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Cisco Nexus 9000 Series vs NETGEAR Switches comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 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

Cisco Nexus 9000 Series
Ranking in Ethernet Switches
23rd
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Data Center Networking (9th)
NETGEAR Switches
Ranking in Ethernet Switches
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (6th), AV Over IP Switching (2nd)
 

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.
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

"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."
"Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very durable and very reliable, and there has never been any issue with it."
"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."
"The ability to manage them is the big valuable feature. The ease of use is great."
"The big winner for NETGEAR is their modular switch: the 96X version. That is something that you don't see in the market anywhere else, except for Cisco who has it at a high level for a high expense. The ability to customize your own switch with their modules is a big plus for what we do in the market right now. Instead of having to piece together standardized switches, trying to make something work, or fitting the design into the mold, the modular switches are aware that you can make a mark in the industry because you purchased one switch and design with different modules added and removed later on for functionality."
"The solution helps transfer data."
"I'm satisfied with the stability of NETGEAR Switches."
"This switch is Layer 3, so it is a totally managed system."
"You are not limited in terms of stacking ports, and especially, if you're using the 96X as a core switch, the scalability, I could see this being very large. If you're using a type of a hybrid topology with a core switch going out to multiple switch stacks, or something like that, I could see the scalability of this being very good, especially considering the kind of backplane switching capacity on the 96X."
"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."
"The solution is stable."
 

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."
"Cost-wise, Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very expensive."
"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."
"They need to continue moving forward with their consulting in the AV realm to find out what is needed. They are some differences in the M4300 line and the larger M4500 line right now. They could produce a 1 Gigabit variety that could be a bit cheaper that might fit into that, since the majority of the projects that we see are still in that 1 Gigabit bandwidth threshold. Along with that, a great option would be if it would provide the same modular ability on a lower level."
"The management of them, itself, is not so good. You have to go between many different browsers, even some super-old browsers, to be able to do it. That is a super pain."
"The product's scalability has certain shortcomings that can be improved."
"There is a lot of delay in the data coming to the servers."
"One thing I would like to see improved is the response time for technical support."
"The tool does not offer extra firewall security."
"One thing I have asked for, something that NETGEAR lacks that I would love to see — and from what I understand it's in the works — is a REST API to programmatically interface with multiple switches. That would be a great feature."
"Centralized monitoring is there, but competitors like Cisco Prime are at a higher level of centralized monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Licensing is always a hassle and a pain point."
"We used HPE previously. The reason I switched to NETGEAR was because of pricing differences, which are huge, when you go into 10GB networking... The pricing is quite good... The total cost of the deployment was about 11,000 euros or so. If I had gone with HPE it would have been at least twice as much."
"The pricing for what you get with the Insight product line is very fair and the value is there, including the annual licensing fees for the Insight Pro for each device... the Insight Pro level, which is their highest level, where you get a lot of features with the Insight, is a bargain. You get a lot of good features for what you're paying there annually."
"NETGEAR Switches can be considered a big brand, so its pricing point is a bit higher than that of some of the other players in the market."
"NETGEAR pricing is the best on the market by far. I was shocked when I saw what their price came out as for their subscription. It's extremely reasonable."
"It's a great price-to-performance solution. I think it's singularly the best price-per-performance we can find, if not just straight performance to begin with... The cost of hardware and additional services is lower, absolutely. I wouldn't say "low," but we found it to be lower than other options, and that helps us resell this back to customers who are looking at other things like a Cisco Meraki..."
"The price to performance of this solution is very good. When it comes to pricing, as far as I'm concerned, they're very comparable with Ubiquity. NETGEAR has pricing that is as good as it gets. That's why I use them."
"It was an initial, single purchase for us. For the three switches, because I had the 96X and the two 48 port single gigabyte ones, then all the cards, etc. The total price on it, which may be a little on the low side, for the client was around $16,000 or $17,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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

What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
After the initial integration, the focus has been on support rather than further development. Cost-wise, Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very expensive. The pricing could absolutely be improved. So far,...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series serves as a core router and core switch for users, and provides interconnectivity between the core switch and the access switch, as well as remote access switch for smaller ...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
I am a customer of this solution and also a distributor. Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is usually integrated with other Cisco tools or third-party tools, including 3750, 3850, 3650, and 3750 as access sw...
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 do you like most about NETGEAR Switches?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. I have not faced any issues with the product whatsoever.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Blaze Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus 9000 Series vs. NETGEAR Switches and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.