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Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center vs NETGEAR Switches comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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

Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data...
Ranking in Ethernet Switches
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NETGEAR Switches
Ranking in Ethernet Switches
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (4th), AV Over IP Switching (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Ethernet Switches category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center is 1.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETGEAR Switches is 8.7%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Ethernet Switches
 

Featured Reviews

Vishwajeet Pandey - PeerSpot reviewer
Management and monitoring efficiencies from a single platform increase network control and flexibility
Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center ( /products/fortinet-fortiswitch-data-center-reviews ) offers flexibility and control over the entire network from a single pane of management. It allows me to create VLANs, implement security measures, and push configurations using a single tool. These features make the solution accurate, flexible, and valuable for network management.
Umang Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient routing and access control with an easy setup
We use NETGEAR Switches for networking, particularly for switch-to-switch connectivity. We connect them with core switches, especially for camera installation NETGEAR Switches have increased the throughput and speed of internal communication, and have improved our network efficiency. The most…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center's scalability is good."
"I have found the solution to be scalable."
"It allows us to manage all necessary services, such as data centers, networking, and cybersecurity."
"The product is stable."
"It integrates well."
"A valuable feature of FortiGate is its management integrity."
"What I like about the solution is that it can be accessed anywhere."
"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to manage switches from one central point."
"The solution is very powerful and versatile."
"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."
"The remote management tools are fantastic. The combination of the webpage as well as the app makes life so much easier. I don't need to go and visit sites to do upgrades or any sorts of changes. The firmware can all be deployed remotely. I can see the traffic on each of the switch ports remotely as well, so I can see if we've got problems, down to an individual port. It's very granular."
"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 tool is crucial in our network setup, especially in our bank's customer service operations. It connects ATMs and links different branches and service centers. Each branch and service center has its network node connected through these switches."
"The company provides a lifetime warranty."
"The solution is simple to use. I am also impressed with the tool's GUI and CLI."
"The most valuable feature is the fact that Insight is cloud-managed. The whole reason behind it is that there is one central place to manage it. You can pre-configure everything and you can get access to it without having to get onto the client's network. That makes it easy to use and deploy."
 

Cons

"Fortinet could have the ability to authenticate users like Aruba offers because managing ten or twelve SSIDs for different clients is complicated."
"The solution can improve by upgrading QSFP+, it is very limited and must be supported more than it is now. If we need FortiSwitches to support all the QSFP ports our budgets would have to be very large."
"Cisco is better in terms of price, scalability, and ease of management. Regarding resources, they are available in Pakistan to manage these systems."
"The FortiSwitch product was initially quite complex."
"They could improve availability and security by detecting and preventing switch attacks."
"The product must improve the latency in the management center."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"The stability of the solution is impacted when integrating parts from different vendors such as Cisco, which can lead to performance problems and disconnections."
"The main negative thing is the speed. When you use the portal, if you have a lot of customers and locations in the portal, and you need to scroll through those clients or those locations, it takes a pretty long time to load those pages and to select the client. That's the problem in the portal on the laptop, and it's the same problem in the portal on the app."
"NETGEAR Switches must look into their competitors since they have all available models."
"There is a lack of documentation, and the documentation I have is unclear, so I have to rely on Google for information."
"One thing I would like to see improved is the response time for technical support."
"Their old firmware was a problem for us and we're still working on it. It didn't apply correctly so it took about half of our switches offline, which meant we couldn't use some of the functionality like the firmware updates. Unfortunately with that firmware, which they've sorted out, if you don't go through all the firmware and make sure it's past that point and back online, that's an issue with them. It's something to cautious about"
"The scalability and warranty should also be improved."
"There is a lot of delay in the data coming to the servers."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not expensive."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution, which is expensive."
"The product has a mid-range price."
"The solution's pricing is a little high. The solution deserves the current price it receives from its users."
"Cost-wise, Fortinet solutions are cheaper than those offered by Cisco."
"It is reasonably priced."
"Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center is expensive."
"The tool's pricing is lower than Cisco's."
"The great thing about the Insight product is that the renewable subscription is much cheaper than the competitors in the market. It is not over $50, per year, so customers buy the equipment and don't have to worry so much about the renewable fees that go along with having such access into their switch, with a cloud-managed solution. There are some other manufacturers where you'll essentially pay the same in hardware as you do in software, just for the cloud solution that supports it; just to keep getting the firmware updates and all of that information. With NETGEAR, you can do multi-year and that is something like 90 percent cheaper than if you're looking at Meraki, for example. It is extremely competitive. It's one of the main reasons we liked it so much."
"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 product is priced economically."
"NETGEAR is a cost-effective solution when going for a small enterprise."
"We find the cost of NETGEAR hardware and additional services to be below average compared to the top tier. There are still cheaper products out there, but they lack in functionality."
"For the price, they're good. If you look at Ubiquity switches (which have cloud features too) or even the regular NETGEAR GS switches, these are still price-competitive and come with the cloud features, which is just amazing."
"They are on par with other AV switch manufacturers, e.g., Pakedge, Cisco Small Business Series, and Extreme Networks. Though, they are closer in cost to Extreme Networks. They are more in the mid-range from an AV product price, maybe a bit higher. You can't beat their features compared to other vendors in that product range and capacity. AV specific only, they are mid-range price-wise."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center?
The Fortinet switches come with no additional cost as they are open source, with only hardware warranties applicable.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center?
There is room for improvement in customer support and device speed. Sometimes, customer support does not provide prompt assistance, leaving projects hanging. Additionally, improving the speed of th...
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

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Blaze Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiSwitch - Data Center vs. NETGEAR Switches and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.