PACKETPERF

Primary Device

Cisco Catalyst 9500X
Cisco Catalyst 9500X
★ 3.1 Value Score

Technical Specifications

  • Switching Capacity: Up to 25.6 Tbps
  • Forwarding Rate: Up to 8 Bpps
  • Ports: 28x 40/100G (QSFP28) + 8x 40/100/200/400G (QSFP-DD)
  • PoE Budget: N/A
  • Layer: Layer 2 and Layer 3
  • Stacking support: StackWise Virtual

Curation Review

  • ✔ Pros: Industry-first 400G fixed core switch; 8GB HBM buffer for micro-burst protection; Hardware-accelerated MACsec-256 and IPsec; Programmable Silicon One Q200 ASIC.
  • ✘ Cons: Extremely high total cost of ownership including mandatory DNA licensing; Significant power and cooling requirements; Complex management through Cisco DNA Center.
  • Est. Price: $64,000 - $75,000

Compare Against

Ubiquiti UniFi Switch Pro Max 16 PoE
Ubiquiti UniFi Switch Pro Max 16 PoE
★ 3.6 Value Score

Technical Specifications

  • Switching Capacity: 84 Gbps
  • Forwarding Rate: 62.496 Mpps
  • Ports: 12x 1GbE PoE+ RJ45, 4x 2.5GbE PoE++ RJ45, 2x 10G SFP+
  • PoE Budget: 180W
  • Layer: L3
  • Stacking support: No (Managed via UniFi Network Application)

Curation Review

  • ✔ Pros: Includes multi-gigabit 2.5G support for high-speed APs; PoE++ (60W) capability; Etherlighting for visual port status; silent fanless operation.
  • ✘ Cons: Large external power brick; limited to only 4 multi-gig ports; rack-mount kit sold separately.
  • Est. Price: $389 - $410

Popular Comparisons

Cisco Catalyst 9500X vs Ubiquiti Pro Max Aggregation (USW-Pro-Max-Aggregation) Cisco Catalyst 9500X vs Fortinet FortiSwitch 124G Cisco Catalyst 9500X vs Fortinet FortiSwitch 124G (FS-124G) Cisco Catalyst 9500X vs Ubiquiti USW-Enterprise-24-PoE Cisco Catalyst 9500X vs Ubiquiti UniFi Switch Pro Max 16 PoE