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Cisco Nexus vs Juniper QFabric comparison

 

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
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Data Center Networking (4th)
Juniper QFabric
Ranking in LAN Switching
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the LAN Switching category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus is 9.0%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Juniper QFabric is 3.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
LAN Switching Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Nexus9.0%
Juniper QFabric3.0%
Other88.0%
LAN Switching
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammed Faisal Ikram - PeerSpot reviewer
Has experienced high costs in core deployments but continues to appreciate strong support and switching performance
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 not a frequent seller, and you'll find more edge switches selling in the market. It might be pretty expensive for other companies. I don't think there are any other particular disadvantages of Cisco Nexus besides their pricing.
Suresh Pathipatti - PeerSpot reviewer
Performs well, is easy to set up, and the vendor maintains the product well
QFabric is the core switch. We also have two Brocade switches for the Fibre level The product works fine. It is an excellent product. There are different element systems and different options for each generation of the tool. We maintain the data center and analyze issues. I have no negative…

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 feature of Cisco Nexus is modularity. It's like the Swiss Army knife of switches."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the power."
"A very solid and reliable solution."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its speed."
"It is a scalable, reliable, stable and efficient solution."
"The scalability of the solution is well beyond anything I would ever need."
"The integrations are valuable."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Juniper QFabric has various advantages including scalability, simplicity, performance, and flexibility."
"The most valuable feature of QFabric for network performance is its stability."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution is easy to use and has good performance."
"QFabric supports redundancy and includes all of the enterprise and service provider features that customers would want in data center or service provider network."
"The 40 gig backbone InterConneX was valuable for our use case. It is even faster now. QFabric has spine-leaf technology or topology, which basically makes every single hop only one hop away in terms of connecting from one device to another. It is a pretty good and robust solution. It works pretty well in terms of scalability, and their technical support is amazing."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the fabric backplane having upwards of 160 GB of communication. It is a top-of-the-rack solution where you have your directors sitting in the main area and then you have your nodes expanded out to your multiple cabinets. It has a very good design and could be your server backbone."
"It is known for being agile, flexible, and cost-effective when working with various vendors."
 

Cons

"Enhancing the software-defined level of this solution would empower it."
"The initial setup was pretty complex, mostly because of our environment, having to do multi-context. That's where you have a lot of different logical routes that are in one physical device, and it can get kind of complex trying to think about how to set all that up. You really have to whiteboard it out a lot."
"Multi contexts would be nice to have to separate different tenants logically and securely."
"There's a couple of really bad incidents lately. Probably luck of the draw."
"In the next release of the solution, I would like to see varying integration between VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding) instances so we can integrate BGB into different VRFs in a more organized way. We have some issues with tunnels and VRFs."
"My only complaint is that not all of the ports on it are enabled from the start."
"I feel that this solution should be more flexible and scalable."
"They should make it easier to update the code on it."
"The pricing structure could be more budget-friendly."
"It would be nice if Juniper provided the system integrator with training, similar to that of Cisco."
"They are working on the virtualization of the actual fabric layer. They are moving away from the original spine-leaf design to a different infrastructure. Instead of having three tiers, which was the director of the interconnected nodes, they cut them back, and they still have that kind of structure."
"It works too much on rebooting and there is some memory leakage."
"I do not use GUI's very much for switch stacks. I am always in the CLI. However, I do know that Juniper in the past has lacked on their GUI's, but they have been working on it."
"The disruptive upgrade was an issue for us."
"The stability needs to be improved."
"Having support for all OpenFlow versions would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very expensive. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"This solution should be made more affordable."
"Cisco's licensing structures can be complex across different technologies, for example, unified communications."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"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 use a local distributor for support, which is very expensive."
"The price for Juniper QFabric could improve. There are subscription, maintenance, and add-on feature fees."
"Juniper QFabric is a high-level solution but it could be less expensive."
"In terms of price, the QFabric solution is going to be probably in the middle of the road for a fabric solution."
"The pricing is high."
"The pricing is high and it is possible to find better pricing option solutions on the market, but the licensing model is quite flexible."
"The price is relatively high, but it offers an advantage over its competitors by providing better performance and functionality."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise82
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Nexus?
The product's initial setup phase is very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Nexus?
All solutions are very expensive and not an economy solution.
What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus?
All solutions are very expensive and not an economy solution. The solution is on-premises and stable. We haven't tried integration with the network software.
What do you like most about Juniper QFabric?
The most valuable feature of QFabric for network performance is its stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Juniper QFabric?
Juniper QFabric is not overly expensive. Licensing is required for certain features like vRRP, but setting up a virtual chassis does not necessitate a separate license.
What needs improvement with Juniper QFabric?
Improvements could be made to QFabric's lifecycle management, particularly in maintaining stable versions and extending product support. The rapid release cycle and short life span compared to comp...
 

Also Known As

No data available
QFabric
 

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
MCB Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus vs. Juniper QFabric and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.