Compare exact Cisco switch Product IDs side by side across the Catalyst, Nexus, Industrial Ethernet and MDS families. Each comparison lines up ports, uplinks, PoE budget, switching capacity, stacking, licensing and power, and highlights the specifications that differ between the models.
Understand the port, power and performance figures in a Cisco switch comparison. These explanations show what each specification means and which differences to check between models.
Access ports, also called downlink ports, connect devices such as computers, phones and access points. “24 × 1G” means 24 ports rated at 1 gigabit per second each.
Uplinks connect a switch to the rest of the network. “4 × 10G SFP+” describes four 10-gigabit uplink interfaces that use compatible transceivers or cables.
Power over Ethernet (PoE) carries power and data over the same Ethernet cable. PoE, PoE+ and higher-power options differ in how much power a port can supply to a phone, camera or access point.
The PoE budget is the total power available to connected PoE devices, measured in watts. A 370 W budget is shared across the powered ports; it is not 370 W per port.
Switching capacity describes the published aggregate bandwidth of the switch, measured in gigabits per second. It covers traffic across the switch rather than the speed of one port or your internet connection.
Forwarding rate describes how many packets the switch can process per second. Mpps means million packets per second: 100 Mpps is 100 million packets per second.
Stacking allows supported switches to operate together as one logical switch. Stack bandwidth is the capacity of the links between stack members, separate from the access ports and uplinks.
A network license determines which software features are available. For example, Catalyst Network Essentials and Network Advantage are feature tiers; a higher tier does not add physical ports or increase their rated speed.
Browse Cisco switch series guides or compare exact model numbers.
Catalyst pairs are weighed on access ports, PoE budget, uplink options, StackWise technology and the Network Essentials or Network Advantage license.
Nexus pairs are weighed on port speed, port density and forwarding performance for leaf, spine and fabric-extender roles.
Industrial Ethernet pairs are weighed on Ethernet and SFP ports, PoE, power input and operating temperature range.
MDS pairs are weighed on Fibre Channel ports, ports licensed at order and supported optics.
Compare the listed Cisco switch models by access-port count, uplinks, PoE support, switching capacity, forwarding rate and stack bandwidth.
| Cisco Model | Access Ports | Uplinks | PoE Support | Switching Capacity (Standalone) | Forwarding Rate (Standalone) | Stack Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C9200L-24P-4X-E | 24 | 4 x 1/10G SFP+ | PoE/PoE+ | 128 Gbps | 95.23 Mpps | 80 Gbps |
| C9200L-24T-4X-E | 24 | 4 x 1/10G SFP+ | Not supported | 128 Gbps | 95.23 Mpps | 80 Gbps |
| C9200L-48P-4X-E | 48 | 4 x 1/10G SFP+ | PoE/PoE+ | 176 Gbps | 130.95 Mpps | 80 Gbps |
| C9200L-48T-4X-E | 48 | 4 x 1/10G SFP+ | Not supported | 176 Gbps | 130.95 Mpps | 80 Gbps |
| C9300L-24P-4X-E | 24 | 4 x 1/10G SFP+ | PoE/PoE+ | 128 Gbps | 95.23 Mpps | 320 Gbps |
| C9300L-24T-4X-E | 24 | 4 x 1/10G SFP+ | Not supported | 128 Gbps | 95.23 Mpps | 320 Gbps |
| IE-3200-8T2S-E | 8 | 2 x 100/1000BASE-X SFP | Not supported | 20 Gbps | 14.88 Mpps | Not listed |
| IE-3300-8T2S-E | 8 | 2 x 100/1000BASE-X SFP | Not supported | Not published by Cisco | Line rate (all ports) | Not listed |
| IE-3200-8P2S-E | 8 | 2 x 100/1000BASE-X SFP | PoE/PoE+ | 20 Gbps | 14.88 Mpps | Not listed |
| IE-3300-8P2S-E | 8 | 2 x 100/1000BASE-X SFP | PoE/PoE+ | Not published by Cisco | Line rate (all ports) | Not listed |
| IE-9320-24P4X-E | 24 | 4 x 1/10G SFP+ | PoE/PoE+ | 128 Gbps | 95.23 Mpps | Not listed |
| C1300-24P-4X | 24 | 4 x 10G SFP+ | PoE+ (802.3at) | 128 Gbps | 95.23 Mpps | Up to 80 Gbps |
| C1300-24T-4X | 24 | 4 x 10G SFP+ | Not supported | 128 Gbps | 95.23 Mpps | Up to 80 Gbps |
The chart shows standalone switching figures for featured models; each comparison page adds stacked values and every other specification.
“Not listed” means no value is recorded for that model; it does not mean zero or unsupported.
Catalyst switches are built for campus and branch networks, from PoE access switches for phones and access points up to Catalyst 9500 and 9600 core switches, and most Catalyst access models stack. Nexus switches are built for data-center server racks as leaf, spine or fabric-extender switches, and they use vPC for multi-switch resilience instead of stacking.
Catalyst 9300 is the higher-capacity stackable access family. Between the 24-port PoE+ models, the C9300-24P-A has 208 Gbps of switching capacity, StackWise-480 and 32,000 IPv4 routes, while the C9200-24P-A has 128 Gbps, StackWise-160 and 4,000 routes. Catalyst 9300 also takes 25G and 40G uplink modules and supports Cisco StackPower.
The letter after the port count gives the port type: T is data-only, P is PoE+, U is Cisco UPOE and H is Cisco UPOE+ (IEEE 802.3bt Type 4), as in C9300-48T-A, C9300-48P-A, C9300-48U-A and C9300-48H-A. The last suffix is the license tier: -E is Network Essentials, -A is Network Advantage and -M is Meraki licensing. On Catalyst 9200L and 9300L models, -4G and -4X mark four fixed 1G or 10G uplinks, as in C9200L-24P-4G-E and C9200L-24P-4X-E.
The published replacement comparisons pair Catalyst 2960-X models with Catalyst 9200L or 9200CX switches, Catalyst 3650 models with Catalyst 9300L switches and Catalyst 3850 models with Catalyst 9300 switches. Each one shows what carries over, such as port count and uplinks, and what changes, such as the stacking technology and power options.
Choose Switches, search each Product ID and add up to four models. Use the complete model number with its suffix: models in one series differ in PoE, uplinks and license, and the suffix selects the exact hardware and license variant.
Specifications are compiled from Cisco data sheets and hardware installation guides for each exact Product ID, then normalized to the same units across the switch category so that values can be compared row by row.