NETGEAR Switches Reviews

In my house, there are LAN wires throughout the house, along with eight or nine LAN ports or LAN points, to take care of which we needed NETGEAR Switches. When dealing with internet services from multiple ISPs, NETGEAR Switches help us to join the connection and help with the load balancing part.

The most valuable features of the solution are its ability to take care of the LAN ports or LAN points and deal with the internet services from multiple ISPs.

The gigabyte range NETGEAR Switches claims to provide its users is not actually a gigabyte output. Until and unless you go for a high-end model of NETGEAR Switches, it does not provide any speed, which is not something that is good. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement.

The product's scalability has certain shortcomings that can be improved.

I have been using NETGEAR Switches for a decade. I use the solution's latest device, which was purchased two years ago, and it works fine.

It is a stable solution. At times, the USB ports go off and stop working, but it is fine.

The product's scalability is okay. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

The number of users of the tool depends on the number of ports. The higher model of NETGEAR Switches was extensively used, but the lower model was not that extensively used.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The setup phase took 10 to 15 minutes.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

The setup phase involves plug and play, where you connect the device to multiple LANs, and it starts to work. One can go to the admin module of the UI and configure it according to one's preferences, after which it is ready.

I took care of the solution's implementation phase.

I have experienced a return on investment through the use of NETGEAR Switches.

There are no licensing costs. It only involves the costs of the devices.

NETGEAR Switches are good and efficient, so it is worth trying.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

We connect the branch network through the product and integrate it into a central network. 

The tool is crucial in our network setup, especially in our bank's customer service operations. It connects ATMs and links different branches and service centers. Each branch and service center has its network node connected through these switches.

The product serves the basic needs of connecting branches. For instance, we use NETGEAR Switches for LAN connections linked to management switches like Cisco. We also use it to set up access points for ATMs.

NETGEAR Switches must look into their competitors since they have all available models. 

I have been using the product since December. 

The tool is a stable product. We always prioritize stability, so we tend to avoid Chinese brands despite their popularity and cost-effectiveness. They often have fewer features compared to others. When presenting options to clients, we always benchmark and highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each product.

I have one customer for NETGEAR Switches. 

The setup process can be complex because we handle critical and non-critical projects. In the banking sector, we prioritize non-banking hours for implementation, ensuring that tasks are completed within the allocated time frame so that everything is fully operational by the next day.Based on the deployment size, our current projects typically span several days. Once the project is complete, we aim to finalize all aspects and review the report by the end of each day.

In the past, some practices were non-standardized. I discovered that even the active components were not standardized. So, I've insisted on standardizing everything, including the cabling and recommended products.

There are complex projects where switches have been proposed and are still under evaluation. In certain situations, I've worked with access points that didn't have those capabilities. Recently, I've also been working with Huawei on these projects, which are still under evaluation.

I would rate NETGEAR Switches around eight out of ten. Their price point is very competitive compared to Cisco, where the managed series is more expensive, often around 40 percent higher.

We are using it for a small to medium-sized office with over 60 users. We also had IP phones with firewalls and it was good.

The solution is reliable and it is easy to setup.

The problem with the solution is that when it is faulty, it doesn't indicate so and the Internet starts to drop. One needs to do a lot of troubleshooting before understanding that a switch is faulty. If a switch is faulty, it should give an indication.

The scalability and warranty should also be improved.

I have been using the solution for a long time. We are not using the most recent version because when we checked it, it was out of warranty.

The solution's stability is good when the switch works fine.

It is not a very scalable solution. We have an office with 60 users, including IP phones.

I have never contacted the technical support team. I have to go to the local reseller for any issues or queries.

The solution's initial setup is straightforward.

The deployment takes three to five minutes. We need to confirm our company via email first. It takes months to be configured.

The deployment was done by an in-house team. We did it on the Internet because we had qualified switch controllers and technicians. Everything was done efficiently.

I recommend this solution. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our company integrates audio and radio systems, such as professional audio or installing PA systems.

