Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. NETGEAR Ethernet Switches

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Catalyst Switches
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Cisco's Catalyst is one of that company's brand of network switches.N/A
NETGEAR Ethernet Switches
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
NETGEAR 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 Catalyst Switches
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.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Cisco switching provides a full set of features without requiring clunky state machines to enable monitoring.
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.
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
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 …
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.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Easier to configure than any other brands of switches, and will have less failures.
NETGEAR Ethernet Switches
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.
Best Alternatives
Cisco Catalyst SwitchesNETGEAR Ethernet Switches
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Extreme Networks Wired Access - Switches
Extreme Networks Wired Access - Switches
Score 9.1 out of 10
Extreme Networks Wired Access - Switches
Extreme Networks Wired Access - Switches
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Score 9.3 out of 10
Cisco Ethernet Switches
Cisco Ethernet Switches
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Catalyst SwitchesNETGEAR Ethernet Switches
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(673 ratings)
8.5
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(37 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(39 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(13 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.2
(13 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(37 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.8
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.7
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.2
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(13 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.4
(34 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.9
(35 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Catalyst SwitchesNETGEAR Ethernet Switches
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
I think the most suited ones will be of course, for example, a supermarket where you have more than 50 plus devices because there are like 48 ports in a switch. We can just use a lot of devices and connect them to it. A less use case will be, I think it depends at the end of the day how your topology looks like. If you have a very few devices, you shouldn't be going for these catalyst switches because they are of course much bigger, more processing power and all those things. If you have, again, it comes to topology. If you have the number of users who are using these switches is less than 15, it's less than 15, then you can just go for any other option and not use them.
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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.
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Pros
Cisco
  • One of the things that it does well, it's not something major, but there's a light tracking feature that the 9300 comes with that you can turn on the light and that has become critical in a data center environment where you want to help someone to make sure that you're talking about the same switch, you can turn the light on and off something that is not available in other versions of Cisco switches before the 9300. So it's not as major, but it's quite critical when you're dealing with multiple systems and multiple switches.
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NETGEAR
  • Manage extra connections in a switched network.
  • Provide good throughput for those extra connections.
  • Easy to add into an existing network environment.
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Cons
Cisco
  • Functionality. Well, one of the functions that we are missing is a faster route based on OSPF. Other than that, it could provide an upgrade without a hitless upgrade. Well, now it is a very fast upgrade, which is also okay. We had a case when the platform crashed, but that was a specific case. We were happy with this product.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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NETGEAR
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
We do have other vendors. For example, Juniper, Fortinet, and there are quite a few others. And Cisco is pretty good because we know the workflow, we know how the operating system works. We are much more familiar with Cisco products and we know the support system behind it. So in terms of comparing with others, I think it stands out. It's one of our top products to go to
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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.)
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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
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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
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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

Screenshot of Screenshot of Catalyst 9200 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9300 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9400 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9400 Series Additional ViewScreenshot of Catalyst 9500 Series