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Arista Campus LAN Switches vs Cisco Nexus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Arista Campus LAN Switches
Ranking in LAN Switching
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Nexus
Ranking in LAN Switching
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Data Center Networking (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the LAN Switching category, the mindshare of Arista Campus LAN Switches is 5.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Nexus is 9.6%, up from 8.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
LAN Switching Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Nexus9.6%
Arista Campus LAN Switches5.6%
Other84.8%
LAN Switching
 

Featured Reviews

DM
Chief Technology Officer at ictbit
Unified monitoring has transformed campus deployments and provides rapid EVPN-VXLAN rollouts
Regarding improvements to Arista Campus LAN Switches, nothing comes to mind about the switches themselves; they are really fast and have all the technologies and protocols that exist in the market. However, on the management system, I would improve it because as a network engineer, I want a chatbot that can communicate in a native language with the monitoring system to get answers regarding my network faults. There are no problems particularly with the product, but there is room for improvement regarding licensing and the chatbot for all Arista products.
Fakhar Mahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Administrator at i2c
Migration between data centers has strengthened core connectivity and simplified segmentation
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches, which made this a quite difficult part to manage and to onboard the teams and to understand the impact of the migration. We encountered an issue where we have two data centers, and unknowingly we were configuring the devices with the same VPC number on both devices. By doing that, we were not able to terminate the lease lines over those core switches. According to Cisco, we had to change the VPC number of one of the data center's core switches since they are in a VPC. We are still waiting, and it has been more than five to six years just to change the VPC number and migrate back the lease line. Now we are having cabin switches for the lease line and then the core switch. That VPC number issue was quite surprising for us. However, we have a very frequent issue with Cisco Nexus, particularly with the SFPs. Every time a port or the SFP heats up, it gets faulty. We have almost sixteen Nexus switches per data center. In a year, we experience one or two port issues per annum. We have standard Equinix data centers with standard installations, but somehow the temperature is always maintained and there is no ducting, yet the ports and the SFPs heat up or become faulty. This is a very frequent issue with the SFP-based port.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I use the solution for connectivity in data centers and LANs, providing Layer 2 and Layer 3 connectivity based on network needs."
"The management portal has improved the way our organization functions."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its stability because Arista falls in an industry that is very similar to Cisco."
"The Software Defined switch architecture, runs optimized 2-tier network instead of traditional 3-tier network (Core, Distribution and Access) gives you efficiency and savings."
"QoS is the most valuable feature because our clients work with VOIP and Critical applications."
"The CloudVision Portal allows us to centrally manage all of our Arista products."
"The template functionality saves a lot of time and man-hours, which results in cost and time savings."
"The feature sets are pretty cool. They've got almost everything that the competition offers."
"It's pretty easy to use and operates at high speed."
"The best-suited environment for the Cisco Nexus is not a small office, it is used mainly for enterprise networks, providing more throughput and good capabilities, and my customers in the data center are happy with the solution."
"Cisco Nexus meets all of our requirements."
"The most valuable features of this solution are scalability and throughput, and we are extending the VLAN to multiple data centers."
"They are very high-performance switches and they are made for lossless data, so they're a good play in the customer environment."
"I would recommend Cisco Nexus for large enterprises and the government sector, as they can afford it."
"This solution has given us the ability to use Cisco ISE for security."
"Cisco Nexus helped us do an entire data center migration in under six months."
 

Cons

"I do think they could improve their licensing model. Today, I need to pay for a license, for a switch, for support, and it costs money; it is not cheap."
"We have to renew the license every three years, which can be a challenge for customers. Arista, like other vendors, now follows a license-based system."
"The licensing cost is pretty heavy. That is something that they need to definitely work upon."
"I would like to see a version available with eight or sixteen ports."
"I would like to see a version available with eight or sixteen ports."
"It would be ideal if the solution was less expensive."
"The complex setup phase is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"One of the issues that we have been faced with here in Brazil is that we don't have any list times for delivery."
"Cisco Nexus still needs more stability."
"The flexibility and configuration could be better. It is not as reliable as Catalyst."
"One of the problems we have is that there is no confirmation for when you try to test a system command."
"The initial setup is always complex."
"This solution costs a lot."
"Currently, the platform is heavy. I would like to see a lighter platform."
"I feel that this solution should be more flexible and scalable."
"The solution has room for improvement in terms of the learning curve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is not that good, but our clients value the solution despite the price."
"The only licensing costs are for CloudVision, although the upfront price of the device is not cheap."
"Our licensing fees are paid annually."
"Our licensing costs for this solution are approximately $200 USD per month."
"The solution is expensive."
"Cisco Nexus is not a cheaply priced product."
"The price of this solution is good when compared to others in the market."
"We have three hundred to four hundred data centers of Nexus. So the coverage associated with Smart Net is 27 by 4, is basically what we spend each year. If the incentives get better, which I know they're working on, it would be great but right now we're buying year to year."
"The problem with Cisco, from what I see, is that their costs are much higher."
"If you compare Cisco hardware to any other vendors, such as HPE, they are more expensive. There is a license to use the solution. If my customer's licenses are about to expire I receive notification from Cisco, this is very helpful."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise83
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Arista Campus LAN Switches?
Regarding pricing, it is not cheap. While it is an enterprise solution, comparing it to low-level switches like Fortinet and Netgear, it is much more expensive. However, comparing it to Cisco and J...
What needs improvement with Arista Campus LAN Switches?
Regarding improvements to Arista Campus LAN Switches, nothing comes to mind about the switches themselves; they are really fast and have all the technologies and protocols that exist in the market....
What is your primary use case for Arista Campus LAN Switches?
I work as a consultant and integrator, using Arista Networks platform in my customers' networks. I deal with switches by Arista, which is mostly what we use Arista for. I am familiar with Arista Ca...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Nexus?
We are a reseller, and we sell products to our customers.
What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus?
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches,...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Nexus?
Cisco Nexus is used in data centers with a simple Nexus OS deployment model. In our environment, we do not use programmability with Cisco Nexus. The switches are used very basically in our infrastr...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Winchester, AWE, picturemaxx, Medical Mutual, Leonix, CloudEra, National Physical Laboratory, Tri-State G&T, AIS, Morph, SingTel, SDSC, BBC
Advanced Medical Transport, Banco de Guayaquil, Baylor Scott & White Health, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Calligaris, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Del Papa Distributing, Department of Justice, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Hertz, K&L Gates , LightEdge, Lone Star College System, Management Science Associates, Mindtree, NBC Olympics, Quest, Sony Corporation, The Department of Education in Western Australia, Valley Proteins
Find out what your peers are saying about Arista Campus LAN Switches vs. Cisco Nexus and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.