Cisco Catalyst, Cisco Meraki, and Cisco Nexus switches with Cisco DNA Center controller

Network switch competitive comparison

See how Cisco Switches stack up

Compare Cisco enterprise network switches with switches from Arista, Huawei, and HPE. Use the chart below to take a deep dive into ways that Cisco switches help you adapt to whatever is next.

Network switch comparison chart

Feature
Cisco
HPE
Huawei
Arista
Custom silicon
Available
  • Investment protection
  • Feature robustness
  • Platform longevity
Limited
  • Short life span
  • Mix of custom and merchant silicon based platforms with inconsistent set of capabilities
Limited
  • Merchant silicon with limited flexibility
  • ENP and Solar inferior to Cisco UADP capability
  • No high-speed stacking interface
  • Lacks in performance, packet processing, and full data flow visibility
Limited
  • Merchant silicon with limited flexibility
Common chassis
Available

Investment protection with line card and supervisor upgrades

Catalyst 9400X: 

  • 90W Cisco UPOE+
  • Multigigabit scale

Catalyst 9600X: 

  • Industry's first 400G campus switch
  • WAN MACsec
  • Enhanced queueing with VOQ architecture
Limited
  • Single chassis with no supervisor upgrades possible
Limited
  • Future supervisor upgrades possible
Limited
  • Two-box solution using data center switches
Branch-in-a-box with 100G hardware-based IPsec
Available

Catalyst 9300X models: 

  • 100G uplinks 
  • IKEv2 IPsec encryption on the hardware
  • Branch-to-cloud connectivity 
  • Site-to-site IPsec
  • Secure tunnels directly to multicloud service providers
  • Access onboard applications or workloads securely
Not Available
  • No equivalent offering for campus switching
Not Available
  • No equivalent offering for campus switching
Not Available
  • No equivalent offering for campus switching
Multigigabit technology
Available

Cisco Multigigabit Technology:

  • Prepares access networks for future innovations by delivering speeds of 1G, 2.5G, 5G, and as much as 10G on existing Category 5e and 6 cables
  • PoE and Cisco UPOE+ across the same port, up to 90W Cisco UPOE
Limited
  • Smart Rate multigigabit technology in some models
  • Limited number of multigigabit ports per chassis
Limited
  • Multigigabit up to 2.5G in some switch models
Limited
  • Multigigabit up to 2.5G and 5G in some switch models
Smart building-ready
Available

Expands value for smart buildings:

  • No new license needed for Catalyst 9000 switches
  • Bundled into Cisco DNA Advantage
  • Includes cloud software, connector, and support
  • Full-stack offering: 
    • Cisco DNA Center zero-trust segmentation
    • PoE assurance
Not Available
  • No IoT gateways supported
Limited
  • No smart buildings ecosystem partners
Not Available
  • No 90W PoE platforms
  • No IoT gateways supported
Smart building ecosystem
Available
  • Large partner ecosystem
  • Cisco Spaces IoT gateway and ThousandEyes technology onboard 
  • Third-party app hosting on Catalyst 9000 Switches
  • 90W PoE to power and connect expanded set of devices and sensors
Not Available
Not Available
Not Available
Monitoring by endpoint type
Available
  • Uses analytics to monitor behavior with Cisco Secure Network Analytics and NetFlow
  • Classifies traffic on the edge and inside the network with Cisco TrustSec technology
Limited
  • Limited analytics functionality
  • Use of Tunnel Node limits scale
Limited
  • iPCA option on S5720HI/S5730HI/S6729HI models only and limits visibility
Limited
  • Network detection and response (NDR) capability only by 720XP switches' acting as sensors
Wired assurance with machine reasoning engine (MRE)
Available
  • Wired assurance using PoE analytics, including power supply starvation, power supply missing, power overdraw, and PoE insights
  • Cisco StackWise technology for redundancy
  • Improved application experience
  • AI/ML analytics and machine reasoning
Limited
  • Limited functionality with AI Insights
Limited
  • Reliance on different tools with limited wired assurance
Limited
  • No advanced capabilities in guided remediation or root-cause analysis for wired infrastructure
Application visibility
Available
  • Supports:
    • Flexible NetFlow
    • IPFIX with NBAR2-DPI Engine resident on Catalyst 9200, 9300, and 9400 Series switches
  • Provides line-rate and accurate application identification and analytics
Limited
  • Recently introduced Application Visibility equivalent capabilities on limited platforms
Limited
  • No NetFlow support; uses proprietary NetStream protocol
Limited
  • Supports sFlow and IPFIX
  • No DPI Engine
Single OS across campus domains
Available
  • Common foundation for switching, wireless, and routing across Cisco Catalyst 9000 with Cisco IOS XE
  • Total system visibility and control
Not Available
  • Separate campus switching, wireless, and routing OSS
Not Available
  • Separate campus switching, wireless, and routing OSS
Not Available
  • Separate campus switching, wireless, and routing OSS
Device-level programmability and automation
Available
  • Cisco IOS XE supports DevOps toolkit, NETCONF/YANG models, gNMI, gNOI, gRPC, OpenConfig, YANG
  • All programmatic access options are available
Not Available
  • REST API-based automation only
Limited
  • NETCONF support
Available
Cisco ThousandEyes integration
Available
  • Cisco ThousandEyes agents embedded
  • Provides immediate visibility with additional software
  • Can leverage existing switches
  • Included with all Cisco DNA Advantage licenses
Not Available
Not Available
Not Available
Application hosting framework
Available
  • Offers strategic capabilities with Catalyst 9000 switches
  • Enables a rich ecosystem partnership of 25+ certified apps, including Kibana, perfSONAR, TrapX Security, Cyber Vision, and CodiLime IPsec app
  • Over 200 active customers
Not Available
Not Available
Limited
  • No resource protection
  • No centralized dashboard
High availability
Available
  • Resiliency features: ISSU, GIR, Extended Fast Software Upgrade (xFSU)
  • Redundant hot-swappable power supplies and fans
  • N+1 chassis redundancy with Cisco StackWise-1T physical stacks
  • 1+1 virtual stack redundancy with Cisco StackWise Virtual technology
Limited
  • No xFSU, stacking power aggregation, patching, or dedicated 1-Tbps stacking
  • Unproven VSX live upgrade
  • No Quad-Sup RPR
Limited
  • No xFSU, stacking power aggregation, or dedicated 1-Tbps stacking
  • No single-chassis ISSU
Limited
  • No xFSU, stacking power aggregation, or dedicated 1-Tbps stacking
  • No single-chassis ISSU
  • Leaf SSU supported only for limited set of protocols with no support of STP
Power resilience: IoT and other devices
Available
  • 90W Cisco UPOE+
  • Perpetual PoE
  • Fast PoE
  • Multiple-level redundancy: Cisco StackWise 480/1T technology and Cisco StackWise Virtual technology
Limited
  • 30/60/90W PoE support
  • 1:1 power redundancy through dual power supplies supported on some switches
  • No advanced power-resilience feature sets available
Limited
  • PoE and 90W PoE+ PoH on S5700 switches
  • 1:1 90W PoH power redundancy (over HDMI) on a single platform
Limited
  • 30W/60W PoE support
  • 1:1 power redundancy through dual power supplies
  • No advanced resiliency features
Secure infrastructure
Available

