We performed a comparison between Cisco Catalyst Switches and Dell PowerConnect Switches based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Users feel Cisco Catalyst Switches provide great stability, intuitive reliable analytics, seamless scalability, excellent PoE capabilities, and solid robust security. However, users are happier with the pricing of Dell PowerConnect Switches.
"As far as technology is concerned, Cisco improves the client-to-client business."
"The most valuable features include the redundancy one and the spanning tree."
"This is a feature-rich product and the newer models have improved features that allow for many new possibilities."
"The stability and Cisco's support are the most valuable features."
"We decreased budgets on the support corporate network and increased user satisfaction."
"The biggest advantage of having this solution is that it is easy to find engineers, and they are cheaper than hiring HP engineers."
"These switches are stable."
"Technical support is always very helpful and fast to respond."
"PowerConnect Switches' stability is satisfactory."
"When the price is competitive the customers tend to choose the cheaper brand and then look at the features. So having a competitive price is a plus."
"The product is cheap."
"Dell offers very good support."
"The solution’s technical support is good."
"It's easy to set up. We can put it in production in a couple of minutes."
"Its throughout and compatibility are the most valuable."
"The most valuable features are the jumbo frames and the stacking."
"Cisco Catalyst Switches do not have an open architecture and you have to buy into the Cisco architecture to be able to use them."
"We have configurations for port channels between two facilities, and we cannot communicate between these two buildings. An SFP configuration uses one wire to send and receive the signal. It's opt-in. We cannot use it after the upgrade. What can we do in this situation? We already bought it."
"The price is high and it should be improved."
"Cisco switches are expensive."
"Cisco should focus more on this type of product instead of on data center switches. They stopped improving the software of these switches and they are focusing on the data center. They should focus on this type of product, more than any other thing."
"I use the Cisco Catalyst Switches command-line interface(CLI) a lot out in the field, but there are some web interfaces features that are available that I haven't used very much. I'm more comfortable with the CLI, but the web interfaces are very lacking."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution could improve by adding a user-friendly GUI. We use third-party applications for log monitoring that are expensive and if Cisco could provide log monitoring as part of this solution it would be beneficial."
"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."
"It would be great to have modules that integrate with SDN solutions such as Cisco ACI, Arista SDN, Huawei Agile, and IBM."
"The solution could provide more integration to focus on targeting the network as a whole rather than a unified environment. It is meant for a built environment, so integration with other third-party vendors will likely be necessary."
"Accessibility and management could be improved."
"We've only been using the solution for half a year. We haven't run into any issues, but maybe over time, that may change. It's too soon to tell. Offhand, there aren't any features that are lacking."
"Because of the stackings you lose some boards and switches."
"Not a ten because I have to do a lot of testing on it. The correlation is okay."
"Dell is sometimes slow to provide updates to firmware."
Cisco Catalyst Switches is ranked 1st in LAN Switching with 171 reviews while Dell PowerConnect Switches is ranked 3rd in LAN Switching with 30 reviews. Cisco Catalyst Switches is rated 8.6, while Dell PowerConnect Switches is rated 8.0. 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 Dell PowerConnect Switches writes "Excellent support, good pricing, and easy setup". Cisco Catalyst Switches is most compared with Arista Networks Platform, Cisco Nexus, HPE ProCurve, ExtremeSwitching and Aruba Instant On Switches, whereas Dell PowerConnect Switches is most compared with Cisco Nexus, HPE ProCurve, NETGEAR Switches, Arista Networks Platform and Dell PowerSwitch N-Series. See our Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. Dell PowerConnect Switches report.
See our list of best LAN Switching vendors and best Data Center Networking 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.
