Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) vs. MikroTik Cloud Router Switch

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)
ScoreĀ 9.3Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
N/A
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000) are designed to support carrier edge networks.N/A
MikroTik CRS Series
ScoreĀ 10.0Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
N/A
MikroTik offers a series of Cloud Router Switches (or their CRS series), their flagship products.N/A
Pricing
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)MikroTik Cloud Router Switch
Editions & Modules
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)MikroTik CRS Series
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Detailsā€”ā€”
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)MikroTik Cloud Router Switch
Top Pros

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Top Cons

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Best Alternatives
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)MikroTik Cloud Router Switch
Small Businesses

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Medium-sized Companies
Cisco Routers
Cisco Routers
ScoreĀ 8.4Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
Cisco Routers
Cisco Routers
ScoreĀ 8.4Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
Enterprises
Cisco Routers
Cisco Routers
ScoreĀ 8.4Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
Cisco Routers
Cisco Routers
ScoreĀ 8.4Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)MikroTik Cloud Router Switch
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(22 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000)MikroTik Cloud Router Switch
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
It is very well suited to act as your aggregator / core switch for mid to large facilities. it is flexible enough to really be useable in small environments but costs may hinder that. It has redundancy of power and management blades that does add a lot of peace of mind and security. Really the only reason you would not use a 9000 series is frankly cost and/or real requirements for performance. They have several versions of this model, plus they have an entire set of lines that can accommodate nearly as much as the 9000. Less demand or less of a budget can weigh in the decision to select this particular model.
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Mikrotik
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Pros
Cisco
  • [Cisco 9000] Series [Aggregation Services] Routers are exceptionally reliable when compared to other market options.
  • One strength of Cisco routers, in general, is their compatibility with any standard market tools from other vendors.
  • [It is] unmatched in terms of sheer performance.
  • [It] comfortably supports very strong throughput requirements.
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Mikrotik
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Cons
Cisco
  • [The] upgrade process [is] overly complicated compared to NX-OS or IOS. New images and the current configuration need to be compiled into "golden IOS's". If you don't include the configuration, you will have a clean device with no configuration.
  • [There are] major bugs in every release. We have had to cycle through all of our routers 3 times in the last year for updates due to show-stopping bugs that did not come to light until after the changes were made in production.
  • [It has] terrible documentation. You have to mine their site to get to any documentation for recent versions of IOS-XR. If you make the leap from 32-bit cXR to 64-bit eXR, then the documentation is more or less non-existent. Due to the internal architecture of hardware itself, technical specs can change from software version to software version, so don't expect any sort of firm scalability numbers. You'll have to rely on your sales engineer for that.
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Mikrotik
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
This depends on when Cisco EOL the product.
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Mikrotik
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Usability
Cisco
[I am] always impressed with Cisco products, from the functionality to the customer support.
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Mikrotik
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Support Rating
Cisco
In some ways, the platform is a big improvement over our previous IOS and NX-OS devices: They offer version-controlled configuration staging/commits. They have a robust portfolio of network protocols and features even beyond datacenter devices. Due to the use of NPUs instead of relying entirely on ASICs for forwarding, new versions of the software are able to improve hardware performance and capacity. Unfortunately, I have run into more bugs on IOS-XR than I ever did on IOS or even NX-OS (which has a shocking number of bugs of its own) and you have to be a licensing guru to get your order right the first time.
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Mikrotik
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
When we are integrating the ASR9000 router with other devices then there should be the same device that can cater to the throughput. We can use the Cisco 9600 Switch which can be easily integrated and can handle the speed in terms of uplinks 40G can be handled. Adding to this Cisco DNA Center can be integrated to do the automation and monitoring purposes.
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Mikrotik
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • We didn't need to buy new devices when we were increasing backbone capacity from 1G to 10G.
  • Due to the modular nature of the software, when there is an issue with any running services, we need not reboot the whole device which affects all clients and availability.
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Mikrotik
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ScreenShots