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Cisco Cloud Services Router vs Cisco Enterprise Routers 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

Cisco Cloud Services Router
Ranking in Routers
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Enterprise Routers
Ranking in Routers
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Routers category, the mindshare of Cisco Cloud Services Router is 3.4%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Enterprise Routers is 19.7%, down from 26.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Routers
 

Featured Reviews

VENKATESHREDDY - PeerSpot reviewer
Manageable, provides excellent support, and easily integrates with other products
One central area for improvement in Cisco is its product line offering. Cisco has ISE and other products, such as DNS Center and other components. Instead of small to medium-sized customers purchasing devices and maintaining the devices, it would be great if customers could have subscriptions. A CAPEX/OPEX model instead of that Cisco code, where the pricing model is subscription-based, would give much better flexibility for the customers. The pricing and model for Cisco Cloud Services Router and other Cisco products could be improved. One good example of what I want to be added to the Cisco Cloud Services Router in its next version is for it to be more of a plug-and-play product. For example, Juniper has developed QR codes, so if you need to plug in a device, you scan from your phone and connect to the internet. That's it. You can provision the device remotely through the cloud orchestrator, so I want to see a similar function or feature in Cisco Cloud Services Router.
Hafiz Umar Farooq - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows us to configure NAS through Cisco activities and to create GRE channels with different sites
You cannot configure internet policies or other options on Cisco routers. If you have a very limited budget, you can't afford two different pieces of equipment, and you can't afford yearly licensing. I would like Cisco to launch a small business router that has firewall capabilities as well. It would be a great initiative for small businesses. I would like to see two additional features: a remote access VPN with the MFA, multifactor authentication capabilities. At the moment, the ISR series only supports MFA, but not every company likes to use that tool. I think Cisco needs to consider MFA for the remote access VPN and should incorporate other MFA solutions as well. I would also like there to be some firewall features included in the routers. I'm not talking about a full-fledged firewall feature, but a limited set of features that can be used on the small and medium-sized enterprise level. These two features would be a great initiative. I would also like to recommend the licensing feature. Previously, the Cisco licensing model was either a perpetual or annual smart license. Now, Cisco has totally shifted over to the smart licensing feature, and perpetual licenses are about to be eliminated from Cisco. The licensing feature is a bit costly if we compare it to other vendors. The licensing features of the F5 are perpetual, but the support has periodic renewal. The license to use Cisco features like a firewall or the routers are actually yearly based and not perpetual. The lead times are extremely high. Normally, it's six to eight months initially, and they prolong it to up to one year for new device delivery by Cisco. If you say you need a brand new router, switch, or fiber from Cisco within one month, you will never get it, unless some stock is readily available with your vendor. Otherwise, it will initially take six to eight months, and then that will be prolonged to one year. This is what we're experiencing with our clients right now.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution is scalable."
"The most valuable feature of the Cisco Cloud Services Router is it can make your migrations smooth. For example, if you want to migrate to the cloud, but you don't want to change the IP. You can extend your VLAN from on-premise to the cloud without having to change the IP."
"It is definitely scalable. It can handle a lot more traffic and group work compared to any other products that I've evaluated. It could easily scale a lot more than what I'm doing right now."
"The most valuable feature is the SNMP traps that I use to monitor the router and the availability of the network."
"It connects all the accounts with the weaknesses, and this is what we were looking for. Also, it connects with the on-premise side."
"It handles stress very well. We have not reached a point of needing to worry about its capabilities."
"It seems pretty stable. We have never had any issues with it."
"The most important feature is that it is designed for mobile vehicle communication in harsh conditions."
"The solution is easily scalable."
"We have found the technology to be excellent. It provides a lot of services."
"The stability of the solution is better than most other solutions."
"They offer a variety of very good features."
"The VPN is the most valuable feature of this solution. The basic clients who don't use the VPN use it mostly for connectivity."
"We appreciate that this solution performs well, regardless of the volume of traffic being fed through it."
"The product can help teach valuable life lessons about what not to do when building a network."
"Flexibility is the most valuable feature of this solution."
 

