Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches vs Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Switch Selector Tool

Score 9 out of 10

Based on 71 reviews and ratings

Score 9.7 out of 10

Based on 20 reviews and ratings

Switch Selector Tool

Attribute Ratings

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches is rated higher in 1 area: Likelihood to Recommend

Likelihood to Recommend

8.3

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches

83%

40 Ratings

8.9

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

89%

11 Ratings

Likelihood to Renew

9.6

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches

96%

3 Ratings

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

N/A

0 Ratings

Usability

9.5

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches

95%

3 Ratings

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

N/A

0 Ratings

Availability

9.1

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches

91%

4 Ratings

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

N/A

0 Ratings

Performance

7.3

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches

73%

2 Ratings

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

N/A

0 Ratings

Support Rating

8.5

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches

85%

8 Ratings

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

N/A

0 Ratings

Implementation Rating

7.3

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches

73%

2 Ratings

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

N/A

0 Ratings

Product Scalability

8.9

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches

89%

2 Ratings

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

N/A

0 Ratings

Pros

They meet the need in office on a desk to out on a warehouse or factory floor
Have the PoE power to support everything a company will need
have a matching product for your need from a few ports to 48 PoE port with uplinks that connect back a MDF or DC Distribution

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Senior Solution Architect

Entisys360Computer & Network Security, 501-1000 employees

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Cisco Catalyst Switches are very easy to use and manage.
Cisco support it top notch.
Very easy to scale up as [the] network infrastructure grows.

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Michael Kerzner

Lead Systems Engineer

Nettology, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

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Cons

Price point has always been higher and a concern as compared to other products.
Ongoing support costs are also pricey, but if you have a large enough quantity installed, you can purchase a couple of spares and self-insure at a lower cost.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Programming is different from other providers; this has caused some issues with staffing
The training opportunities do not provide the basics of programming or migration from other vendors' products.
Unless you are willing to purchase renewed switches, cost can be out of line with other vendors

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Verified User

Executive in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 201-500 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

—

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

—

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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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Usability

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 9.5

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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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Reliability and Availability

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 9.1

Based on 4 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 2 answers

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 8 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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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Implementation Rating

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 7.3

Based on 2 answers

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 is top of the class when it comes to comparing them to other vendors in the network hardware environment. They may have a higher price-point, but they justify it with great support and a very long lifecycle.

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Michael Kerzner

Lead Systems Engineer

Nettology, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

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Scalability

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches 8.9

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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[There is a] high price point, but [Cisco Catalyst Series Switches] will save [you] in the long run because these switches are reliable and last a very long time.
Cisco offers very good support so you can depend on them to keep everything running smoothly.
Once techs are trained on Cisco devices, they will be able to save time making changes to networks.

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Senior Help Desk Technician

NettologyInformation Technology & Services, 11-50 employees

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