We compared Cisco Catalyst Switches and Cisco Nexus based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
Overall, the user reviews highlight that Cisco Catalyst Switches are valued for their stability, performance, scalability, ease of use, and flexibility, with emphasis on excellent customer support and significant ROI. On the other hand, Cisco Nexus is praised for its ease of use, scalability, redundancy capabilities, and technical support, with attention to its reliability and suitability for data center management. The key differences between the two products lie in their target markets, feature sets, and user experiences.
Features: The valuable features of Cisco Catalyst Switches include flexibility, ease of use, stability, performance, scalability, easy configuration, interconnectivity of devices, streaming audio and video management, and robust security features. On the other hand, Cisco Nexus is praised for its stability, user-friendly GUI, scalability, helpful technical support, and features like VDC and VPC that enhance flexibility and redundancy capabilities. It is especially suitable for data center management. ISSU feature allows for changes and testing before implementing them in the production environment.
Pricing and ROI: Cisco Catalyst Switches are known for their reasonable and competitive pricing in the market. The setup cost is straightforward and easy to integrate into existing networks. The licensing process is hassle-free and flexible. On the other hand, Cisco Nexus also offers competitive pricing, with a straightforward and hassle-free setup cost. Users appreciate the flexibility of licensing options provided by Cisco Nexus., Cisco Catalyst Switches offer a significant ROI with improved network performance, reliability, security features, and scalability. Users appreciate the ease of installation and management, leading to increased efficiency and cost savings. On the other hand, Cisco Nexus also provides a highly positive ROI with increased network performance, enhanced security measures, improved scalability, and simplified management. It offers cost savings through reduced downtime, improved productivity, and streamlined operations. Users praise its reliability, ease of implementation, and comprehensive feature set.
Room for Improvement: Cisco Catalyst Switches could benefit from enhanced firmware stability, better compatibility with third-party software and devices, improved user interface, faster response times, and enhanced troubleshooting capabilities. In contrast, Cisco Nexus could be improved in terms of reliability, performance speed, configuration simplicity, and compatibility limitations.
Deployment and customer support: The reviews for Cisco Catalyst Switches mention that deployment can take either three months or just a week, with some users using "deployment" and "setup" interchangeably. On the other hand, Cisco Nexus reviews indicate varying durations, with some users spending three months on deployment and an additional week on setup, while others only need a week for both., The customer service for Cisco Catalyst Switches has been praised for its prompt, reliable, and effective support. Users value the helpfulness and knowledge of the support staff. On the other hand, the customer service for Cisco Nexus is also highly regarded for its prompt, knowledgeable, and efficient support. Users appreciate the helpful and attentive support representatives and the availability of comprehensive documentation and online resources to assist them. Overall, users are satisfied with the assistance and support provided by Cisco Nexus.
The summary above is based on 87 interviews we conducted recently with Cisco Catalyst Switches and Cisco Nexus users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"As there are many who are knowledgeable of this technology, this translates into extensive support for it."
"It works well."
"This technology is a completely mature technology and I don't think anything needs to be changed."
"The network is secure."
"I like everything about Cisco Catalyst Switches. It's both stable and scalable."
"It helps keep our network connections in a healthy state."
"The new series has lots of great features, it's really lovely. From a management perspective, or a policy creation perspective, which we are seeing in the Catalyst 9000 series it is great."
"It is easy to install."
"From a data center implementation, with respect to competition from your data, there isn't really a product recovery for the different tests other than Cisco Nexus. For example, if you take Multi-tenancy for the data center, it's something which, I think, only Cisco has. There are some implementation from HP, but I think it's limited there."
"Technical support has been very, very helpful and they offer good SLAs."
"We have a much more stable network now using the Cisco Nexus."
"This is a very stable solution."
"The most valuable features of the solution are capacity and scalability."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its reliability."
"Its easy management is most valuable. It is easy to use, easy to manage, stable, and very reliable."
"We have continuity with Cisco, which provides a very high-end solution."
"An area for improvement would be the documentation and training on configuring this product."
"They should make so that they let users know five to ten minutes before productivity is restored in the case of power loss."
"These switches should have better compatibility with software-defined technology."
"The technical support, in some cases, should be faster and could improve."
"Catalyst Switches could be more secure."
"It can have more security features to secure the access layer."
"The solution could improve by allowing administrators to create scripts to help automate processes to make tasks easier."
"Scaling can be quite costly."
"I feel that this solution should be more flexible and scalable."
"Cisco Nexus is just a platform. You just set it up, give it an IP, and then start configuring it. But there are a million features to configure."
"There is no feature parity between the 9K and the 5K or 7K, which means that it is harder to position the 9K to future proof them."
"There are too many different model numbers and too much complexity."
"With some of the products we had before, we had a little more downtime than we would like."
"I would like to see Duo directly integrated with the Nexus hardware, instead of it being through the proxies, like how Duo works today."
"They need to understand that when we call them and have an issue, it's our production and sometimes they want us to do repairs that would cause other issues. That's the biggest problem."
"Nexus is a costly solution."
Cisco Catalyst Switches is ranked 1st in LAN Switching with 171 reviews while Cisco Nexus is ranked 6th in LAN Switching with 101 reviews. Cisco Catalyst Switches is rated 8.6, while Cisco Nexus is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco Catalyst Switches writes "Reliable and stable catalyst switch; can be easily installed". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Nexus writes " Offer high performance capabilities and enables efficient data transmission and processing". Cisco Catalyst Switches is most compared with Arista Networks Platform, Dell PowerConnect Switches, HPE ProCurve, ExtremeSwitching and Aruba Instant On Switches, whereas Cisco Nexus is most compared with Juniper QFX Series Switches, Arista Networks Platform, Dell PowerConnect Switches, VMware NSX and ExtremeSwitching. See our Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. Cisco Nexus report.
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