Aruba Instant On Switches vs Cisco Nexus comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco are both solutions in the LAN Switching category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3, while Cisco is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 10.2% mindshare in LS, compared to Cisco’s 8.7% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

Aruba Instant On Switches

Read 29 Aruba Instant On Switches reviews

2,090 Views
1,074 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Cisco Nexus

Read 104 Cisco Nexus reviews

1,813 Views
1,282 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Aruba Instant On Switches

Cisco Nexus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Aruba Instant On Switches and Cisco Nexus based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two LAN Switching solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Aruba Instant On Switches vs. Cisco Nexus Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Instant On Switches vs. Cisco Nexus

January 2025

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Helped 838,713 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

Aruba Instant On Switches

Ranking in LAN Switching

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Cisco Nexus

Ranking in LAN Switching

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

104

Ranking in other categories

Data Center Networking (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the LAN Switching category, the mindshare of Aruba Instant On Switches is 10.2%, up from 8.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Nexus is 8.7%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

LAN Switching

Featured Reviews

MashukThakur

Senior Wireless Engineer at FASTtelco

A centrally managed switches ideal for small and medium businesses but does not have any console access

The solution does not have any console access. For example, if you do not have internet access on your side and you need to configure anything, you should at least have CLI access to do something or manage the solution to put to some IP. It will only work if we have a TSCT on the network. We can port and configure the initial settings before we get the Instant On Switches. I am not working deeply on Instant On devices. I have only installed it in a couple of accommodation sites. Even today, one customer has ordered to install 80 pieces of Instant On. I’ve to order additional 94 access points. I was confused about whether to go with Aruba Instant On or AP-505. Instant On has limited accessibility but AP-505 have cloud or local access on normal infrastructure. This would be better and easier to configure. So, there are further improvements in regard to console access and some limitations with access.

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Joe Benítez

Systems Engineer at GAD Municipal de Guayaquil

Offer high performance capabilities and enables efficient data transmission and processing

Before Nexus, I used to have Catalyst 6500 switches. Those 6500 series chassis gave us a lot of problems. Too many problems, actually. And we had a Cisco ASA firewall blade within those chassis. And they were running outdated software. So, in fact, it was the firewall blade that caused us too many problems instead of the chassis. The chassis itself was working well and performing fine, but the firewall card was not suitable for our needs. That was one aspect. Additionally, those chassis had been in operation for more than five years. As we are a local government, we have a policy to renew hardware every five years. That's because we need to maintain all the hardware and software in the latest versions and keep up with the technology lifecycle of the technology we use.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's best part is the commercials. Its pricing is lower compared to other enterprise products. We pitch the product to customers who have budget constraints. Its implementation is plug-and-play."

"The simplicity of the tool's GUI is good."

"It is a very stable solution."

"It is quite easy to maintain from the software point of view."

"We use Aruba Instant On Switches for general communication, sending files, and going to the internet."

"The solution is plug-and-play and auto-configured."

"The solution's most beneficial feature is that you obtain A-class equipment for the lowest price."

"I have enjoyed the switches. They are fairly easy to use."

More Aruba Instant On Switches pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is stability. We have a pretty large campus."

"Cisco Nexus meets all of our requirements."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it scales well. It supports a lot of servers. We don't have to come up with different designs for anything. That's the best part about it."

"This is a powerful device and I can get good bandwidth."

"This solution streamlines how we have to configure things because we can do everything from one device, whereas if we had individual devices we would have to go to each one and configure them manually."

"Cisco Nexus has improved the way our organization functions through the troubleshooting. We had issues where we've seen our links saturated. We were able to determine what was being processed on the link."

"The interface is as user-friendly as you can make it."

"The scalability of Cisco Nexus is good. We've had them for the entire lifetime. We've never had to upgrade them yet."

More Cisco Nexus pros

Cons

"Some L3 features could be included in the solution."

"They should extend the marketing and talk about Aruba's success stories throughout the region."

"You cannot use many VLANs, like VLAN 10, VLAN 20, VLAN 30, and VLAN 100 on Aruba Instant On AP."

"If Aruba can provide guidance on features through sessions or explanations, it would be helpful. We have to search and work online."

"In general, mostly in Instant On series, if we could have much more control on the switches, at least. We'd like a CLI access so that, when we want to do some advanced configurations we could."

"It could have an MSP portal version."

"The product must be integrated with Aruba Central for better management."

"Some customers have made complaints about Aruba Instant On Switches' stability."

