ubiquity will do it for free. It's part of the benefit of you buying their product. Ten bucks a year isn't much until you start having 20 devices at a company. Then it's an extra $200 that you have to get them to pay, when it's free with the other guy's product.

In terms of advice to someone who is looking into implementing this solution, I would have to know more about what their application was and what they were doing. It is going to cost them more and, if they're rack mounting it, there's definitely a negative on the switches; a big negative, because you can't see the lights.

Some aspects of the remote management tools are good and some need improvement. If you go to the new NETGEAR Insight router, there are features that aren't supported through the cloud management and you have to do them locally. That needs to be improved so that all of those features can be done through the cloud management. I'm using the version where they sell the license for $10 a year. It gives you access to control them. It's just the ability to go in and remote-manage whatever the feature set of the device is remotely, and get notifications when there's a problem on the network.

I've probably only put in ten of them so far. I've more used it for monitoring and initial setup. I haven't done much troubleshooting because they've been up and running. I haven't had the problem of them being down.

As for whether you need to be an IT expert to deploy and maintain the solution, it's tough for somebody like me, who has 30 years of IT experience, to make that judgment. For somebody who has never touched one, if you don't have those concepts, you wouldn't know what to do. You have to have a certain level. Somebody who has never done anything in technology isn't going to hop on there and know what to do, but it's not a problem with the switch, it's because they don't understand the technology.

In the first organization I implemented the solution in, there are about 40 devices on that network. There are four switches there.

I love the concept, I want to continue to use it. But I'm torn on this issue of whether or not they're going to correct the physical layout so that the lights are on the correct side.

In terms of how I rate it, I'm going to have to hit it, because it has the design flaw. Even though I'm using it, I'd throw it down at a three out ten, because it is really bad that the status lights can't be seen from the front. It's a major flaw. They anticipate rack mount, it comes with the rack mount kit. I can't believe it shipped; that it was designed that way. If that was resolved I'd probably throw it up around an eight. If they got rid of the fees for the management, I'd probably give them a nine or a ten. They have to look at the marketplace. They're not being competitive by charging the $10 per device for management.

I like NETGEAR as a company. I'm hoping that they will actually pay attention to the feedback and make changes to improve the product.

We use Netgear switches in a flat network. All the computers are plugged into the same switch. We also have some Power over Ethernet switches from Netgear.

Netgear switches are highly reliable. We haven't done anything particularly sophisticated with them.

Netgear switches could be cheaper. 

I have used Netgear switches for about five years. 

I rate Netgear switches 10 out of 10 for reliability. 

I used different vendors in the past, including 3com and HP. 

Setting up a Netgear switch was incredibly straightforward in our case because we aren't doing anything complicated. We rack everything and plug it in. It can be done in minutes.

I rate Netgear switches nine out of 10. 

Support needs to be improved.

I have been using NETGEAR Switches since January.

We contacted support, but they didn’t reply.

We are using Cisco. We worked with IBM too.

The initial setup is easy.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.