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Avaya Ethernet Switches [EOL] vs NETGEAR Switches comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Avaya Ethernet Switches [EOL]
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NETGEAR Switches
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (6th), Ethernet Switches (5th), AV Over IP Switching (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

IM
Senior Network Administrator at American University in Cairo (AUC)
A reliable solution under harsh environmental conditions
The CLI syntax for this solution is different from other switches such as Cisco and Juniper, and it takes us a long time to integrate a new device and get it working properly. We would like to see support for multi-rate features including PoE+ and SSP+. We need PoE+ because we are using the wireless access points, and SSP+ as an uplink. This might add security such as anti-spoofing and packet inspection. We would like to see a local technical support office in Egypt. This would be a credit to Avaya because many people look for vendors who have local support.
Tomas Devriese - PeerSpot reviewer
Teamleader Av Installers at solufak
VLAN support has improved audiovisual installations and secures network traffic for our projects
Our major use cases include audiovisual installations and we mainly use the AV line for that. We work with the VLAN support feature The best things about NETGEAR Switches are the support they provide and the ease of implementation. The ease of installation helps with network performance. It helps…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Avaya 4500 series Ethernet Switches provide a large number of features not usually found in other well-known switches."
"This solution is very reliable and works well under harsh environmental circumstances."
"The redundancy gained by utilizing SMLT has proven itself invaluable during a couple of events that could have been devastating to our bottom line."
"The stability of the product is great."
"As we are a solution provider and not product oriented, we give the best solution for our customers, with a good price."
"The initial setup was straightforward. I installed it myself."
"With this, you literally just log in to a website, see all your clients, all your NETGEAR switches, and you can manage them all right there: the VLANs, powering on and off individual ports, rebooting the whole device, the firmware updates. Everything can be done remotely..."
"Their online portal is one of the most useful features. The portal is very user-friendly, so even someone with not a lot of tech experience can go in and see what's going on with the switch."
"Previously, we used different equipment; I switched to them because not only has the Insight product line saved us a lot of time, but it is also very cost-effective compared to other solutions out there."
"This is a cost-effective solution."
"The most valuable feature to me is the modular side of things, being able to replace a module and a transceiver at our beck and call. If something goes down, or a piece of equipment is broken, I don't have to replace the whole switch. I can just replace the part that's broken or the part that is no longer working. I can get them back up and working within a matter of minutes, versus having to replace everything and reprogram everything. It's a huge time-saver."
"The best things about NETGEAR Switches are the support they provide and the ease of implementation."
"The most valuable feature is definitely the fully functional IGMP snooping and querier, out-of-the-box, that the switch provides. With most if not all switches that we've worked with previously, at a minimum you have to enable a couple of different options... It's really a good feature to have that stuff enabled and fully functional out-of-the-box so that [AV techs] don't have to worry about configuring any of that stuff."
"The price to performance of the switches is excellent."
 

Cons

"I think there is a need for more support of new generation technologies."
"One of the problems we found while administering the device was the lack of connecting cable compatibility."
"They could improve in supplying pricing to the VAR in a more timely manner."
"The CLI syntax for this solution is different from other switches such as Cisco and Juniper, and it takes us a long time to integrate a new device and get it working properly."
"The tool needs to improve its network management. The tool can be also more simplified."
"If it’s generating a lot of hits, then it can hang up network."
"The web interface has been a little sketchy on occasion. Sometimes I have to reload the page to get things to show up properly, but the switch itself seems fine. The web user interface is a little wonky at times."
"The main negative thing is the speed. When you use the portal, if you have a lot of customers and locations in the portal, and you need to scroll through those clients or those locations, it takes a pretty long time to load those pages and to select the client. That's the problem in the portal on the laptop, and it's the same problem in the portal on the app."
"The tool is good, but we probably need another model with PoE connections. Our office plans to switch from analog phone lines to VoIP next year, and we need a model that supports this transition and can handle the required technology. Additionally, improved support for newer technologies like Wi-Fi would be beneficial."
"Support needs to be improved."
"My one issue with it is that not all the features of the switch can currently be managed via the portal. For some of the more advanced features, you still have to configure the switch."
"The only issue I have, and it's not really an issue so much as me being a control freak, is that this is an unmanaged switch."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Licensing is always a hassle and a pain point."
"It's cheaper than Cisco. For the features it offers, the pricing is good."
"From a price perspective, the solution comes in higher than a small business product from their competitors. The solution is a bit higher, but it's a fraction of the cost compared to an enterprise switch. For example, a Cisco Catalyst can run approximately $13,000, where their Small Business Series may run $800 on the Cisco side. With NETGEAR, it falls in around the $1,000 to $2,000 range for most of what we use it for. Essentially, at this price point, you're getting a lot of enterprise grade features (e.g., that you would on a Catalyst) on an M4300."
"There are two parts to the pricing. There's the pricing of the device itself, which is good. Their licensing model needs work, though. The licensing model doesn't fit the way MSPs do business."
"Insight pricing is okay. It's very competitive. The costs of the hardware and additional services weren't low because Unify is much cheaper, but the costs conformed to the market. When you look at the hardware specs, the price and the warranty, the complete package was much better than any other vendor. If you consider those three main aspects of Netgear Insight and Netgear Insight devices, and you put them next to Ubiquity or Cisco Meraki, or even TP-Link, in our opinion, it's better hardware, it has a better warranty, and for the price you have to pay, it's a pretty good product."
"NETGEAR Switches' pricing is low compared to other brands. I rate it an eight out of ten."
"They are on par with other AV switch manufacturers, e.g., Pakedge, Cisco Small Business Series, and Extreme Networks. Though, they are closer in cost to Extreme Networks. They are more in the mid-range from an AV product price, maybe a bit higher. You can't beat their features compared to other vendors in that product range and capacity. AV specific only, they are mid-range price-wise."
"You get what you pay for. From a price comparison, there are cheaper switch makers on the market that are definitely less expensive than NETGEAR. They give you the same functionality, but they don't come with a name. There are solutions like Ubiquiti that are very good. They have the ease of setup, and I find NETGEAR battling a little bit in comparison to Ubiquiti."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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How do NETGEAR switches compare with Cisco ethernet switches?
NetGear switches have a lot to offer. They have high availability, zero-downtime stacking, L2 and L3 functionality, and are AV-over-IP ready. NetGear switches also have a command line interface and...
Which switches are better - Ubiquiti Unifi or Netgear?
Ubiquiti Unifi offers a great set of features. For starters, it is easy to configure and implement, and also doesn’t require a learning curve because it is easy to use. It is also simple to reconfi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETGEAR Switches?
If I were to rate price, I would give it eight or nine points. It is an expensive product.
 

Also Known As

No data available
NETGEAR Insight Managed Switches, NETGEAR GC Series, NETGEAR M Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

iTSi, New Zealand Privacy Commissioner, Prairie Street Brewhouse, Chi-X, Fryeburg Fair, InterContinental Davos, Comisiones Obreras de Andaluca, Transportation Bureau City of Sendai, Linamar
Blaze Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Ubiquiti and others in Ethernet Switches. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.