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Arista Networks Platform 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

Arista Networks Platform
Ranking in Ethernet Switches
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Data Center Networking (2nd)
NETGEAR Switches
Ranking in Ethernet Switches
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (5th), AV Over IP Switching (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Ethernet Switches category, the mindshare of Arista Networks Platform is 2.6%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETGEAR Switches is 9.7%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Ethernet Switches
 

Featured Reviews

MarekSzafrański - PeerSpot reviewer
Affordable for enterprise-sized companies
Speaking about whether the product enhanced our company's data center scalability, I would say that it was a solution that was used in a banking company, where it served as a replacement for Cisco. Though Arista Networks Platform is similar to Cisco IOS CLI, I feel that the former product offers better prices compared to the latter tool. Arista Networks Platform office is more efficient at a lower cost. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. The tool is stable and cheaper than Cisco. I would say that Arista Networks Platform is 100 percent compatible with the existing infrastructure in my company. The impact of the tool's network telemetry on our company's troubleshooting practices was just good for the scope for which I need the product. I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.
Doug Meuross - PeerSpot reviewer
Can easily integrate with the networks and infrastructures
No maintenance is required for the solution. It is very easy to integrate the product with the other systems in our company's infrastructure since you only need to consider plugging a cable. My company does not integrate the product with any product specifically since we only consider integrations with the networks and infrastructures. As the product needs to be plugged in and it starts working, I can say that it is a reliable solution that works. The tool also offers quality, especially if you consider how you would not know whether an unknown product that you choose would work for you or not. I recommend the product to others. I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

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 feature is the Linux shell, which is useful for troubleshooting or capturing traffic."
"I find the operational system used by Arista to be very valuable, and the hardware is exceptionally nice. Arista has a unified operational system called EOS that is easy to set up and replicate on other devices. The ease of configuration and transition between devices is a significant advantage for me."
"Arista Networks Platform has a feature that helps with monitoring and management."
"What we like most is its performance to price ratio."
"Arista's customer service is excellent."
"They support open standard features."
"Arista Networks Platform offers straightforward deployment, and has good features. Support for the platform is also good."
"We find the CloudVision switching feature of this solution really useful."
"The tool is stable."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. I have not faced any issues with the product whatsoever."
"The cloud management has just been huge for us. We have 80 clients and they all have switches... With the cloud-managed Insight ones... we know more information without having to do complicated SNMP traps. We get nice emails, we get a web interface, and we're not having to wait for our RMM tools to get SNMP traffic to notify us. We don't have to do complicated configurations."
"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."
"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."
"This switch is Layer 3, so it is a totally managed system."
"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."
"The company provides a lifetime warranty."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to improve their product range."
"The community is good but is not good enough. It still needs to grow more."
"They should have a more stable code."
"The intent-based networking management, together with the provider of these solutions that are already free, would be beneficial."
"They should expand further into campus networks."
"The solution’s pricing could be better."
"A weakness would be that in our company, we don't have many people within our team who support the product because there are different vendors, and most of them are not tier-one vendors, so the skills required sometimes are just not there."
"The stability of this solution needs to be improved as part of the next upgrade."
"The product's stability has certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"Centralized monitoring is there, but competitors like Cisco Prime are at a higher level of centralized monitoring."
"Being able to pass AVB traffic over these switches, that would be a huge add. There are not many switches out that support that. The GS728TP NETGEAR switches used to or still do support AVB, but it would be ideal if the 4300 Series could support it as well."
"If they could come up with ways to look at metrics on it while the video is capping through the system, that would be nice. There could be some interesting uses for that, but it's a long way off."
"Though the tool's useability is good, it has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"An area for improvement would be creating a wizard that can do a lot of common stuff. Instead of having some manual configuration for common features, they may want to have a single wizard that could be put in place which would let you walk through creating multiple VLANs and different routes between VLANs in a wizard. Then, you wouldn't have to dig in so deep."
"What I'd like to see is more compatibility with virtual stacking, so that 4300-series switches and 3300-series switches will actually stack together and that virtual switch stacks, themselves, are not limited to just six devices, so that they can create larger loops with more bandwidth and more redundancy."
"They can improve on the commercial part, specifically the cost, as it is higher than other brands."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Arista is very expensive. Not everybody is in a position to spend $70,000 to $80,000 for one switch."
"I remember that when our customers were offered the Arista Networks Platform, they used a checklist to compare the prices between Arista and Cisco for their requirements, and found that the prices were almost the same."
"Specific tools definitely require a license for the subscription. But we are not using these tools in our environment. In terms of licensing, you need to spend approximately $10,000 per month."
"There is an annual license required to use the Arista Networks Platform."
"The customer price for an Arista router is approximately $7,000 USD, while Cisco's is around $18,000."
"Network devices are generally expensive. However, during the evaluation, Arista was the most inexpensive vendor."
"It is pretty pricey for a networking platform. It is on par with Cisco."
"Cost wise, Arista Networks Platform is more expensive than other networking solutions."
"Licensing is always a hassle and a pain point."
"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."
"The pricing is phenomenal. It's not only good for the company providing the solution, but the customer gets a good deal too. There's a good profit margin for the business to be able to resell it to a client or to offer a good price to the client. It's a win-win for both the company providing this particular equipment to the customer and for the customer."
"The price to performance of the switches is excellent. The price point of these switches is great compared to big brands, like Cisco or Extreme Networks, with approximately the same functionality."
"I sold someone a SonicWall and they had to redo their subscription every year. It was a $300 or $400 subscription they had to pay every year... With NETGEAR... it's only a $10 or $20 subscription per device for the whole year... and you have your license and you have all your support."
"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."
"In terms of the NETGEAR stuff, there weren't any surprises. The costs were definitely fair, especially considering what we were replacing. For the equivalent performance from a non-AV over IP solution, it would have been easily been in the $40,000 range. Comparing it to standard AV video switching, the price was very good, especially considering now they can add-on without any massive additional costs."
"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..."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Arista Networks Platform?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Arista Networks Platform?
Compared to Cisco, Arista routers are significantly cheaper. The customer price for an Arista router is approximately $7,000 USD, while Cisco's is around $18,000.
What needs improvement with Arista Networks Platform?
Arista Networks is currently less popular as they were initially more focused on data centers than campus networks. They should expand further into campus networks.
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

7000 Series
NETGEAR Insight Managed Switches, NETGEAR GC Series, NETGEAR M Series
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Internet Services
Blaze Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about Arista Networks Platform vs. NETGEAR Switches and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.