Cisco Nexus vs HPE A-Series [EOL] comparison

Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the Data Center Networking category. Additionally, 96% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Cisco Nexus

Read 108 Cisco Nexus reviews

2,694 Views
2,021 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

HPE A-Series [EOL]

Read 1 HPE A-Series [EOL] review

100% willing to recommend

Cisco Nexus

HPE A-Series [EOL]

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Nexus and HPE A-Series [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Dell Technologies, Arista and others in Data Center Networking.

To learn more, read our detailed Data Center Networking Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Data Center Networking

February 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 881,757 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

108

Ranking in other categories

LAN Switching (3rd), Data Center Networking (4th)

HPE A-Series [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Fakhar Mahmood

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.

Read full review

Mohamed-Mousa

IT Manager at a media company with 201-500 employees

Stable and scalable with a good user interface

Overall, everything related to the interface is very good Some follow up from our user-partners would be useful. Letting users know what is up and coming or providing better documentation would be helpful. Overall, the solution could offer its users better support. I've been using the solution…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In terms of stability, this solution is rock solid."

"Cisco Nexus and Cisco Catalyst have processing power and offer good utilization of Cisco devices."

"The most valuable feature is the Bluetooth console."

"The most valuable feature is its reliability."

"Cisco Nexus has been very stable. No issues. It's been rock solid. We haven't had any issues with it in the last twelve months."

"This solution streamlines how we have to configure things because we can do everything from one device, whereas if we had individual devices we would have to go to each one and configure them manually."

"The scalability of Cisco Nexus is good. We've had them for the entire lifetime. We've never had to upgrade them yet."

"They are very high-performance switches and they are made for lossless data, so they're a good play in the customer environment."

More Cisco Nexus pros

"The solution is very stable."

Cons

"Cisco Nexus still needs more stability."

"I am looking for a GUI that goes alongside them and more SD-WAN built to their core switches."

"The implementation process could be easier, which is something that should be improved."

"Overall, I wish it was a more intuitive OS."

"There's a couple of really bad incidents lately. Probably luck of the draw."

"Standardization across iOS and Nexus operating systems would be an improvement."

"In the next release of this solution, I would like to see a focus on backplane deployment, so you can stack more."

"Nexus switches should be able to support network function virtualization (NFV)."

More Cisco Nexus cons

"Some follow up from our user-partners would be useful. Letting users know what is up and coming or providing better documentation would be helpful. Overall, the solution could offer its users better support."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing fees are approximately $2,000 USD per year."

"The price of this solution is good when compared to others in the market."

"If you compare Cisco hardware to any other vendors, such as HPE, they are more expensive. There is a license to use the solution. If my customer's licenses are about to expire I receive notification from Cisco, this is very helpful."

"The license on a yearly basis is $200,000."

"Our licensing fees are paid annually."

"The solution is expensive."

"Costs more than most, but the reliability pays for the difference."

"The problem with Cisco, from what I see, is that their costs are much higher."

More Cisco Nexus pricing and cost advice

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Center Networking solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

Marketing Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	83

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Nexus?

The product's initial setup phase is very easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Nexus?

We are a reseller, and we sell products to our customers.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus?

Cisco Nexus may not be very popular because of the requirements that we come across, as it will go into the core data centers, whereas we work with most of the corporate sectors, so Cisco Nexus is ...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Juniper QFX Series Switches vs Cisco Nexus

Compared 24% of the time

Cisco Catalyst Switches vs Cisco Nexus

Compared 13% of the time

Arista Networks Platform vs Cisco Nexus

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs Cisco Nexus

Compared 8% of the time

Juniper QFabric vs Cisco Nexus

Compared 6% of the time

More Cisco Nexus Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Nexus

February 2026

Download Cisco Nexus product report

Buyer's Guide

Data Center Networking

February 2026

Download HPE A-Series [EOL] product report

Also Known As

No data available

A-Series, HP A-Series

Overview

The Cisco Nexus family of switches is designed to meet the stringent requirements of the next-generation data center. Not simply bigger or faster, these switches offer the following characteristics: infrastructure that can be scaled cost-effectively and that helps you increase energy, budget, and resource efficiency, transport that can navigate the transition to 10 Gigabit Ethernet and unified fabric and can also handle architectural changes such as virtualization, Web 2.0 applications, and cloud computing and operational continuity to meet your need for an environment where system availability is assumed and maintenance windows are rare if not totally extinct.

Cisco

Information not available

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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

SEED Infotech, Weta Digital, BlueShore Financial

Buyer's Guide

Data Center Networking

February 2026

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Dell Technologies, Arista and others in Data Center Networking. Updated: February 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best Data Center Networking vendors.

We monitor all Data Center Networking reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.