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Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. NETGEAR Ethernet Switches

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Catalyst Switches

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/ACisco's Catalyst is one of that company's brand of network switches.N/A

    NETGEAR Ethernet Switches

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/ANETGEAR offers Ethernet Switches.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesNETGEAR Ethernet Switches
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesNETGEAR Ethernet Switches
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesNETGEAR Ethernet Switches
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Netgear switches are great when using in a flat network configuration. They do not scale nor have the flexible functionality of the Cisco Catalyst.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Cisco switching provides a full set of features without requiring clunky state machines to enable monitoring.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    We had about 15 different brands of network switches before adopting Cisco, and were not satisfied with any of them. Percentage of breakage on these units was very high.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Others have some missing features while Cisco Catalyst Switches have almost all the features that you can expect from a switch. The quality of support is amazing. Cisco couldn’t go wrong in terms of support. There is consistency in Cisco in terms of setup, troubleshooting, and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    In comparison to the NETGEAR and Linksys, these are simple single VLAN switches that are not business capable. Cisco switches give you the ability to separate segments as well as true single-port speed, no sharing. In comparison to Aruba, Aruba just recently got into the PoE …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    The previous switches that we had from NETGEAR became unsupported in too short of a time for the investment. Many features were implemented in a not compliant way - like 802.1q. Having equipment that we can rely on dropped the number of support issues that we had previously.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Cisco have the most popular interface in the market. Any networking technician have experience working with them in some way, that makes them the easiest to troubleshoot, mantain and administer. The Catalyst series particularily allows a depth of configuration that exceeds our …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Both Dell and Netgear switches we've tried generally all work great. The difficulty has always been trying to find people with experience to support them. Neither have as many capabilities as the Cisco catalyst switches. Our engineers prefer the stability of cisco switches and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Cisco has been around much longer than other switching companies. You can always trust they will be solid and run forever.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
    Easier to configure than any other brands of switches, and will have less failures.
    Incentivized
    NETGEAR
    Chose NETGEAR Ethernet Switches
    Netgear stacks up fairly well against Linksys in terms of the SOHO switches. Easy to install, clean look, and solid functionality.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    98%
    Would buy again
    600 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    531 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    600 Answers
    80%
    Happy with the feature set
    4 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    490 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    568 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesNETGEAR Ethernet Switches
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    RUCKUS Ethernet Switches
    Score1 out of 10
    RUCKUS Ethernet Switches
    Score1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Ethernet Switches
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Cisco Ethernet Switches
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesNETGEAR Ethernet Switches
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (774 ratings)
    8.5
    (6 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.9
    (40 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.6
    (46 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    8.8
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.3
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.6
    (38 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (12 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    8.8
    (10 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.1
    (9 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.2
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    7.9
    (36 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (37 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Catalyst SwitchesNETGEAR Ethernet Switches
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Well-suited for big companies like mine, where we have a lot of users that we have to connect together. Getting all the switches into one big stack that you can just manage all at one time is fantastic for ease of use. Not suited for maybe smaller mom and pop shops or smaller companies that don’t have as many. They could probably go with something much easier to manage.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    Great for entry-level networking, and the cost-to-quality ratio is great for the average consumer. I've used them in a crawl space that is not climate controlled, and it just works and provides the switching capabilities I need. These are great for users that don't have a ton of experience and can simply try to troubleshoot with a simple power cycle.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • Easy-to-use management interfaces. The CLI commands go across the whole Cisco Catalyst Switches 9000 series, so it makes it easy, the code being the same on the 9000 series. Just being able to do port channels, trunks, and connecting up edge switches to it with the Cisco Catalyst Switches 9000 Series.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    • Manage extra connections in a switched network.
    • Provide good throughput for those extra connections.
    • Easy to add into an existing network environment.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • One thing is that these, every time Cisco gets a new switch, they just make an amendment to the power supply, so they'll just put a knob on it. So let's say if you lose any power supply unit, you'll have to purchase another one, which costs a lot of extra money because we have a lot of another power supply units from the redundant, which we can use, but we can't now because they have just tweaked the modeling of that. Which makes no sense, particularly to me because it's an extra money making machine kind of a thing. But that's fine.
    • Another thing is these ports, I believe they are a bit less of, if I can say the quality of the oldest switches, they were quite sturdy. As I said earlier, the new switches, they're very light and when you lift them you feel it. So that's one thing, which I think the quality or the material which we are using has gone down.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    • Better advertisement about advanced enterprise features. My experience is with smaller switches and not with the fully managed switches.
    • Additional management tools to monitor multiple switches in the environment. Similar to Cisco Network Assistant.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    They are consistently reliable and this switch in particular is a very affordable solution. We can place the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches gear in areas that we normally would not place a switch because it is affordable enough to make it justifiable. And because it is a reliable solution, we are confident it will continue to provide service over the long haul.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Cisco
    Cisco by and far does a great job with the Catalyst line. From a layer 2 dumb switch all the way up to ISP carrier grade switching within the Catalyst portfolio. The best part about it is command parity among the various tiers of product. The only differences are going to lie in what features are available per switch.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    No answers on this topic
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    We have very few is any outages due to a Cisco hardware failure. Some of our gear is exposed to some pretty harsh environments, and they keep on ticking!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Cisco
    No, the packets flow. Sometimes you will see collisions and broadcast storms can happen which will slow performance but that can be fixed and the packets will flow.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    We rarely have issues with the product. I have only had to contact support one time since we put it in and that was to see if another vendor was giving me accurate information on an issue I was having.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    No answers on this topic
    In-Person Training
    Cisco
    Cisco Networking Academy partners with many local Colleges and High Schools to provide great hands-on training. You do need to drive to learn the topic. The in-class session only go so far. You really need to apply this to the real world. Cisco makes it easy for business to connect via CLC or Cisco Learning Credits.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Cisco
    My own personal research to get the information I want is very handy and helped me many times
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    The implementation of the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches is fairly seamless, especially if you are familiar with Cisco products. We have had Brocade switch gear in place too, and the differences between the manufacturers [are] not a major issue.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    2960s, 9200s, 9400s, 3650s, 3800s. I think that this product is a lot better. I know I just complained about the noise, but it’s still much quieter than our other ones. So we do have a couple of public deployments, and once we swap these out, they complained less. Sometimes we have small offices that get the gear in with them, and these sound less like a jet engine. And yeah, these are a lot easier to manage as well. Everything in the same family. It’s a lot.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    While the Ubiquiti are much easier to manage remotely through their cloud controllers, the Netgear is much more reliable in harsh environments than the other simple switches we use, as they seem less susceptive to high temperatures and humidity. (TP-Link and Zycel are the other major brands we use for simple switches.)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cisco
    We are exclusive Cisco at our organization. In truth part of the reason is, with one type of switch and one manufacturer, it is easier to support. It is also easier to give consistent training to our staff in our tech department
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • energy costs dropped by around 11 per cent on the access layer
    • management has become easier with DNA Center
    • ISSU software upgrades and fabric deployments have significantly reduced "planned" down times
    • network speed has increased, latency is at an all-time best within our own LAN
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NETGEAR
    • Keeps our investment in infrastructure connections low because they can provide those connections.
    • A lower cost alternative to adding in wall connections.
    • Sometimes they can cause collision issues due to traffic across them.
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Cisco Catalyst Switches Screenshots

    Product screenshotScreenshot of Catalyst 9200 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9300 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9400 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9400 Series Additional ViewScreenshot of Catalyst 9500 Series