No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco Nexus 9000 Series vs Dell PowerEdge R-Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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

Cisco Nexus 9000 Series
Ranking in Data Center Networking
7th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Ethernet Switches (16th)
Dell PowerEdge R-Series
Ranking in Data Center Networking
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
307
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (1st), Blade Servers (2nd), Rack Servers (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Tom van Mil - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Administrator at Lico Innovations B.v.
Supports flexible hosting needs through seamless upgradability and strong monitoring capabilities
The most valuable features of Dell PowerEdge R-Series for me are the feature richness and the upgradability. I really love the way that it is so dynamically applicable for every situation, and they manage to have an all-in-one solution for every single situation. Dell PowerEdge has supported the growth and operational success of my company through its great compute power and price-to-performance ratio. Every time Dell is at the top of its game for us, and there is just no other brand for us that is able to reach that kind of price-to-performance ratio. Dell PowerEdge R-Series has features that specifically cater to the needs of my small company, such as iDRAC. The iDRAC system is a complete feature set for managing servers and hardware technically and monitoring-wise. It really fits in our system and our ecosystem, and monitoring-wise, it is excellent. They have all these sensors available via different protocols and end points, which I love, and the ability to manage and control everything via the iDRAC interface is just a welcome bonus. In our use case, Dell PowerEdge R-Series is very flexible. It is another computer which helps a lot because of the durability over time. They keep running, making scalability for getting more of those resources in our environment so easy.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"Performance has been great with no abnormal behaviors detected, and the network remains stable even in failover scenarios, supporting vast environments with high availability."
"RealPresence works effectively."
"Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very durable and very reliable, and there has never been any issue with it."
"We are using the core capabilities of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Ethernet switches, and it is performing well."
"Nowadays, iDRAC is very important. It is one of the features that we use the most because we do not always have physical access to our machines. iDRAC is a tool that we use daily. If we did not have it, it would be very complicated to manage the machines. This is a great feature."
"I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable aspects include hot swapping and the elasticity as far as being able to scale."
"We used to have HPE. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are much easier to use and manage."
"What I like the most about the R-Series is that they are rack solid, really reliable, and they are very current, almost at the bleeding edge."
"I've never had any down time with this solution and it's very user friendly."
"It is user friendly and easy to configure."
"The solution delivers what it promises. You look at the specs and it delivers them."
 

Cons

"The SFP modules we are using have had issues. We have Cisco modules, but they frequently heat up or there are packet error issues."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Cost-wise, Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very expensive."
"Their support can be better. The speed of their support is not always great because the access to the data centers is sometimes complicated, so there is back and forth."
"Its scalability is good up to certain limits, but if more computing is required as per the business plan, we will need to switch to another model."
"I want Dell to offer more virtualization platforms because the cost of VMware is getting too high."
"When trying to quote devices and servers for our Mexico City offices directly with Dell instead of through a partner, we encountered some challenges. It took several months to negotiate appropriate pricing, requiring escalation to the director of Dell Mexico and communication with Dell US."
"Dell PowerEdge R-Series could be improved by expanding the slots and local disks. This is the main area for improvement because I have many environments where I need local space, and the slots limit how much I can accomplish."
"There are certain aspects, features, and functionality on the motherboard that need improvement."
"Dell can improve or speed up the deployment process with more intuitive dashboards, a more intuitive installing process, and maybe more detailed guides that can help the end user to install and implement their servers and racks."
"They need improvement in spare part availability in Argentina, but the servers are very good from a hardware point of view."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing for this solution is competitive compared to others on the market."
"The server is a one-time purchase, but the support is on a subscription basis."
"One of the clients has been offered a price of $18,000 instead of the regular price of around $25,000."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers is reasonable compared to other solutions."
"The pricing and licensing are fair."
"Dell is pretty good. good. I had a conversation with Dell a while ago due to a vendor. We got much better pricing from a competitor. When I looked at another company, Dell called me and asked why am I looking at someone else when they have a distributor. I told them that their pricing was not good, so Dell went back to the distributor, and we got much better pricing"
"It has generally been very competitive. It is not the best, but it is very competitive."
"I am satisfied with the pricing of the Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers and would rate the cost as seven out of ten, with ten being the best."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Center Networking solutions are best for your needs.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
26%
Construction Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business110
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise128
 

Questions from the Community

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...
When shopping for a rack server, would you go with Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem rack servers were the better fit for us. We ultimately decided to go with Dell EMC Poweredge....
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
Regarding how Dell PowerEdge R-Series can be improved, something personal to me is the number of PCI Express slots in the back; however, that is an engineering choice. Otherwise, I am happy with th...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?
Dell PowerEdge R-Series servers serve as IO machines for talking to PCI Express devices. The use cases change over time, and I push data to the network for in-flight compute.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus 9000 Series vs. Dell PowerEdge R-Series and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.