Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL] vs Juniper QFabric comparison

Dell Technologies and Juniper are both solutions in the LAN Switching category. Additionally, 90% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Juniper users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerConnect Switches ...

Read 34 Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL] reviews

90% willing to recommend

Juniper QFabric

Read 10 Juniper QFabric reviews

268 Views
268 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Dell PowerConnect Switches ...

Juniper QFabric

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL] and Juniper QFabric based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Netgear and others in LAN Switching.

To learn more, read our detailed LAN Switching Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

LAN Switching

August 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 867,676 peers since 2012

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

Dell PowerConnect Switches ...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Juniper QFabric

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

LAN Switching (8th)

Featured Reviews

LarsEvans

Chief Technology Officer / Chief Information Security Officer at Lorton Data, Inc.

Reliable and useful for network segmentation

The solution's most valuable feature stands up well. The tool is reliable, and it stands up well. The solution works fine and lasts a long time. I think if you speak about the features that have a flow and you can measure, it is hard to say. I don't spend a lot of my time with the tool, but I know that Dell APEX is the solution's cloud. I would say the VLAN features are important. The VLAN features are really useful because network segmentation is important. I would say the tool is easy to program. I don't know if the tool has any security features that I am aware of other than the fact that the solution is for networking. The VLAN and the ability to segment your networks are easy, which is its security feature.

Read full review

Suresh Pathipatti

Senior Information Technology Administrator at Aighospital

Performs well, is easy to set up, and the vendor maintains the product well

QFabric is the core switch. We also have two Brocade switches for the Fibre level The product works fine. It is an excellent product. There are different element systems and different options for each generation of the tool. We maintain the data center and analyze issues. I have no negative…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are the jumbo frames and the stacking."

"The setup is straightforward. It takes minimum time for deployment."

"This solution comes with a lifetime warranty."

"The tool is very user-friendly, with features catering to beginners and advanced users. For beginners, there are models with interactive and easy-to-navigate GUIs that aid in initial deployment and updates. For advanced users, there is the option to use the CLI."

"The features I've found most valuable are that the product is very easy to configure and inexpensive."

"Dell offers very good support."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is simplicity."

"We have these switches installed in an environment with hardware from many other vendors, and so far, so good."

More Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL] pros

"The 40 gig backbone InterConneX was valuable for our use case. It is even faster now. QFabric has spine-leaf technology or topology, which basically makes every single hop only one hop away in terms of connecting from one device to another. It is a pretty good and robust solution. It works pretty well in terms of scalability, and their technical support is amazing."

"The solution is easy to use and has good performance."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the fabric backplane having upwards of 160 GB of communication. It is a top-of-the-rack solution where you have your directors sitting in the main area and then you have your nodes expanded out to your multiple cabinets. It has a very good design and could be your server backbone."

"It's user-friendly."

"QFabric supports redundancy and includes all of the enterprise and service provider features that customers would want in data center or service provider network."

"Juniper QFabric has various advantages including scalability, simplicity, performance, and flexibility."

"It is known for being agile, flexible, and cost-effective when working with various vendors."

"The most valuable feature of QFabric for network performance is its stability."

More Juniper QFabric pros

Cons

"The one issue you face in the industry there is always some planned obsolescence in these switches."

"The network features are not good."

"A user can take care of the product's installation part, but it may not seem to be an easy process."

"I expect it to be a zero-touch or a plug-and-play device. To some extent, it is, but we need to know the architecture, and we need to know what exactly we are doing. It is not so easy to implement. It depends on what exactly we are doing and it is still not a plug-and-play or zero-touch device. In the upcoming version, they can make it zero-touch, where we can just power it on and start using it. They can have some templates for different scenarios, such as when you are using it for the data center or adding it to your existing infrastructure."

"Dell is sometimes slow to provide updates to firmware."

"The product needs to improve in terms of reports and backups."

"I would like to see better scalability and more features on these switches in the future."

"The IOS software that is used on the switches could be improved."

More Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL] cons

"Improvements could be made to QFabric's life cycle management, particularly in maintaining stable versions and extending product support."

