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Cisco Nexus vs Cisco Nexus 9000 Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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 Nexus
Ranking in Data Center Networking
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (2nd)
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series
Ranking in Data Center Networking
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Ethernet Switches (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Center Networking category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus is 11.0%, down from 18.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is 3.6%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Center Networking Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Nexus11.0%
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series3.6%
Other85.4%
Data Center Networking
 

Featured Reviews

Fakhar Mahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Administrator at i2c
Migration between data centers has strengthened core connectivity and simplified segmentation
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches, which made this a quite difficult part to manage and to onboard the teams and to understand the impact of the migration. We encountered an issue where we have two data centers, and unknowingly we were configuring the devices with the same VPC number on both devices. By doing that, we were not able to terminate the lease lines over those core switches. According to Cisco, we had to change the VPC number of one of the data center's core switches since they are in a VPC. We are still waiting, and it has been more than five to six years just to change the VPC number and migrate back the lease line. Now we are having cabin switches for the lease line and then the core switch. That VPC number issue was quite surprising for us. However, we have a very frequent issue with Cisco Nexus, particularly with the SFPs. Every time a port or the SFP heats up, it gets faulty. We have almost sixteen Nexus switches per data center. In a year, we experience one or two port issues per annum. We have standard Equinix data centers with standard installations, but somehow the temperature is always maintained and there is no ducting, yet the ports and the SFPs heat up or become faulty. This is a very frequent issue with the SFP-based port.
AS
Technical Marketing Engineer Hybrid Cloud Infrastructures at NetApp
Policy-driven data centers have delivered low-latency connectivity for critical applications
The most critical and important feature in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is VPC. Apart from VPC, there are many other features in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series that stand out as advantages. You can apply access control lists on that. You can do Layer 3 capabilities. You can configure HSRP. You can implement VRFs. You can isolate the L3 network within your data center. It has a lot of features including network segmentation capabilities. You can apply a lot of security hardening and manage the access on the switches through auditing to see who is doing what and restrict access based on the network admin role. These are great features. The overlay technology support in Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is good for large-scale deployment where you are going to build something like a hyperscaler. You need more network segments, and with VXLAN, you can definitely build a large fabric with those Nexus switches.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are that it is easy to use, provides stability, easy to configure, low latency, and it provides communication to the data center."
"Cisco Nexus is a very powerful switch; we have been, for almost five years, using Nexus, and it has been virtually problem-free, very stable, smooth to use, very user-friendly, with a very easy-to-maintain GUI, easy login, good and easy-to-understand reporting, very helpful technical support with good SLAs, and very good scalability."
"The product has a stable and strong server panel switch."
"I would recommend Cisco Nexus for large enterprises and the government sector, as they can afford it."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"I like the fact that they are a well-supported product."
"Cisco is refining the features all the time and you can see this in all the different vendors."
"This product has improved the way our organization functions in the way that the rack-based design allowed us to eliminate chassis-based designs. The chassis design is more complicated to manage and maintain in field operations."
"Performance has been great with no abnormal behaviors detected, and the network remains stable even in failover scenarios, supporting vast environments with high availability."
"The features for manageability and visibility are impressive."
"For one of the biggest European customers, they deployed Cisco Nexus for their core networking and it has been running for a few years without having a single downtime."
"The stability and reliability of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series are robust, and once you put it on, it does not just fail; that takes a long time, maybe even years."
"Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very durable and very reliable, and there has never been any issue with it."
"RealPresence works effectively."
"The performance in data center operations with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is excellent; we have never faced any performance issues."
"We are using the core capabilities of Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Ethernet switches, and it is performing well."
 

Cons

"I would like to see some development into the SAE world where you can virtualize. That would be the only thing I would like to see because I need to start virtualizing my infrastructure gear at some of the other data centers that I have."
"They should work to make the pricing more reasonable for the local market."
"There are still bugs in the system that need to be fixed. Technical support could be better."
"I would love to see Active/Active FEX connectivity, which is enhanced vPC, where we could also do a vPC from a server in that type of configuration."
"Areas in which the solution have room for improvement are the interface, management, and reporting."
"The additional features I would like to see included in the next release is the ability to integrate routing and switching features."
"The only real feature that we are hoping would evolve at some point is multi-contexts to get into multi-tenancy type environments."
"The product lacks options for integration with other market products that would allow us more flexibility."
"Cost-wise, Cisco Nexus 9000 Series is very expensive."
"The potential for improvement lies in the licensing aspect, which is somewhat confusing. The perpetual and subscription licensing is a concern."
"The SFP modules we are using have had issues. We have Cisco modules, but they frequently heat up or there are packet error issues."
"Even though it is expensive, I am not sure about the return on investment. It is expensive, and you will need to pay for subscription fees that also are not cheap."
"We find that Cisco has been left behind by the other vendors. The other vendors have adopted new technology, and we find Cisco lagging behind."
"In terms of automation with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series, it could be better."
"For Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches, I think we need to work on the HSRP. Whenever it flaps or something happens, it creates an issue."
"I would rate the technical support for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series an eight out of ten. This rating is not because of their lack of expertise, but just the assignment period."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license for Cisco Nexus is one year to three years, in this case for the SMARTnet. It is a price per unit, in terms of this specific appliance."
"Cisco Nexus is not cheap compared to Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Check Point."
"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."
"Our licensing fees are paid annually."
"We only have a yearly support contract, as we do not use any of the subscription-based functions at this time."
"I don't like the Smart Licensing models that Cisco uses."
"We consider Juniper switches to be more affordable."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $2,000 USD per year."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
26%
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise83
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Nexus?
We are a reseller, and we sell products to our customers.
What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus?
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches,...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Nexus?
Cisco Nexus is used in data centers with a simple Nexus OS deployment model. In our environment, we do not use programmability with Cisco Nexus. The switches are used very basically in our infrastr...
What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
At this point, not much could be improved about Cisco Nexus 9000 Series. Automation GUI based is not the core of the 9000, so this is a different device or a different solution. I do not find anyth...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
My usual use cases for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series involve various companies, particularly when they are in need of a new automation solution or just an upgrade of the data center.
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Nexus 9000 Series?
I am very satisfied with this solution. However, it is more about whether it is actually possible to do the solutions, and normally people already know what they want. They only need to have the ri...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus vs. Cisco Nexus 9000 Series and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
911,493 professionals have used our research since 2012.