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Dell PowerSwitch N-Series vs NETGEAR Switches 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

Dell PowerSwitch N-Series
Ranking in LAN Switching
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
3.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NETGEAR Switches
Ranking in LAN Switching
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Ethernet Switches (5th), AV Over IP Switching (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the LAN Switching category, the mindshare of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series is 5.7%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETGEAR Switches is 8.0%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
LAN Switching Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NETGEAR Switches8.0%
Dell PowerSwitch N-Series5.7%
Other86.3%
LAN Switching
 

Featured Reviews

Mahendra Basera - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr.Engineer at Akara Capital Advisor Pvt. Ltd.
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.
Tomas Devriese - PeerSpot reviewer
Teamleader Av Installers at solufak
VLAN support has improved audiovisual installations and secures network traffic for our projects
Our major use cases include audiovisual installations and we mainly use the AV line for that. We work with the VLAN support feature The best things about NETGEAR Switches are the support they provide and the ease of implementation. The ease of installation helps with network performance. It helps…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The automated configuration management tools of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series help improve network traffic management."
"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."
"Port density and port speed performance are both suitable. It has some appealing intangibles."
"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."
"For a customer, it is easy to configure and to add ports through the LAN the GUI."
"The High Bandwidth AV-over-IP functionality of these switches has been fantastic, especially in leaf-and-spine. We've been able to build redundancy and they seem to outperform even the Cisco Catalyst, which is about twice as expensive as the M-series switches are."
"They are something all my guys are familiar with at this point and they work very well."
"It's definitely worth it for what you're getting; a lot of switches, a lot of networks."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. I have not faced any issues with the product whatsoever."
"The tool is very easy to deploy as it is a very basic switch."
"Netgear switches are highly reliable. We haven't done anything particularly sophisticated with them."
"NETGEAR has most of the good security features that other switches have and it's cost-effective."
"Some of the Netgear Ethernet Switches are available in the market at a low cost, so they are easily available."
 

Cons

"Customers do not prefer this to connect to multiple cities."
"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."
"I would not recommend it to smaller businesses because they could not afford it."
"Some features need improvements with stability."
"The disadvantages of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series is that only the booting time is a weak point."
"I would also like to see switches with more ports that provide room for new protocols of communications."
"The tool's price could be better."
"My one issue with it is that not all the features of the switch can currently be managed via the portal. For some of the more advanced features, you still have to configure the switch."
"It's worked for the most part, but we've had to power cycle a few devices. We've had to ask customers to manually power cycle them with the power cord, after some of the firmware updates. Their updating needs a little improvement."
"Even though I'm using it, I'd throw it down at a three out ten, because it is really bad that the status lights can't be seen from the front."
"Though Netgear Ethernet switches are available in the market at a lower price than Cisco Switches, the ultimate market leading switches, they lag the edge of superior security features in them."
"NETGEAR should focus on eliminating single points of failure."
"The technical support was not very helpful; they were helpful only to a point and it helps when they can figure out the problem for you."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price to performance of this solution is very good. When it comes to pricing, as far as I'm concerned, they're very comparable with Ubiquity. NETGEAR has pricing that is as good as it gets. That's why I use them."
"NETGEAR is a cost-effective solution when going for a small enterprise."
"The solution is expensive. You need to pay the costs one-time."
"NETGEAR Switches can be considered a big brand, so its pricing point is a bit higher than that of some of the other players in the market."
"Licensing is always a hassle and a pain point."
"The price to performance of the switches is excellent. The price point of these switches is great compared to big brands, like Cisco or Extreme Networks, with approximately the same functionality."
"It is a slightly expensive product."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Retailer
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
How do NETGEAR switches compare with Cisco ethernet switches?
NetGear switches have a lot to offer. They have high availability, zero-downtime stacking, L2 and L3 functionality, and are AV-over-IP ready. NetGear switches also have a command line interface and...
Which switches are better - Ubiquiti Unifi or Netgear?
Ubiquiti Unifi offers a great set of features. For starters, it is easy to configure and implement, and also doesn’t require a learning curve because it is easy to use. It is also simple to reconfi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NETGEAR Switches?
If I were to rate price, I would give it eight or nine points. It is an expensive product.
 

Also Known As

No data available
NETGEAR Insight Managed Switches, NETGEAR GC Series, NETGEAR M Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Norwich University of the Arts, Shelby American, City and Islington College
Blaze Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerSwitch N-Series vs. NETGEAR Switches and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.