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Cisco Nexus vs Dell PowerSwitch N-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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 LAN Switching
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Data Center Networking (3rd)
Dell PowerSwitch N-Series
Ranking in LAN Switching
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
3.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the LAN Switching category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus is 10.5%, up from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series is 6.0%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
LAN Switching Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Nexus10.5%
Dell PowerSwitch N-Series6.0%
Other83.5%
LAN Switching
 

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.
Mahendra Basera - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Engineer at InterGlobe Technology Quotient
Reliable switching has supported secure audits and simplified long-term data center operations
Deploying Dell PowerSwitch N-Series on HA is very simple and easy. If we face any problem, we have our Dell support team to help us during the installation. They provide L2 engineers for supporting us on configuring the basic level configuration, stacking, and peering with others on HA. They have helped us with any faults or hardware issues, and we have taken high level care packs with three hour response time and same day hardware replacement. When we talk about the deployment of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series, when we extended our data center from starting from scratch, we had at that time nearly 170 physical servers. Then we virtualized it from mixed hardware, as we were using HCL, HP, or old heavy servers. Dell came to us and gave us a good solution with VMware, storage of Dell, and network devices. During the deployment, there were three team members from Dell and two from myself on the networking side, and one or two members from OS and server side. Almost five to six team members were there during the deployment from a hardware to a virtualized environment. The best advantages of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series is that it is very much similar to Cisco. There is a little bit of difference at the command level, and it is easy to handle. It is easy to handle whether it is a CLI base or a GUI base, and it is very easy to configure. It is also reliable. We had a low fault issue, and when we talk of switching level, in a time frame of 17 years, we faced a switching issue only one time, which was a hardware failure. That is it. It is as reliable as Cisco.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The implementation was straightforward and the product is stable."
"Technical support has been very, very helpful and they offer good SLAs."
"Cisco Nexus helped us do an entire data center migration in under six months."
"Nexus has improved my organization in the way that it provided enhanced security in a point in the network that was critical."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is performance."
"With a beautifully engineered hardware and Android OS, Nexus 7 is definitely a choice worth making."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the power."
"Port density and port speed performance are both suitable. It has some appealing intangibles."
"For a customer, it is easy to configure and to add ports through the LAN the GUI."
"The best advantages of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series is that it is very much similar to Cisco, it is easy to handle whether it is a CLI base or a GUI base, it is very easy to configure, and it is also reliable, as in a time frame of 17 years we faced a switching issue only one time, which was a hardware failure, and it is as reliable as Cisco."
"Currently, I am using the Dell S4048; it's a nice switch and it gives you good results in terms of a broadcast station connection, with HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol) and bandwidth allocation that are very nice, and for a customer it is easy to configure and to add ports through the LAN GUI."
"The automated configuration management tools of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series help improve network traffic management."
 

Cons

"Enhancing the software-defined level of this solution would empower it."
"Cisco Nexus is expensive."
"The flexibility and configuration could be better. It is not as reliable as Catalyst."
"We lag on the configuration. The changes make a difference in troubleshooting."
"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."
"Data center access is stable and high speed but it is not compatible with Cisco's server hardware devices. The solution can be technically improved and can have features like automation, better visibility, better functionality, and cheap pricing."
"They need to offer fibre switches in the 9K series."
"The price is a con."
"We have had problems in the past that needed a reboot of the switch."
"The disadvantages of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series is that only the booting time is a weak point."
"Customers do not prefer this to connect to multiple cities."
"Some features need improvements with stability."
"I would not recommend it to smaller businesses because they could not afford it."
"Instead of competing at the enterprise level with that product, they should probably scale it. With all of the ports, they should develop a good mid-level business to truly scale it and gain adoption before attempting to go after the enterprise."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco Nexus is not cheap compared to Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Check Point."
"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."
"I thought that it would be less expensive."
"We only have a yearly support contract, as we do not use any of the subscription-based functions at this time."
"Cisco's licensing structures can be complex across different technologies, for example, unified communications."
"It's around $160K a year for our license."
"Our licensing costs for this solution are approximately $100K a year for the switching part."
"Every Cisco product is more expensive than competitors on the market, which is just a fact, but from my perspective, it is worth it."
"You are selling it to larger customers and in larger environments, where it's a less expensive model than Cisco, which is attempting to use the same approach Arista did, but with a completely different programming language."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise83
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Nexus?
Cisco Nexus switches are generally priced at the higher end of the market, but their performance, scalability, and reliability make them a strong option for enterprise data centers. The overall cos...
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 Dell-Force10 Campus LAN Switches?
The disadvantages of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series is that only the booting time is a weak point. When we reboot that switch, it takes time. As compared to Cisco, it takes almost three to five minutes,...
What is your primary use case for Dell-Force10 Campus LAN Switches?
We are using McAfee XDR solution rather than Cisco XDR. On Cisco products, we are using Cisco routers and Cisco switches. We work with Dell, specifically Dell switches, and we are using PowerEdge i...
What advice do you have for others considering Dell-Force10 Campus LAN Switches?
Dell PowerSwitch N-Series is the one we have been working on. There was an advanced Layer 3 configuration on Dell PowerSwitch N-Series, and we have almost every security which can be configured on ...
 

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
Norwich University of the Arts, Shelby American, City and Islington College
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus vs. Dell PowerSwitch N-Series and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.