M4250 is a new product line specially made for Audio and radio over IP systems. This switch is Layer 3, so it is a totally managed system.

The M4250 switches need more SFP models. There are only four to eight models in the M4250 product line. Some bigger installation systems need fiber to transmit much longer, so we need more SFP models.

We have been using NETGEAR Switches for about two years. The current model we are using is in their new product line.

I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

Technical support in China is not aware of audio over IP switches, so we need to learn how to set up the switches ourselves.

We used Cisco and Huawei switches more than a year ago. We switched because Huawei does not have these kinds of switches.

One or two years ago, we could not get suitable switches for Audio over IP. Configuring the switches is now more difficult for us.

So, users of Audio over IP who have little experience with the Internet need setup and configuration of the switches to be much easier.

NETGEAR could make this serial of switches much simpler to configure for Audio experts.

The M4250 series of switches is not expensive and is even cheaper than Huawei. A license is not required.

The M4250 series of Audio over IP switches is much more efficient and cheaper than Cisco. I'm also looking for these kinds of switches from Huawei, but the market is not big enough to allow Huawei or Cisco to produce a new product line for Audio over IP.

NETGEAR is stable and very user-friendly, and we plan to increase the use of the NETGEAR Switches in the future. I rate the product an eight out of ten.

NETGEAR Switches has valuable cybersecurity features.

NETGEAR Switches could provide local technical support services.

I have been using NETGEAR Switches for ten years.

The product is stable.

The product is scalable.

The technical support documentation is good.

We also use Aruba, and we have subscribed to the Aruba program.

The initial setup is easy.

The product has the best price in the market.

Overall, I rate NETGEAR Switches a nine out of ten.

The solution is very powerful and versatile.

The firewall has many options for add-ons.

There is a lack of documentation, and the documentation I have is unclear, so I have to rely on Google for information.

The customer support is a paid add-on; you must buy it to get help.

I've been working with the solution for 15 years. 

One aspect of the scalability is that there is no option to upgrade the device. Netgate discontinued the 3100 model, which had a little more than a GB of throughput on the firewall, and replaced it with the 2100, which has less than a GB of throughput. Replacing a 1,200MB device with a 700MB one is illogical; if anything, the replacement should be higher end.

Our customers are generally unwilling to pay for the support, so we go with the light package. Once connected to the internet and working, the only help available is for refreshing devices and new firmware. We can exchange a device if it's under warranty, but we have to ship it, and then they send a replacement, which means we're out of a device for a while.

I can't comment on the full level of support, as our only experience has been with the light version. They help us get online and respond quickly to new firmware requests, usually with a download link within 24 hours, and that's the only assistance if you don't pay for more.

The setup is relatively challenging; the solution has a GUI, but it isn't as clear as other routers. The product will write some rules on the firewall, but I've seen firewalls that are easier to set up, and you need to know what you're doing, especially if you want to go into the more advanced features such as NAT, dynamic DNS, etc.

The product lacks remote access support, so the maintenance is Plug and Play; we go in about once a year to ensure we do the firmware upgrades properly. That's the extent of the maintenance; the solution runs by itself and doesn't require much interference from us.

The price is very fair for this type of device, especially for what it does.

I rate the solution nine out of ten. 

To fully leverage the solution, you need to understand your router.

This is a pure fiber solution. We use it for both SMBs and big organizations. We use it as a switch. 

It has the same features as many other brands. 

I like the way they work with customers.

The features are stable, and it deploys easily. It's very simple to implement in general.

The user interface is very good. 

The solution is scalable.

It is stable and reliable. 

Technical support is helpful and quick to respond. 

They currently don't have any stock. It's hard to get the devices. 

There's a lack of chips and, consequently, a lack of deliveries. They're out of stock at their European warehouse.

They also used to offer quite cheap routers, and now there is nothing under 150 euros. It's getting expensive. Many customers don't want to spend more than 60 or 70 euros on something like that. 

