PACKETPERF

Primary Device

Cisco Catalyst 9300X
Cisco Catalyst 9300X
★ 3.1 Value Score

Technical Specifications

  • Switching Capacity: Up to 2,000 Gbps (2.0 Tbps)
  • Forwarding Rate: Up to 1,488 Mpps
  • Ports: 48x 10G Multigigabit (mGig) Copper or 24x 25G SFP28 Fiber, with Modular Uplinks (up to 100G)
  • PoE Budget: Up to 90W UPoE+ (802.3bt) per port, total budget up to 5900W in a stack
  • Layer: L2 / L3 (Full routing support)
  • Stacking support: Yes, StackWise-1T (1,000 Gbps / 1 Tbps bandwidth)

Curation Review

  • ✔ Pros: Industry-leading 1 Tbps stacking bandwidth; Modular 100G uplinks; 90W UPOE+ support for Wi-Fi 7 and IoT; Hardware-accelerated 100G IPsec encryption.
  • ✘ Cons: High initial cost and ongoing TCO; Mandatory Cisco DNA software subscription; Overkill and high power/heat for small or basic office environments.
  • Est. Price: $6,000 - $35,000

Compare Against

Fortinet FortiSwitch 124G (FS-124G)
Fortinet FortiSwitch 124G (FS-124G)
★ 3.7 Value Score

Technical Specifications

  • Switching Capacity: 240 Gbps
  • Forwarding Rate: 355 Mpps
  • Ports: 24 x 100/1000/2500 Mbps RJ45, 6 x 10 Gbps SFP+
  • PoE Budget: 0W (Non-PoE)
  • Layer: Layer 2 with Static Routing
  • Stacking support: FortiLink (Management Stacking)
  • Form Factor: 1 RU, Fanless

Curation Review

  • ✔ Pros: High-speed 2.5G multi-gigabit ports ideal for Wi-Fi 6/7 access points; generous 6x 10G SFP+ uplinks for high backhaul capacity; fanless design ensures completely silent operation; seamless integration with FortiGate firewalls via FortiLink for centralized security management.
  • ✘ Cons: Lacks Power over Ethernet (PoE) support, requiring injectors or a separate power source for connected devices; fanless design leads to high operating temperatures (often exceeding 50°C); limited Layer 3 features compared to enterprise core switches.
  • Est. Price: $1,130 - $1,504

Popular Comparisons

Cisco Catalyst 9300X vs Ubiquiti Pro Max Aggregation (USW-Pro-Max-Aggregation) Cisco Catalyst 9300X vs Fortinet FortiSwitch 124G Cisco Catalyst 9300X vs Fortinet FortiSwitch 124G (FS-124G) Cisco Catalyst 9300X vs Ubiquiti USW-Enterprise-24-PoE Cisco Catalyst 9300X vs Ubiquiti UniFi Switch Pro Max 16 PoE