Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches vs Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series Switches | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8.4 out of 10

Based on 59 reviews and ratings

Score 8.5 out of 10

Based on 12 reviews and ratings

Pros

We chose Cisco Catalyst because it was the industry standard when we first entered the switched network arena back on 2001. Many network admins had a good working knowledge of this product, so finding programming and installation experience was easy.
Cisco Catalysts are extremely dependable. I still have some original C3548XL’s from 2001 that are still functioning. Most times we have only replaced them because needs changed and we needed more ports or needed the ability to have layer 3 capability.
Catalysts offer a good level of security and are easy to customize ports for specific needs.
I still like the CLI interface as I have used it for years, but the browser based interface makes it easy for the network techs to do basic checks, etc. when they need to enable ports, look into a port lockout, etc.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 1001-5000 employees

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It supports programmability
It supports 10, 40, 100 Gig interfaces
It can be used as fusion router in the SDA deployment

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Company, 10,001+ employees

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Cons

It would be nice if configuring a new stack from the ground up was simpler. It's too easy to end up with a split stack situation on accident, and in general, setting up a new stack isn't as fluid as I would like.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Research Company, 201-500 employees

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9500-32C is not supported in the DNA
There are some bugs on the stackwise virtual stacking uses. The stacks get splitted and manual reboot is required to fix it

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Company, 10,001+ employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 9.6

Based on 3 answers

We rely heavily on this product line and feel comfortable supporting it.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 10,001+ employees

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Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series Switches 8.0

Based on 1 answer

Based on the site load and requirements, the switches meets our processing and fiber ports requirements. Also they have great potential for future programmability options we are looking into.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Company, 10,001+ employees

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Usability

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 9.4

Based on 3 answers

Everything can be improved, the Catalyst devices are great but some more advanced issues get very complex and if you aren't doing it every day it is easy to lose knowledge and need help.

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Hawkinson, John

Senior Network Engineer

City of WichitaGovernment Administration, 1001-5000 employees

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Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series Switches 9.0

Based on 1 answer

It has great potential. It can support 10, 40, 100 Gig ports. The chipset are high processing capabilities

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Company, 10,001+ employees

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Reliability and Availability

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 9.1

Based on 2 answers

We have had very few unplanned outages with all of our Cisco Catalyst products. The biggest issue I have seen is when a device has been powered on for a very long time and it gets powered off and reused later. Sometimes, the switch will not come back up. In most cases, these are switches that are way past end of life. I can't say we have really seen any other issues with the availability of the Catalyst family of switches

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Performance

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 7.3

Based on 1 answer

The Catalyst switches on our network perform very well, given the amount of users and servers on our network. We have older Catalyst switches that are at their End of Life, and they are still performing as well as needed

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 8.5

Based on 4 answers

If I am unable to locate the support I need to complete a task from the data sheets which are provided online I can utilize the other resources available to me. Some of those resources are the Cisco Connection Program Community where there are many questions asked for similar issues or by utilizing the TAC team as mentioned before. Either resource I am able to resolve any issues I experience.

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IT Infrastructure Supervisor

Holy Cross EnergyUtilities, 51-200 employees

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Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series Switches 9.0

Based on 1 answer

Cisco TAC engineers are very responsive and supportive.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Company, 10,001+ employees

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Implementation Rating

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 7.3

Based on 1 answer

Automation was the key to minimizing the initial update and configuration.

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Hawkinson, John

Senior Network Engineer

City of WichitaGovernment Administration, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

All the products that we evaluated we felt were all good products that have plenty to offer but for our edge switches, we felt the 3850 had the most to offer. We were looking for not only a very reliable switch but one with many features that would not get used in a lot of other types of deployments. Juniper came close to providing what we wanted but we didn't feel it offered anything more than the 3850 did, and with our existing relationship with Cisco it simply made sense to stick with the 3850.

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James Jakimowicz

Network Engineer

Synergy FiberInternet, 51-200 employees

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Cisco has a large portfolio and variety of products, especially with switches and routers. Although Cisco has been a leader for this hardware for several years these kinds of things give the customer trust. Cisco has done a good job versus competitor. Cisco's switches are very reliable and stable. Competitors don’t have the same products.

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Gerente de ingeniería

Cuatro networksComputer Hardware, 51-200 employees

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Scalability

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 8.8

Based on 2 answers

Catalyst switches are extremely scalable. , using any of the Cisco validated designs. The same family of switches can be used for access, distribution, and core, making the overall integration much smoother. Cisco also supports multi-gigabit ethernet ports to allow for scaling of 1 gbps up to 10 gbps over the same port, using different types of cables, and supports PoE. So you don't have to buy all new switches because access points are suddenly 2.5, 5, or 10 gig uplinks

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Cisco switches have enabled us to deploy the switches and manage them remotely using Cisco management applications. This makes management much easier, without having to telnet into each one to make config changes, thereby lowering support costs.
Cisco Catalyst switches enabled us to expand without replacing all of the existing network equipment because of their multi-vendor interoperability.
Stable code and quick bug fixes. Bugs that cause major operational or security problems have been extremely rare in my experience which leads to 99.99999 uptime.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Food & Beverages Company, 51-200 employees

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Help me with the network connectivity between areas.
Enhances the connection speeds between the user and each other.
Enhances the connection speeds between users and DC.

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Network Manager

Wadi Degla HoldingSports, 10,001+ employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

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