The scalability is limited to some extent. It's meant for smaller users. 

I'm working with home routers, and the Wi-Fi at the moment is Wi-Fi 6. With Wi-Fi 5 routers, there was a feature that was called device prioritization. This feature is missing with Wi-Fi 6 routers. I don't know why. Maybe the CPUs are not so strong or powerful, or maybe they believe that this feature is pointless since the devices are so powerful. That said, from my point of view, it is very important as a customer to have this feature.

I've been dealing with the solution for 12 years. 

There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's quite stable and reliable. 

The solution can scale quite well. However, it doesn't scale quite as well as Huawei, which can get much larger. 

I have found that technical support replies quickly, and they close their tickets once they've completed their tasks. They are great. 

I'm also familiar with Huawei. The difference is this product is more for SMBs. The user interface is great for non-technical people, and everything works smoothly. Huawei can be more complex for some users. 

I've also used Aruba as well. 

The solution deploys easily. It's a straightforward setup. It's not a complex endeavor, even for a home user. In the past, I had to explain to my manager who wanted to buy some Wi-Fi extenders. I showed her how to set up the device. She said, "Okay, it sounds easy. I will do this by myself." The next day, she said, "Yeah, it is several clicks, and everything works fine." It's so very simple. YOu only need one person to handle the deployment.  

We can implement the solution for people. Some of our partners are so small they may need assistance as they are non-technical.  

The product is more expensive than, for example, TP-Link; however, it is cheaper than Aruba, Cisco, or Huawei. All of these are more enterprise-level switches, which is why the cost is a bit more. NETGEAR is better for smaller businesses. That said, while it is not a cheap brand, it offers good value. 

I haven't really evaluated other solutions. I'm quite overloaded as it is. 

I'd recommend the solution as it is very simple and stable. However, it is important to choose the right partner to help implement the solution. It will help everything go smoothly during implementation. 

It's also pretty plug-and-play. If you do need help, you can always reach out to NETGEAR. They are pretty responsive. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

We use this product for the entire IT network and for CCTV. We have many integrators and are resellers of NETGEAR Switches, and I design solutions for our customers. Our company is based in India, I'm an information technology professional and we are end users of this product. 

NETGEAR has most of the good security features that other switches have and it's cost-effective. 

I'd like to see a more robust solution. They need to focus on sustainability and security at the port level with more visibility and controllability of the switch. I'd like to see a warranty similar to that provided by other solutions. 

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

The solution is pretty stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

The customer support is good. They are responsive, fast, and they're knowledgeable about the product. 

The initial setup is not complex in any way. There's no maintenance required once the solution is deployed. 

NETGEAR is competitive and cost-effective in comparison to Aruba and other solutions. It's not the most expensive, but it's not cheap. You're getting what you pay for. 

Compared to NETGEAR, Cisco has lots of other features within the switch where you can include lots of securities. The switches are very sustainable and can run for  years and years if the environment is okay. There are a few securities that we use to build a firewall or some other level where we can put lots of security on the port, as far as the loop and hacking goes. If anything happens in the network, there are lots of things that can be controlled at switch level. NETGEAR has less of these kinds of options. 

My recommendation of NETGEAR to a customer would be dependent on the kind of solution they have, their budget, network size and the length of time they expect it to work. The product is more suitable for medium size organizations. Enterprise organizations generally look for other solutions in that sphere. 

I rate the solution six out of 10. 

NETGEAR is our distribution switch for our local area network. We have about 80 data hosts connected to our network. They go through another set of switches into this distribution switch. From there they connect to our gateway and to our servers.

The switches are on our premise and there's no special software other than that it's just a network switch.

It has improved my organization because now the entire network is quicker. A lot of users tell me that things seem faster but they can't really elaborate. My guess is everything is just a fraction of a second quicker going through the network and that adds up at the end of the day.