Cons

"The ease of use within the AWS environment needs to improve. Sometimes, it is very esoteric in how you use it. Therefore, you have to learn to use it, then you are able to."
"I would like the ability to moderate between devices on-premise to off-premise. This would be a vast improvement."
"There should be a system in place to help existing users make an easier transition to the newer interfaces."
"Cisco Cloud Services Router could improve the GUI."
"It is too complex. It is not easy to set up, even with the documentation that they provided. It is a little confusing."
"They have an online registration that happens after they pick up block months. If they could decrease to yearly or something, sometimes the device is not cell phone accessible. That becomes an issue or challenge for us. If that can be improved, that would be really great."
"A CAPEX/OPEX model, where the pricing model is subscription-based, would give much better flexibility for the customers. The pricing and model for Cisco Cloud Services Router and other Cisco products could be improved."
"The initial setup is easy for one device but is more complex when numerous devices need to be configured."
"Sometimes, I find it hard to learn how some features of the router work. So, these are the issues that may arise when a user might not have knowledge about the product."
"There needs to be an integration with SD-WAN for the solution."
"The solution's cloud management capabilities could be better."
"Recently, there seems to be a lot of people who are leaning towards Juniper CLI, which is easier to pick up."
"If I only have one LAN port in which I want to connect more than one device, I have to buy an add-on card so that I can have two LAN ports. The smaller devices and low-end routers have about four LAN ports. This solution is a high-end device but has only one. It would be preferable if they offered more LAN ports."
"It would be better if Cisco had a User Interface (UI) that we could configure from a web browser. Right now, we only have a Graphical User Interface (GUI). I would like to see a new UI with a dashboard for configuration in the next release."
"They are pretty expensive devices."
"The overall price of Cisco Enterprise Routers should be reduced, it is expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost needs improvement. It is very expensive through the AWS Marketplace."
"Cisco Cloud Services Router is an expensive product. My company pays for the product yearly, and the price reaches roughly $800,000. Though Cisco Cloud Services Router is expensive and its competitors offer better pricing, when it comes to support, it's unbeatable."
"The product is too expensive on the AWS Marketplace."
"Purchasing the product on the AWS Marketplace was very simplistic. Our organization was trying to centralize our billing costs, and simplicity was best."
"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was easy. It was almost a one-click process to purchase CSR."
"The should make the Dynamic Multipoint VPN solution more affordable."
"The price is a little high, more than what we wanted to pay. This is one area where we would like to understanding how the price could be brought down a bit more."
"Purchasing it through the AWS Marketplace was very simple. We went through the AWS Marketplace because it was the easiest way to get the product up and running very quickly."
"It is quite costly for the same feature as compared to Huawei and Juniper. I rate the pricing an eight out of ten."
"It is a costly solution."
"It's not probably the best solution if you have a very limited budget, as it can become very expensive to have robust equipment."
"Our issues are basically currency related. The licensing is in dollars and the dollar is steadily rising. We've had an increase in the licensing fee due to the simple reason that the exchange rate is almost over 40%. That creates a major issue. If the currency devaluation doesn't stabilize, we may have to look at another solution."
"The licensing policy can sometimes be very complicated."
"The solution is costly for small businesses."
"The cost of this solution is very low compared to other products."
"Cisco Enterprise Routers are not the cheapest routers on the market, they are expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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How do Cisco Enterprise routers compare with Mikrotik routers and switches?
Cisco Enterprise Routers are very stable and easy to use. They offer a very solid performance and are very secure. They also have a very good, long lifespan. We feel the command configuration is ve...
What do you like most about Cisco Enterprise Routers?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that it makes it possible for users to use encryption and decryption since our company aims to achieve transparency, and without it, the other system on...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Enterprise Routers?
I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price.
 

Also Known As

Cisco CSR, Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000v, Cisco CSR 1000v
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Under Armour, HealthSparq, Adobe
Aegean Motorway, Boingo, Chartwell School, Children's Hospital of Orange County , Department of Justice, Explorer Pipeline, Linz AG, National Rugby League, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Telecom Italia, Transwestern
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Cloud Services Router vs. Cisco Enterprise Routers and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
858,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.