Trustworthy solutions help ensure that software is authentic, unmodified, and operating correctly: 

  • Image signing
  • Secure boot
  • Cisco Trust Anchor module
  • Run-time defenses 
  • Hardware-level root of trust
  • Unique device identity
  • Software validation
Available
Limited
  • Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is supported
  • Secure Boot is disabled by default on a few platforms

 

Limited
  • TPM is supported
  • Secure Boot is disabled by default on some platforms
Secure transport
Available
  • 802.1AE MACsec encryption on switch-to-host and switch-to-switch links using TrustSec Network Device Admission Control, Security Association Protocol, and MKA-based key
  • Catalyst 9300X with 100G line-rate IPsec
  • WAN MACsec on Catalyst 9000X Core switches
Limited
  • LAN and WAN MACsec supported on selected platforms
Limited
  • Switches do not support the MACsec encryption by default; an additional plug-in is required
  • Only point-to-point MACsec is supported
  • Just one enterprise switch supports MACsec-256, the CloudEngine S5732-H model
  • Only software-based IPsec is supported 
Not Available
  • MACsec-256 is supported on only the Arista 722XP switch
Zero-trust assessment
Available
  • ZTA security scans and flags weak credentials and open ports
  • Cisco AI Endpoint Analytics actively probes endpoints and detects unauthorized ports
Not Available
Not Available
Limited
  • Only 720XP Series switches support NDR sensor capability
Integrated security
Available

Advanced security features: 

  • Cisco TrustSec segmentation
  • Network as a service
  • Cisco Network Security Analytics
  • Cisco Identity Services Engine
  • Encrypted Traffic Analytics
  • Network as an enforcer
  • mDNS gateway
  • MACsec-256 link encryption
Not Available
Limited
  • Supports ECA
Not Available
Network availability, agility, and policy segmentation
Available
  • Centralized and automated network design, policy, and provisioning of all wired and wireless networks
Limited
  • Dynamic segmentation with limited automation
  • Provisioning and group-based policy enforcement
Limited
  • No turnkey support for automation capabilities for provisioning or group-based policy enforcement
Limited
  • No turnkey support for automation capabilities for provisioning or group-based policy enforcement

Updated in June 2024 based on public information.

Americas Headquarters

Cisco Systems, Inc.

San Jose, CA

Asia Pacific Headquarters

Cisco Systems (USA) Pte. Ltd.

Singapore

Europe Headquarters

Cisco Systems International BV Amsterdam,

The Netherlands

Netherlands

Cisco DNA Center controller, Catalyst 9300 Series and Catalyst 9200 Series Switches, and Catalyst 9100 Access Points

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