No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Ethernet Switches (4th), AV Over IP Switching (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the LAN Switching category, the mindshare of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series is 5.6%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NETGEAR Switches is 7.9%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
LAN Switching Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NETGEAR Switches7.9%
Dell PowerSwitch N-Series5.6%
Other86.5%
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

"Port density and port speed performance are both suitable."
"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."
"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 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."
"The most important feature is the failover, the LACP links. That's the dual set it allows. We have redundant core switches and, if one fails or one network adapter fails, the other one can take over without problems."
"The ease of use of these switches is very good because of the Cisco CLI. If you are familiar with CLI, then you can configure the switch that way. It also has a relatively straightforward web interface. Using the web interface is good for beginners or people who aren't familiar with Cisco CLI. However, having a common command line interface method is great for some of our more advanced guys who are familiar with it."
"The best things about NETGEAR Switches are the support they provide and the ease of implementation."
"With NETGEAR hardware, we have lifetime support and lifetime trade, so I didn't see any reason not to change."
"The company provides a lifetime warranty."
"We have a wide range of switches for various applications, including a collection specifically designed for ProAV, as well as Multi-gig Switches, which are also quite well-known or unique."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Remote management is the most important thing for us. And monitoring, of course, allows us to see when something is wrong with a client. We get notified that an access point is down, for instance, or that there are too many clients on one access point, so that we can log into the portal and manage the solution with the client instantly, from either a laptop or a cell phone, with the Insight app."
 

Cons

"I would not recommend it to smaller businesses because they could not afford it."
"Customers do not prefer this to connect to multiple cities."
"The disadvantages of Dell PowerSwitch N-Series is that only the booting time is a weak point."
"Some features need improvements with stability."
"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 also like to see switches with more ports that provide room for new protocols of communications."
"One thing I have asked for, something that NETGEAR lacks that I would love to see — and from what I understand it's in the works — is a REST API to programmatically interface with multiple switches."
"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."
"There is a technical problem they can't seem to solve. It doesn't support multicast packets. In layman's terms, Mac computers can't print over the network."
"If it’s generating a lot of hits, then it can hang up network."
"In the very beginning, we had that one problem with the firmware update where it took them all offline."
"Though the tool's useability is good, it has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The IGMP specifics of the web management console could use a bit of clarification."
 

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."
"For its price, it scales well."
"The pricing is very good for 10GbE switches and you get a lot of throughput. It is about 60 percent of the costs of other switches from competitive manufacturers, which is really good."
"Compared to other large names in the marketplace, the price of NETGEAR's product is extremely cost-effective compared to what Cisco or Extreme offer."
"We find the cost of NETGEAR hardware and additional services to be below average compared to the top tier. There are still cheaper products out there, but they lack in functionality."
"There are no licensing costs. It only involves the costs of the devices."
"Insight pricing is okay. It's very competitive. The costs of the hardware and additional services weren't low because Unify is much cheaper, but the costs conformed to the market. When you look at the hardware specs, the price and the warranty, the complete package was much better than any other vendor. If you consider those three main aspects of Netgear Insight and Netgear Insight devices, and you put them next to Ubiquity or Cisco Meraki, or even TP-Link, in our opinion, it's better hardware, it has a better warranty, and for the price you have to pay, it's a pretty good product."
"The pricing for what you get with the Insight product line is very fair and the value is there, including the annual licensing fees for the Insight Pro for each device... the Insight Pro level, which is their highest level, where you get a lot of features with the Insight, is a bargain. You get a lot of good features for what you're paying there annually."
"The product is priced economically."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which LAN Switching solutions are best for your needs.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
10%
Retailer
8%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Construction Company
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 do you like most about NETGEAR Switches?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. I have not faced any issues with the product whatsoever.
 

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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.