SFP, speed, and 10-Gigabit are the most valuable aspects of this solution. We're an architecture firm and we sometimes deal with large files. Anything we can do to eke out even a fraction of a second less time to get something done over the course of a year adds up. If I can get 10-Gigabit running in my server room, which I am right now, even though we're only gigabit to the desktop, due to the client computers we have, I can get more performance from everybody. I'm ready to start bringing in 10-Gigabit Ethernet to the desktop once I get the hardware to do that.

It's easy to use once you actually read the instructions. There is some searching you have to do on the documentation to find exactly what you're looking to get done but it's all there. NETGEAR's forums were very helpful because people actually pointed me in the right direction when I had problems setting it up.

We use it for IT switching. It is the distribution switch for our network and then I have access switches that feed into this switch that are also 10-Gigabit. IT switching is very nice. I run my backups much more quickly. It works out to about as fast as I thought it would be. I'm quite pleased. It's definitely worth it for what you're getting; a lot of switches, a lot of networks. I looked at a lot of different possible models and products before I bought these and I settled on NETGEAR because I thought there was a good balance of price, performance, and features. And so far, it has worked out.

I have POE switches going into this switch, but I don't use this switch particularly to distribute power. The model I have is not a POE switch. It's just the data switch.

We have server aggregation. Our main file server is aggregated through two SRP interfaces on the switch.

We also have wireless access in our network, but it doesn't talk to this switch directly. It goes through one of our access switches.

The feature to change settings on the switch needs improvement. I understand why it's there, I can change the settings on the switch and I have to actually hit save to lock them in, otherwise, on a reboot, the changes revert to the earlier settings. I've forgotten to hit save a couple of times. It should have more of a big red obvious "You need to hit save" button to lock your changes in; that would have been helpful. There were a couple of times where things suddenly stopped working and I realized it was because I rebooted it and undid what I just fixed.

The web interface has been a little sketchy on occasion. Sometimes I have to reload the page to get things to show up properly, but the switch itself seems fine. The web user interface is a little wonky at times.

I have been using NETGEAR Switches for three months. 

So far stability has been good. Now that we've gone live with them, I have not had to restart or shut them down at all.

If I had to do it again, I might've gotten a bigger switch with more ports on it because I'm using up more of them than I originally thought I would. But that's really not a scalability issue with the switch, that's just me not planning properly.

Only I am responsible for the maintenance of the switches. I'm an IT manager. 

In terms of size, we have about 70 employees, all of whom have ethernet connections through access switches to this switch. This is the core of our network.

I don't plan to increase usage much, if at all. This is what it's going to be for the next few years.

I have not used technical support. 

NETGEAR replaced some Nortel switches that were about 11 years old. They were end of life and they were not as fast. I had gigabit and 100 megabits switches. I am hoping to have these for another 10 years. I'm going to get 10-Gigabit and gigabit for my network speeds.

The initial setup was straightforward once I figured out what I was doing. It was fine once I acquainted myself with the switch and with some of the features. I was not pressured to get this done quickly. When the pandemic hit, we all went home so I had an empty server room in which to work so I could try to see if they worked and if they didn't, I could try it a different way. I did not have to risk taking down the whole network with people there. That was just a fortunate happenstance.

My implementation plan was to set up this switch along with my new access switches, which were also NETGEAR. I set them up disconnected from our live network. I put everything together, including the SFP uploads, in test client and test phones, and set everything up the way it was going to be. About a month and a half ago, I went in, unplugged the old switches, put in the new ones, and turned it on. It was very quick and easy but it took about a day and a half because we have a lot of cables.

In actual time, it took about a month and a half to deploy. But in actual work hours, it probably took about four days because we were doing it in fits and starts because we were trying to move out of the office when COVID hit.

There's a learning curve, but it's not as difficult as I thought it would be.

ROI is a soft benefit. It's hard to know. I don't know if the old switches would've died this morning. 

We have them for two purposes. One, to speed up our network. Two, to refresh with new hardware that isn't a decade old. So it's hard to determine.

