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Arista Networks Platform vs Cisco Nexus 9000 Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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 Networks Platform
Ranking in Ethernet Switches
4th
Ranking in Data Center Networking
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series
Ranking in Ethernet Switches
16th
Ranking in Data Center Networking
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Dibyendu Das - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a tech company with 11-50 employees
Ultra-low latency networking has delivered reliable video workflows and critical operations
The support of Arista Networks Platform is quite complex; it is not very easy to configure. It needs a lot of network expertise for token sheddings and different kinds of configurations. It is very difficult to configure because Arista Networks Platform does not have a flexible GUI like Huawei or Netgear; everything is a very CLI kind of mainframe architecture. Scalability at every single step has a huge upgrade cost which is required for port mapping, connectivity, and transceivers certified by Arista Networks Platform, then the fabric upgrades from a software firmware level. Arista Networks Platform should improve commercial aspects to be affordable. There is no path for growth with a perfect score because the focus is more on reducing costs globally.
Fakhar Mahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Administrator at i2c
Has consistently supported high availability with reliable performance and minimal disruption
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series and the routers are good, but the FMC or FTDs still need some improvement. We have Palo Alto firewalls and Next-Generation Firewalls in our environment. In comparison to the main firewall, we moved from Cisco FTDs to Palo Alto. We still have FTDs in our environment, but the majority of the firewalls have been moved to Palo Alto. They are more user-friendly, give more visibility, and are more efficient. The performance is better than Cisco. With the new features, Cisco is having some improvement for the FTD. I am currently evaluating the FTDs. The new version has better features like the encrypted visibility engine and user-based changes in FMCs, and other things are quite useful for us. FTDs do have limitations and other issues. We communicated that limitation and feature support to the Cisco account manager. We do have support for the devices. We currently have a weekly call with Cisco and they are making progress regarding new versions of the FMCs and introducing new features. The performance of deployment has improved quite a bit compared to four or five years ago.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you are looking for an ultra-low latency network, this is the only solution."
"Arista Networks Platform is known for ultra-low latency, having the fastest backplane ever built, delivering endurance and ultra-low latency, and it is the best fabric for low latency and high bandwidth traffic, being a monopoly in that aspect."
"Technical support has been very good."
"The most valuable features of Arista include low latency, scalability, and sustainability of the products."
"It provides telemetry and visibility for many metrics that are not supported by most of the other vendors. Out of the box, no third party solutions are needed."
"The solution is very stable."
"I would tell potential users that if they are supporting a media or trading kind of business, they should go for Arista because it is a low-latency switch that will meet the expectation of the business."
"If someone uses Arista Networks Platform, I believe they are secured."
"Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is quite a complex machine, but we are using a very simple configuration with basic Nexus switching, and we don't have many issues with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series at the moment in our present infrastructure."
"We are using the core capabilities of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Ethernet switches, and it is performing well."
"The stability and reliability of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series are robust, and once you put it on, it does not just fail; that takes a long time, maybe even years."
"Performance has been great with no abnormal behaviors detected, and the network remains stable even in failover scenarios, supporting vast environments with high availability."
"Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very durable and very reliable, and there has never been any issue with it."
"RealPresence works effectively."
 

Cons

"The CVP management platform needs to be improved."
"The cost of Arista Networks Platform is high; it is more expensive than other networking solutions."
"A weakness would be that in our company, we don't have many people within our team who support the product because there are different vendors, and most of them are not tier-one vendors, so the skills required sometimes are just not there."
"The intent-based networking management, together with the provider of these solutions that are already free, would be beneficial."
"The pricing is a little bit higher than Cisco and Juniper, and pricing is the concern."
"The solution needs to accommodate new features."
"The documentation did not explain that we could not vary the speed between ports that are in the same block. For example, we cannot have 1G and 10G on the neighboring ports; all four ports have to be 1G or 10G, which was very annoying for us when we realized that we needed to change the configuration and the cabling that we had already prepared."
"From VMware, I think the cost of the tools is very high."
"We find that Cisco has been left behind by the other vendors. The other vendors have adopted new technology, and we find Cisco lagging behind."
"The SFP modules we are using have had issues. We have Cisco modules, but they frequently heat up or there are packet error issues."
"For Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches, I think we need to work on the HSRP. Whenever it flaps or something happens, it creates an issue."
"I would rate the technical support for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series an eight out of ten. This rating is not because of their lack of expertise, but just the assignment period."
"Cost-wise, Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is pretty pricey for a networking platform. It is on par with Cisco."
"Cost wise, Arista Networks Platform is more expensive than other networking solutions."
"There is an annual license required to use the Arista Networks Platform."
"Arista Networks Platform was cheaper than Cisco. I have heard that the product is affordable for enterprise-sized companies."
"Arista is very expensive. Not everybody is in a position to spend $70,000 to $80,000 for one switch."
"The price of the Arista Networks Platform could be less expensive for the hardware and license."
"The customer price for an Arista router is approximately $7,000 USD, while Cisco's is around $18,000."
"I remember that when our customers were offered the Arista Networks Platform, they used a checklist to compare the prices between Arista and Cisco for their requirements, and found that the prices were almost the same."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
26%
Construction Company
16%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise12
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Arista Networks Platform?
The initial setup cost is high compared to others, and I find the initial setup cost to be very high.
What needs improvement with Arista Networks Platform?
Arista Networks Platform could improve its command line management. Coming from a Cisco background, the adjustment period was challenging. While similar in some areas, the AOS concept, especially a...
What is your primary use case for Arista Networks Platform?
I have worked with deploying Arista Networks Platform in data center environments, particularly for spine and leaf architectures. The configurations involved Zero Touch Provisioning, which went ver...
What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
At this point, not much could be improved about Cisco Nexus 9000 Series. Automation GUI based is not the core of the 9000, so this is a different device or a different solution. I do not find anyth...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
My usual use cases for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series involve various companies, particularly when they are in need of a new automation solution or just an upgrade of the data center.
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
I am very satisfied with this solution. However, it is more about whether it is actually possible to do the solutions, and normally people already know what they want. They only need to have the ri...
 

Also Known As

7000 Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Internet Services
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Arista Networks Platform vs. Cisco Nexus 9000 Series and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.