"The stability needs to be improved."

"They are working on the virtualization of the actual fabric layer. They are moving away from the original spine-leaf design to a different infrastructure. Instead of having three tiers, which was the director of the interconnected nodes, they cut them back, and they still have that kind of structure."

"I do not use GUI's very much for switch stacks. I am always in the CLI. However, I do know that Juniper in the past has lacked on their GUI's, but they have been working on it."

"It works too much on rebooting and there is some memory leakage."

"It would be nice if Juniper provided the system integrator with training, similar to that of Cisco."

"Having support for all OpenFlow versions would be beneficial."

"The pricing structure could be more budget-friendly."

More Juniper QFabric cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing as a seven or eight."

"On a scale of one to ten, if one means it is a cheap solution, and ten means it is a very expensive tool, I rate the product's price as seven. The tool is a bit pricey."

"The price of these switches is okay."

"The product has a low price for the features it provides."

"This solution is much cheaper than comparable products by Cisco."

"If you want to purchase a new Dell PowerConnect Switch, you will pay up to $1,600, but I bought them used. I bought the four Dell PowerConnect Switches that I used for $1,000."

"The initial cost was high but since they have lasted for over ten or twenty years they are worth it."

"PowerConnect Switches are priced well."

More Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL] pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is high."

"In terms of price, the QFabric solution is going to be probably in the middle of the road for a fabric solution."

"The pricing is high and it is possible to find better pricing option solutions on the market, but the licensing model is quite flexible."

"The price for Juniper QFabric could improve. There are subscription, maintenance, and add-on feature fees."

"Juniper QFabric is a high-level solution but it could be less expensive."

"The price is relatively high, but it offers an advantage over its competitors by providing better performance and functionality."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which LAN Switching solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

University

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	21
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerConnect Switches?

Dell PowerConnect Switches have a VTL feature similar to Cisco's VSS. With VTL, using this technology, you can cluster two switches together to increase redundancy in the environment.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerConnect Switches?

The solution is cheaper than Cisco.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell PowerConnect Switches?

Some proprietary commands available in Cisco are preferred by users accustomed to Cisco systems. These users might hesitate to switch because they want to continue using familiar commands and see t...

See all answers

What do you like most about Juniper QFabric?

The most valuable feature of QFabric for network performance is its stability.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Juniper QFabric?

Juniper QFabric is not overly expensive. Licensing is required for certain features like vRRP, but setting up a virtual chassis does not necessitate a separate license.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Juniper QFabric?

Improvements could be made to QFabric's lifecycle management, particularly in maintaining stable versions and extending product support. The rapid release cycle and short life span compared to comp...

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco Catalyst Switches vs Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL]

Compared 88% of the time

Cisco Nexus vs Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL]

Compared 13% of the time

More Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL] Competitors

Cisco Nexus vs Juniper QFabric

Compared 100% of the time

More Juniper QFabric Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL]

September 2025

Download Dell PowerConnect Switches [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

LAN Switching

August 2025

Download Juniper QFabric product report

Also Known As

PowerConnect Switches

QFabric

Overview

PowerConnect Switches family offers a set of flexible, manageable and comprehensive switch solutions supporting up to 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and optimized Internet iSCSI (iSCSI) performance with Dell Storage solutions, ideal for enterprise and campus LAN environments alike.

Dell Technologies

Juniper QFabric System is composed of multiple components working together as a single switch to provide high-performance, any-to-any connectivity and management simplicity in the data center. The QFabric System flattens the entire data center network to a single tier where all access points are equal, eliminating the effects of network locality and making it the ideal network foundation for cloud-ready, virtualized data centers.The highly scalable QFabric System improves application performance with low latency and converged services in a nonblocking, lossless architecture that supports Layer 2, Layer 3, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capabilities.

Juniper

Sample Customers

Amerijet Holdings Inc., CGD Securities, MavenWire, Tulane University

MCB Bank

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Netgear and others in LAN Switching. Updated: August 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best LAN Switching vendors.

We monitor all LAN Switching reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.