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Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches vs NETGEAR Switches comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 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

Juniper EX Series Ethernet ...
Ranking in Ethernet Switches
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 February 2025, in the Ethernet Switches category, the mindshare of Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches is 3.1%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETGEAR Switches is 9.1%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Ethernet Switches
 

Featured Reviews

Bona Chhith - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides campus switches and access switches that are simple to deploy, but the code isn't stable enough for a leaf and spine design
If we're building a data center and have Juniper, we have hundreds of Juniper switches in a leaf and spine design architecture, and it's horrible. Sometimes after an upgrade, half of the even port can't be detected. They don't recognize third-party SFPs, and now they claim that they don't support that anymore. There are a lot of issues with the hardware and software. Juniper needs to get their code up to par because it isn't stable enough for a leaf and spine design. If you have over 10,000 VMs or Mac addresses, it doesn't scale. I would love Juniper to have more stable features, hardware, and code. We have so many tickets open with Juniper. The switch reboot doesn't detect the port. About 80% of my problems aren't engineering problems, but are Juniper's problems. In comparison, Arista gives me 10% of the problems that Juniper gives me when it comes to hardware and software. It's falling behind compared to Palo Alto because of its features. Juniper's campus switches and data center switches for the leaf and spine design for the overlay and underlay is horrible. I wouldn't recommend that anyone use Juniper fabric, because there are so many problems, issues, and features that aren't supported.
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 Juniper Ethernet switch feature I find the most valuable is reliability."
"The product is very helpful in troubleshooting."
"Juniper switches are very good with MPLS."
"The solution is certainly scalable."
"I like the simplicity of it."
"Both Juniper and Cisco switches are interoperable."
"The security is good."
"It is stable."
"Since it has a web interface, it is easy to set up. You don't have to take three years of training somewhere for a lot of money."
"The High Bandwidth AV-over-IP functionality of these switches has been fantastic, especially in leaf-and-spine. We've been able to build redundancy and they seem to outperform even the Cisco Catalyst, which is about twice as expensive as the M-series switches are."
"The company provides a lifetime warranty."
"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."
"The most valuable features are routing and access control."
"We have one client that has three Insight switches and when we make a change to their network... we can make the configuration change and push it down to all three switches at once. We don't have to individually log on to each switch to make the change."
"The ability to mix and match is invaluable. So, we didn't have to run massive super extensive switches in the data closets where it wasn't necessary. Being able to manage it all from one place, as all your network configuration settings went live across your entire building from one management console was really handy."
"Comes preconfigured and designed specifically for AV."
 

Cons

"Wireless and monitoring definitely could be improved."
"EX switches take too long to boot when we restart them for maintenance. We need to minimize downtime. Another issue is the command line interface. Juniper's commands are different from other switches, so it's hard to remember them."
"The stability could be better. We find, for example, Cisco, to be more stable."
"Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches is not cheap. The tool needs improvement in UI."
"Juniper Ethernet Switches would be improved by upgrading the uplink port in EX2300 categories service from 10G to 25G."
"The configuration could be made simpler."
"Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches lack to offer the latest management tools."
"In an upcoming release, Juniper Ethernet Switches could improve by having more microservices."
"The security features must be improved."
"The tool's price could be better."
"The tool is good, but we probably need another model with PoE connections. Our office plans to switch from analog phone lines to VoIP next year, and we need a model that supports this transition and can handle the required technology. Additionally, improved support for newer technologies like Wi-Fi would be beneficial."
"Support needs to be improved."
"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."
"The ‘how-to’ guides could do with some improvements. We got in trouble following the stacking and Dante set-up guides. If these would have been accurate, we would not have lost three days."
"One area that has room for improvement, and I know NETGEAR is working on it, is adding more features to the products lines in terms of what we can manage through the Insight portal... not all Layer 2 or Layer 3 settings are there yet."
"They need to continue moving forward with their consulting in the AV realm to find out what is needed. They are some differences in the M4300 line and the larger M4500 line right now. They could produce a 1 Gigabit variety that could be a bit cheaper that might fit into that, since the majority of the projects that we see are still in that 1 Gigabit bandwidth threshold. Along with that, a great option would be if it would provide the same modular ability on a lower level."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They offer a more competitive pricing structure compared to one of the competitors."
"It is an inexpensive product."
"The maintenance cost is approximately €2,000 ($2,200 USD) per year, including support, for our entire fleet."
"We don't need to pay for the solution's features."
"The price of the Juniper EX Series is reasonable. Cisco is a lot more expensive."
"For the QFX5000 Juniper switches, the price is about $10,000, but they would probably sell it for $1,000. Nobody can beat Juniper's pricing when it comes to switches. Juniper out-prices everybody, but they get you on the back end, maintenance, service port, and service contract."
"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"Juniper Ethernet Switches are a less expensive solution than Cisco Ethernet Switches. There is only a one-time purchase for Juniper Ethernet Switches."
"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."
"NETGEAR Switches' pricing is low compared to other brands. I rate it an eight out of ten."
"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 this solution is very good. When it comes to pricing, as far as I'm concerned, they're very comparable with Ubiquity. NETGEAR has pricing that is as good as it gets. That's why I use them."
"They're good value. They're good entry-level switches. I know Cisco generally has a lot more capability. But, for an organization this size, we don't need that. So they're good value for the cost and what we need."
"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 great. The cost of the hardware is low... There are a few solutions that have a lower cost, but NETGEAR is very value-oriented."
"The solution is expensive. You need to pay the costs one-time."
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Comparison Review

it_user82779 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 29, 2014
Benefits of Juniper vs Cisco
Both are decent products. I prefer Juniper for the following reasons: 1) Cleaner separation of data plane from control plane. Higher end Cisco devices are better at this but most of the lower end products still seem to be more integrated than I like. 2) The Hierarchical config design means I can…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
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

In terms of ethernet switches, would you go with Cisco or Juniper?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Cisco or Juniper Ethernet switches were the better fit for us. We decided to go with Juniper. Juniper ethernet switches are a lesser-known...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Juniper Ethernet Switches?
If compared to Cisco, this is a well priced solution. Compared to HP, it is a little bit overpriced. Overall, they are priced in the middle compared to competitors.
What advice do you have for others considering Juniper Ethernet Switches?
Juniper EX model is ok for the campus network as the ex4300 is EOL in a few years and the new ex4400 is the standard. Now for the QFX model, 5k/10k in CRB mode IP fabric Ethernet switching is horri...
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

Juniper Ethernet Switches
NETGEAR Insight Managed Switches, NETGEAR GC Series, NETGEAR M Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BlackLotus, Staminus, Community Bank, BAS Group, Cloud Dynamics, Privalia, Fluidata, and Tesla Motors.
Blaze Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches vs. NETGEAR Switches and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.