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NETGEAR Switches pros and cons

Vendor: Netgear

4.1 out of 5

57 reviews
88% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

NETGEAR Switches offer features like network monitoring, ease of VLAN programming, and remote management via mobile apps. They are praised for bandwidth AV-over-IP functionality and modular design but lack virtual stacking compatibility. Frequent firmware updates may require manual power cycling. While stability and a comprehensive warranty are positive, technical support and multicast support require improvement. Their higher cost and pricing concerns may affect tech buyers' decisions despite the management advantages.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Valuable features of NETGEAR Switches include network monitoring, ease of VLAN programming, and eliminating the complexity of command-line interfaces.

NETGEAR Switches provide excellent remote management capabilities that are accessible via mobile apps, allowing real-time changes and alerts from any location.

NETGEAR offers cloud-managed Insight for centralized device management, which is efficient for network configurations without direct access.

The High Bandwidth AV-over-IP functionality and modular design of NETGEAR 96X are praised for their adaptability and cost-efficiency compared to high-end alternatives.

NETGEAR Switches are recognized for their stability, competitive pricing, and comprehensive lifetime warranty, contributing to overall cost management and network reliability.

CONS

NETGEAR Switches lack compatibility with virtual stacking, limiting device stacking and bandwidth redundancy.

Firmware updates are frequent and often require manual power cycling, which has been inconvenient for users.

Technical support response time and assistance could be more efficient and effective.

NETGEAR Switches should address deficiencies in multicast support which affect network printing from Mac computers.

The expense of NETGEAR Switches is higher compared to other brands, raising cost concerns.

NETGEAR Switches Pros review quotes

Manager of Data Center at a insurance company with 51-200 employees

Jun 26, 2012

With my laptop that supports gigabit transmission, I was able to download 5GB file from our server within 3mins.

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Manager of Operations at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Jul 5, 2012

Some of the Netgear Ethernet Switches are available in the market at a low cost, so they are easily available.

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Infrastructure Expert at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Jul 10, 2012

The Netgear FS108 is a simple, economical, path to high-speed Ethernet connectivity, giving you solid performance and running usability!

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NETGEAR Switches

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884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Infrastructure Expert at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 12, 2012

The GS-108 switch by Netgear is an excellent solution for setting up a wired gigabit network.

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AB

Andrew S. Baker (ASB)

Cybersecurity & IT Operations Professional (VirtualCxO) at BrainWave Consulting Company, LLC

Oct 31, 2017

Netgear has solid, cost-effective switches with enterprise functionality that I am very happy deploying on my network, and on SMB customer networks.

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Senior System Administrator at a agriculture with self employed

Nov 25, 2018

Valuable features include network monitoring and ease of programming for VLANs, etc. I especially like NETGEAR because it's easy to teach system administrators how to use them, how to look at them, how to make changes to them without having the complexity of CLIs, but still having a CLI should we need it.

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EG

Owner/CTO at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Nov 25, 2018

We have one client that has three Insight switches and when we make a change to their network... we can make the configuration change and push it down to all three switches at once. We don't have to individually log on to each switch to make the change.

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HM

CEO at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees

Nov 28, 2018

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.

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KS

Kiersten Saltwick

VP, Accounting and HR at Parrish Consulting Services, Inc.

Dec 2, 2018

Their online portal is one of the most useful features. The portal is very user-friendly, so even someone with not a lot of tech experience can go in and see what's going on with the switch.

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DS

Owner at a tech services company

Dec 6, 2018

The ability to manage them is the big valuable feature. The ease of use is great.

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NETGEAR Switches Cons review quotes

Manager of Data Center at a insurance company with 51-200 employees

Jun 26, 2012

Traffic management capability should have been a plus.

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Manager of Operations at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Jul 5, 2012

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.

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Infrastructure Expert at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Jul 10, 2012

If it’s generating a lot of hits, then it can hang up network.

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NETGEAR Switches

Free Report: NETGEAR Switches Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about NETGEAR Switches. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.

884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Infrastructure Expert at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 12, 2012

The only issue I have, and it's not really an issue so much as me being a control freak, is that this is an unmanaged switch.

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AB

Andrew S. Baker (ASB)

Cybersecurity & IT Operations Professional (VirtualCxO) at BrainWave Consulting Company, LLC

Oct 31, 2017

A slightly more featureful CLI interface would be great.

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Senior System Administrator at a agriculture with self employed

Nov 25, 2018

What I'd like to see is more compatibility with virtual stacking, so that 4300-series switches and 3300-series switches will actually stack together and that virtual switch stacks, themselves, are not limited to just six devices, so that they can create larger loops with more bandwidth and more redundancy.

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EG

Owner/CTO at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Nov 25, 2018

One area that has room for improvement, and I know NETGEAR is working on it, is adding more features to the products lines in terms of what we can manage through the Insight portal... not all Layer 2 or Layer 3 settings are there yet.

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HM

CEO at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees

Nov 28, 2018

The main negative thing is the speed. When you use the portal, if you have a lot of customers and locations in the portal, and you need to scroll through those clients or those locations, it takes a pretty long time to load those pages and to select the client. That's the problem in the portal on the laptop, and it's the same problem in the portal on the app.

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KS

Kiersten Saltwick

VP, Accounting and HR at Parrish Consulting Services, Inc.

Dec 2, 2018

Their old firmware was a problem for us and we're still working on it. It didn't apply correctly so it took about half of our switches offline, which meant we couldn't use some of the functionality like the firmware updates. Unfortunately with that firmware, which they've sorted out, if you don't go through all the firmware and make sure it's past that point and back online, that's an issue with them. It's something to cautious about

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DS

Owner at a tech services company

Dec 6, 2018

The management of them, itself, is not so good. You have to go between many different browsers, even some super-old browsers, to be able to do it. That is a super pain.

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