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Cisco Catalyst Switches vs Rackswitch comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cisco Catalyst Switches
Ranking in Data Center Networking
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
181
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (1st), Ethernet Switches (5th), AV Over IP Switching (1st)
Rackswitch
Ranking in Data Center Networking
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Center Networking category, the mindshare of Cisco Catalyst Switches is 15.6%, down from 22.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rackswitch is 2.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Center Networking Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Catalyst Switches15.6%
Rackswitch2.6%
Other81.8%
Data Center Networking
 

Featured Reviews

MS
Electrical control system engineer at Dangote petroleum refinery and petrol chemicals
Reliable switching has delivered long‑term uptime, strong PoE support, and predictable performance
Cisco Systems Catalyst Switches are highly regarded for their performance, reliability, and enterprise-grade capabilities. My main reservation, however, is the pricing. The cost of Cisco Catalyst Switches—and Cisco products in general—is relatively high, especially in many African markets where organizations often need to balance budget constraints with required functionality. There are alternative vendors that offer comparable features at a lower price point. While they may not always match Cisco’s ecosystem, stability, or full feature depth, many businesses still choose them because of the significant cost savings. Another consideration is licensing, which can add to the overall total cost of ownership depending on the deployment model and required features. Overall, Cisco Catalyst Switches remain premium enterprise solutions, but when compared with other OEMs, their higher acquisition and licensing costs can be a major deciding factor for cost-conscious organizations.
it_user1068 - PeerSpot reviewer
Tech Support Staff at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Rackswitch is very easy to use and perfect for small businesses with small budgets.
Rackswitch consumes less power, eliminates delays, has a low latency, has airflow like the one found in servers for cooling purposes at a low cost and are redundant, is flexible, is reliable, and has a high level of performance. They are also scalable and of very high performance caliber with some already made virtualized.Rackswitch is easy to acquire, deploy and manage. It has an OpenFlow feature that minimizes complexity and allows for easy creation of virtualized networks.They are also fault tolerant, multicast and compatible with switches from other vendors.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco support is very good and responsive."
"The scalability is excellent."
"When it comes to working with Cisco, customers are consistently offered a quality product."
"The solution is highly scalable, and we have approximately 650 users using this solution in my organization."
"This is a feature-rich product and the newer models have improved features that allow for many new possibilities."
"I like Cisco Catalyst Switches because most of the time, we can do what we want with the product."
"Cisco offers DNS features over other vendors."
"I recently discovered the DHCP feature. There is a feature with which you can make the core act as a DHCP server, and it will distribute the IPs for every device. I discovered this feature recently, and it is very nice."
"Rackswitch consumes less power, eliminates delays, has a low latency, has airflow like the one found in servers for cooling purposes at a low cost and are redundant, is flexible, is reliable, and has a high level of performance."
 

Cons

"The GUI should be addressed."
"The cost of the solution is quite high. There are other cheaper options."
"In an upcoming release, adding SD-WAN capabilities would be a big advantage for our company."
"The solution is expensive. They should work on their pricing model to try to make it more affordable for customers."
"The licensing process should be back to how it was before. Now, you have to register online, and it makes staging a bit trickier."
"I would not recommend Cisco for anyone, many of my customers have had bad experiences with them."
"There could be improvements in the repeat configuration with some file integration that is currently missing."
"The delivery of the product lead time should be improved."
"Rackswitches are very complex and you must be skilled to configure and use them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be improved."
"I don't see any price issue with Cisco. Whenever you buy a quality product, you always have a mindset of paying the premium amount. For any good product, you pay a premium amount, but that also means you are going to recover that premium over a period of time in terms of performance."
"They are expensive."
"Generally, Cisco Catalyst would be relatively expensive compared to the competition, it would be on the expensive side."
"It is reasonably priced because we have already conducted a tender, allowing Cisco and other vendors to compete for the best price."
"Cisco switches are expensive. Their price range is based not only on what the product does but also the name in the industry. They are good at what they do. If you need a better product, there are other lineups available."
"They are a little bit expensive. We are a public institution, so we go through other traders, and sometimes, they put in their own surplus price because it is a government contract. Cisco products are expensive, especially when you compare them to Huawei."
"There needs to be some improvement with the Cisco DNA licensing activation process, it is difficult at the moment."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business81
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise79
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Would you recommend replacing a Cisco Catalyst Switch by a D-link one?
Hello Mesfin It depends on the real scenario, the cisco 2960 is a very good device and they usually have routing functions but there are many different models within the same 2960 line, and on the ...
What do you like most about Cisco Catalyst Switches?
We are a vendor for the healthcare sector, especially hospitals, and normally, we use a full Cisco solution for stability, especially for the stability of the Access Points and the security of swit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Catalyst Switches?
For pricing satisfaction, I'd say it will be six to seven because Cisco usually is costly compared to other vendors. Regarding pricing, there is indeed room for improvement.
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Also Known As

Cisco Catalyst, Catalyst
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Afni, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Baylor Scott & White Health, Beachbody, Bellevue, Del Papa Distributing, Explorer Pipeline, Mindtree, Omaha World Herald, Radio 538, Sony Corporation, Telecom Italia, Telenor Arena
Altus IT, SL-Rasch, COMAS, Balluff GmbH, CANCOM IT Solutions, Kings College London
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Arista, Dell Technologies and others in Data Center Networking. Updated: April 2026.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.