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

Cisco Nexus vs Cisco Nexus 9000 Series comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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

Cisco Nexus
Ranking in Data Center Networking
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (2nd)
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series
Ranking in Data Center Networking
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Ethernet Switches (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Data Center Networking category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus is 10.4%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is 4.3%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Center Networking Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Nexus10.4%
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series4.3%
Other85.3%
Data Center Networking
 

Featured Reviews

Fakhar Mahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Administrator at i2c
Migration between data centers has strengthened core connectivity and simplified segmentation
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches, which made this a quite difficult part to manage and to onboard the teams and to understand the impact of the migration. We encountered an issue where we have two data centers, and unknowingly we were configuring the devices with the same VPC number on both devices. By doing that, we were not able to terminate the lease lines over those core switches. According to Cisco, we had to change the VPC number of one of the data center's core switches since they are in a VPC. We are still waiting, and it has been more than five to six years just to change the VPC number and migrate back the lease line. Now we are having cabin switches for the lease line and then the core switch. That VPC number issue was quite surprising for us. However, we have a very frequent issue with Cisco Nexus, particularly with the SFPs. Every time a port or the SFP heats up, it gets faulty. We have almost sixteen Nexus switches per data center. In a year, we experience one or two port issues per annum. We have standard Equinix data centers with standard installations, but somehow the temperature is always maintained and there is no ducting, yet the ports and the SFPs heat up or become faulty. This is a very frequent issue with the SFP-based port.
AS
Technical Marketing Engineer Hybrid Cloud Infrastructures at NetApp
Policy-driven data centers have delivered low-latency connectivity for critical applications
The most critical and important feature in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is VPC. Apart from VPC, there are many other features in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series that stand out as advantages. You can apply access control lists on that. You can do Layer 3 capabilities. You can configure HSRP. You can implement VRFs. You can isolate the L3 network within your data center. It has a lot of features including network segmentation capabilities. You can apply a lot of security hardening and manage the access on the switches through auditing to see who is doing what and restrict access based on the network admin role. These are great features. The overlay technology support in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is good for large-scale deployment where you are going to build something like a hyperscaler. You need more network segments, and with VXLAN, you can definitely build a large fabric with those Nexus switches.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The redundancy and the vPC are the most valuable features. We can integrate two switches together for file transfers; that is, we can operate two switches as one. This is because the network can be shared via a vPC trunk, particularly for devices that are not critical for redundancy."
"The durability exceeded our expectations."
"The scalability of Cisco Nexus is good. We've had them for the entire lifetime. We've never had to upgrade them yet."
"The interface is easy to use. It is not much different from iOS, but you can use it on a larger scale in data centers."
"A very solid and reliable solution."
"The most valuable features of this solution are scalability and reliability."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Nexus are the performance, flexibility, configuration, and cost."
"The most valuable features are the great performance, high availability and easy administration."
"Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very durable and very reliable, and there has never been any issue with it."
"There has been improvement in our connectivity with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series, and there is less drag."
"The features for manageability and visibility are impressive."
"The performance in data center operations with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is excellent; we have never faced any performance issues."
"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."
"RealPresence works effectively."
"According to the customers, they are not utilizing even 40% of the switches because the capacity is very large."
"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."
 

Cons

"Any problems we have with the product stems from the difficulty of connecting with other non-Cisco products."
"They need to offer fibre switches in the 9K series."
"I am looking for a GUI that goes alongside them and more SD-WAN built to their core switches."
"I feel that this solution should be more flexible and scalable."
"I don't really deal with the pricing but I know that it's not cheap."
"The only real feature that we are hoping would evolve at some point is multi-contexts to get into multi-tenancy type environments."
"Cisco Nexus still needs more stability."
"The implementation process could be easier, which is something that should be improved."
"If I have a Juniper and want to uplink with Cisco, there could be some configuration challenges."
"The potential for improvement lies in the licensing aspect, which is somewhat confusing. The perpetual and subscription licensing is a concern."
"When trying to contact support, we had issues trying to get someone to help us."
"Cost-wise, Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very expensive."
"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."
"The SFP modules we are using have had issues. We have Cisco modules, but they frequently heat up or there are packet error issues."
"Even though it is expensive, I am not sure about the return on investment. It is expensive, and you will need to pay for subscription fees that also are not cheap."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very expensive. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"It's worth the money we're paying for Nexus."
"Costs more than most, but the reliability pays for the difference."
"Our licensing costs for this solution are approximately $200 USD per month."
"I don't like the Smart Licensing models that Cisco uses."
"This is a very expensive product."
"It's around $160K a year for our license."
"We have a virtual license."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Center Networking solutions are best for your needs.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Comms Service Provider
23%
Outsourcing Company
17%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise83
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Nexus?
We are a reseller, and we sell products to our customers.
What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus?
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches,...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Nexus?
Cisco Nexus is used in data centers with a simple Nexus OS deployment model. In our environment, we do not use programmability with Cisco Nexus. The switches are used very basically in our infrastr...
What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
If we speak about the negative side, the prices are something that could be improved. It is expensive compared with other competitors, about 40% higher than any other vendor. This is the main point...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series focuses on serving the data center primarily, not the endpoints. The focus is on how to serve your data center, perform the segmentation that you need inside your data cente...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
The policy-driven approach in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series can be understood through the integration with Cisco DNA. One of the main features or strength points that Cisco Nexus 9000 Series has is the f...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Banco de Guayaquil, Baylor Scott & White Health, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Calligaris, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Del Papa Distributing, Department of Justice, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Hertz, K&L Gates , LightEdge, Lone Star College System, Management Science Associates, Mindtree, NBC Olympics, Quest, Sony Corporation, The Department of Education in Western Australia, Valley Proteins
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus vs. Cisco Nexus 9000 Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.