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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco IOS

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/ACisco IOS, presently in its 15th edition, is a network operating system for service providers and enterprises alike.N/A

    IBM AIX

    Score9.4 out of 10
    N/AIBM AIX (for Advanced Interactive eXecutive) is a Unix operating system, developed, offered and supported by IBM.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco IOSIBM AIX
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco IOSIBM AIX
    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 IOSIBM AIX
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    83%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    86%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    5 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco IOSIBM AIX
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    CentOS Linux
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco NX-OS
    Score8 out of 10
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco IOSIBM AIX
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.3
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    9.3
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco IOSIBM AIX
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    I've worked with several network device vendors in my 10+ years of being in the industry and my favorite continues to be Cisco IOS. Overall, Cisco IOS tends to be the most stable, the most intuitive, has the best TAC support, and has the best knowledge base articles and white papers.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    IBM AIX is well suited for mission-critical applications, especially the ones that need to run on well-performing hardware and need less downtime. It is also perfect for applications that need a lot of CPU, because AIX scales well on the IBM POWER hardware, so adding additional CPU almost always generates higher performance/throughput. IBM AIX runs unmodified from the smallest IBM POWER machine (S1022, with 12 Power10 cores) to the biggest machine (E1080, with 240 Power10 cores). Because IBM POWER systems have very fast CPU’s, you typically need a lower number of CPU’s when compared to alternatives. This may bring a reduction in cost for software licensed per core. Unfortunately, not all software vendors port their software to IBM AIX, so sometimes you may have to run Linux on POWER, or skip the POWER platform altogether. But many vendors happily support AIX and POWER.
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    Pros
    Cisco
    • User friendly CLI.
    • Quick fixes for critical bugs.
    • Longer uptime.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    • Stability. In the 14 years that I have used the product, I cannot think of a single time that we had an OS level failure. It is rock solid. We have had systems that have been booted and run for literally years without interruption.
    • Virtualization. We run IBM AIX as LPARS on Power infrastructure. All of our AIX infrastructure is virtualized making it easy to scale as needed.
    • Their logical volume manager makes the task of managing storage very simple. It is feature complete and they have mitigated much of the complexity that usually is inherent in LVM implementations.
    • I have a love/hate relationship with Smit. It is their administrative interface. It is very powerful and very complete which is why I marked it as a pro. It is also a bit clunky and somewhat arcane in its interface but still usable.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Cisco
    • By this point, there are several "flavors" of the Cisco IOS such as XE, XR, and the standard Cisco IOS. While they are all fairly similar, there does exist syntax differences between them. It would be ideal if at some point in the future, Cisco is able to unify all of them into one standard operating system which would use the same syntax across all platforms.
    • While overall Cisco does a great job of QA'ing their IOS, no matter the release, there's always some minor bugs. I think it's important that Cisco continue to pour resources into their QA team to test their software.
    • While I'm very familiar with the graphical readouts of "show processes cpu history" I would love for Cisco to eventually find a more intuitive way to display this data. I can't begin to count how many times I've had to teach more entry level (and even mid level) engineers how this graph is interpreted.
    • I do wish that Cisco had something similar to Juniper's "commit check" or "commit confirmed". This helps validate the changes you're about to apply, and catch errors, so that you have a better idea of the impact of the change.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • A lot of the built-in commands have not been updated in years. If you're used to some fancy CLI options in Linux, you may be out of luck with AIX.
    • Out of the box, you cannot run open-source Linux utilities on AIX. There is a toolbox you can install, however, it's not the same versions as you would get in different Linux flavors.
    • Tab completion for files and Up arrow to re-run previous commands don't work out of the box without running a Korn shell. A small annoyance, but one that catches me every time!
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Cisco
    IOS is pretty intuitive as you can use the question marks to check for all the options or parameters for a specific command. Also having the tab key to complete the words is nice as you don't need type the complete command. Using also abbreviated commands with 2 or 3 letters instead of the whole Word makes it a great OS.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    AIX is robust, helps the systems administrator, is built to prevent easily made mistakes. If you are used to other variants of Unix (in particularly Linux) there is no steep learning curve to get started with AIX. You need to learn the intricacies of the operating system, but that is true for any new operating system. AIX has built-in tools for almost anything you want and has the AIX Toolbox (on the web) for tools that are not included with AIX by default, but can be installed. Installation of AIX is modular, you can select with components and features you want to have installed. Installation of additional components (and usually also removal of installed components) is easy and straight-forward.
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    Support Rating
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    IBM
    There is lots of documentation out there for AIX. On the times I've had to address a hardware issue, IBM's support has been great.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Cisco has a better presence on corporate business so it makes it easier to find engineers and technitians to support your network. Also a lot of Universities and schools use it as a reference and use it to teach and prepare students so it will be easier to recruit people with cisco preparation.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    IBM AIX operating system is advanced with most features and also it's more reliable unlike Redhat Linux, Sun solaris, HP-UX and also we will have well support from the vendor if we run into any issues. IBM AIX is more user-friendly when compared to linux and easy to use so i would prefer the customers to have their operating system as IBM AIX for companies who has more customers.
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    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • Great uptimes on proven availability/reliability.
    • Longevity of these switches ensures great ROI.
    • Easy to learn for new users.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • IBM AIX on Power hardware has been the backbone of our most critical applications.
    • The versatility of IBM AIX virtualization has been extremely useful, scalable, and provided configuration with redundant dual VIO servers.
    • IBM AIX is not Linux so special skill sets are needed to actually manage the systems. Finding qualified engineers can often be a challenge
    Incentivized
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