More Aruba Instant On Switches cons

"One improvement needed is support for Multi-CAD scale that we were concerned about. We're not hitting any limits at this point."

"There may be many bugs which remain unresolved."

"The only issue that I have with this product is finding help on different commands when I'm trying to make a change."

"I would like to see a lighter platform."

"There's a couple of really bad incidents lately. Probably luck of the draw."

"As a device meant to lead the processes related to networking and troubleshooting, I feel both aspects can be described as areas with certain concerns where improvements are required."

"Don't discard Cisco Nexus because of the price."

"They need to offer fibre switches in the 9K series."

More Cisco Nexus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is quite low compared to other products, which is good for the customer."

"The product has good pricing."

"The pricing is cheap."

"The license for Instant On Switches is free."

"The product is not cheaply priced, especially when compared to the other vendors in the market."

"Pricing is competitive, and there are no supplementary fees."

"Aruba Instant On Switches is not expensive."

"If one is very bad, and ten is a very good price, I rate the tool's price as a six."

More Aruba Instant On Switches pricing and cost advice

"I don't like the Smart Licensing models that Cisco uses."

"It's around $160K a year for our license."

"Cisco Nexus is not a cheaply priced product."

"The Nexus 9000 is very competitively priced."

"Our licensing fees are paid annually."

"The solution is relatively expensive when compared with Cisco Catalyst."

"All of our costs including subscription, licensing, and support services are bundled together, and the cost is approximately $100,000 USD per year."

"Licensing is annual or every three years. We were one of the big customers, and we used to get good prices, but the cost of the support can be improved."

More Cisco Nexus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

25%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Aruba Instant On Switches?

The solution has a simple deployment and zero border.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aruba Instant On Switches?

If one is very bad, and ten is a very good price, I rate the tool's price as a six.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Aruba Instant On Switches?

The difficulty with the tool is in the area of troubleshooting. The problem that we have in our company is that the switches don't get connected properly. In the future, I want to see AI in the too...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cisco Nexus?

The product's initial setup phase is very easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Nexus?

Cisco pricing is at the same level as many competitors, however, due to competition, they sometimes lower prices and offer large discounts.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus?

Cisco's security features are in line with other OEMs, however, for data center security in terms of layer seven security, we prefer to have different OEMs rather than relying solely on Cisco.

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco Catalyst Switches vs Aruba Instant On Switches

Compared 45% of the time

HPE ProCurve vs Aruba Instant On Switches

Compared 41% of the time

NETGEAR Switches vs Aruba Instant On Switches

Compared 14% of the time

More Aruba Instant On Switches Competitors

Juniper QFX Series Switches vs Cisco Nexus

Compared 45% of the time

Arista Networks Platform vs Cisco Nexus

Compared 21% of the time

Cisco Catalyst Switches vs Cisco Nexus

Compared 13% of the time

ExtremeSwitching vs Cisco Nexus

Compared 5% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco Nexus

Compared 3% of the time

More Cisco Nexus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Instant On Switches

February 2025

Download Aruba Instant On Switches product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Nexus

February 2025

Download Cisco Nexus product report

Also Known As

Aruba Instant On 1930 Switches

No data available

Overview

The Aruba Instant On 1930 switches features advanced, smart-managed, fixed configuration Gigabit switches designed for small businesses that are easy-to-deploy and affordable. They’re made to handle today’s bandwidth-heavy applications like voice and video conferencing, enabling consistent connectivity to enhance performance. Using either the Instant On mobile app or the cloud-based web portal, you can quickly set up, monitor and manage the 1930 switch series from anywhere at any time. What’s more, up to 30 W PoE power delivery is available out-of-the-box for your class 4 PoE devices, like access points, surveillance cameras and VoIP phones, all easily managed from the same platform.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

The Cisco Nexus family of switches is designed to meet the stringent requirements of the next-generation data center. Not simply bigger or faster, these switches offer the following characteristics: infrastructure that can be scaled cost-effectively and that helps you increase energy, budget, and resource efficiency, transport that can navigate the transition to 10 Gigabit Ethernet and unified fabric and can also handle architectural changes such as virtualization, Web 2.0 applications, and cloud computing and operational continuity to meet your need for an environment where system availability is assumed and maintenance windows are rare if not totally extinct.

Cisco

Sample Customers

KEMET, Vestavia Hills City Schools, Dropbox

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

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Instant On Switches vs. Cisco Nexus

January 2025

Free Report: Aruba Instant On Switches vs. Cisco Nexus

Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba Instant On Switches vs. Cisco Nexus and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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