Technology keeps changing so you don't need to buy something that's going to last 100 years. Buy something that you know you're going to have to replace in five or 10 years and price it accordingly. We were told that the Nortel switches we had bought would last for 10 to 20 years and that we would never have to replace it. Networking got faster in the years between and frankly, those switches got filled with gunk, they physically start wearing out, and fans die. As long as you know that it has a five to 10-year window, why would you pay 20 grand a piece for a switch? I just don't understand that.

There are no additional costs. We pay for licensing, hardware, and cables. That is it.

The pricing was definitely reasonable, I don't know if I'd say low. I think all networking equipment is more expensive than it should be. But NETGEAR had the price point that least annoyed me.

We evaluated Cisco, Juniper, Dell, and HP but they were all nearly twice the price of NETGEAR. I also had some hesitation to some. There seems to be some hesitation by some IT professionals to use NETGEAR for their enterprise and business networking, but so far, I'm happy.

We also considered Ubiquiti. We have a couple of Ubiquiti wireless access points. So I said, "Well, I'll just look at them." Ubiquiti was a possibility, but a lot of what this came down to was that there seems to be some hesitation in the IT world about using NETGEAR for enterprise and for business use. They do have a pretty large in-home user market. 

I have a couple of older NETGEAR switches that are at least as old as the Nortel ones that I just replaced. They have been on for 15 years and have never been down. I thought that if they're still going, they can't be that bad. I'll try it.

The primary reasons we chose NETGEAR over Ubiquiti, Cisco, and other products are because NETGEAR seemed stable and it frankly seems easier to set up, especially more than something like Cisco.

My advice would be: Don't rush it. Give yourself time between getting the switch and putting it in. That helped me do this properly. Have patience. Read the documentation. Be organized.

NETGEAR has the ability to label the interfaces and you can label different things on the switch in the web interface, while our old switches didn't have this feature. That helps me keep track of what's where. Being organized is really the key to all of this. When I am home I can dial into our VPN, look at the user interface of the switch, and I can tell you what's in every port on that switch.

I would rate NETGEAR Switches a nine out of ten. The only thing that would take away a point would be the user interface. The web interface sometimes needs refreshing and doesn't keep up with what I'm trying to do.

I use the solution in my company to connect devices together. I have experience with the very basic switches provided by NETGEAR.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that its performance was okay.

Though the tool's useability is good, it has certain shortcomings where improvements are required.

There are certain shortcomings in the stability offered by the product, and improvements are required since I sometimes have to do the power reset.

I have been using NETGEAR Switches for a few months.

The product's stability is fine. Users should not face any stability-related issues when using NETGEAR Switches. My previous organization has used the product for a very long time, and it was there even during the phase when I was about to leave the company.

The product is easily scalable. With time, I was able to add additional NETGEAR Switches and increase the number of products in our network. You need to have a crossover cable to increase the number of switches, but you can directly add NETGEAR Switches, which is really cool.

I used to work in a library where there were around 127 nodes connected to NETGEAR Switches.

The tool is very easy to deploy as it is a very basic switch. I just need to put in the rack and plug in the cables to it.

For the product's deployment phase, you need to unpack the product and get the product ready to be mounted on the rack. After the product is mounted on the rack, you can plug in your ethernet and power cables and conduct a test.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

From unpacking and unboxing to racking up and plugging the cables, it takes less than thirty minutes to deploy it.

My assistant and I were the two people involved in the tool's deployment.

I deployed the tool in my company.

Speaking about the ROI, I didn't have to spend money replacing NETGEAR Switches that had issues, especially in a short span of time. Based on the tool's reliability, the product is good to use.

I wouldn't know anything about the price. I didn't purchase it directly.

I haven't used the tasks for applications under NETGEAR. I have always used the switches provided by NETGEAR.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Speaking about reliability and uptime, the tool I deployed in my company has been working for around five years now. The product is reliable.

The product is good, and I recommend it to others who plan to use it.

I rate the tool's ease of use an eight out of ten.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.