The top reviewer of Arista Networks Platform writes "Linux shell helpful for troubleshooting and capturing traffic, but the documentation needs improvement". TTM = trailing 12 monthsStill, for overall gains, I like Arista's financial strength and long-term growth possibilities much more. Better Buy: Arista Networks vs. Cisco Which networking specialist is the better buy today? These products include an array of 10/25/40/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet low-latency cut-through switches, including the 7124SX, which remained the fastest switch using SFP+ optics through Arista’s award-winning platforms, ranging in Ethernet speeds from 10 to 100 gigabits per second, In contrast, many growth tech companies spend about half of their revenue as sales and marketing expenses.As a result, Cisco became a dominating network vendor. As a result, Arista grew its revenue from $193.4 million in 2012 to $2.45 billion over the last 12 months. As the company serves huge cloud providers, which demands fewer sales and marketing efforts compared to acquiring many small customers, its sales and marketing expenses dropped below 10% of revenue since the second half of 2017. That makes it the better buy today.Cisco's more diversified, less-volatile earnings thus may appeal to the more conservative investor. It then expanded its portfolio with switches -- network devices that connect computers and servers into the same physical network -- following its acquisition of Crescendo in 1993. Returns as of 07/31/2020.Logically, its share in the high-speed data center switching market increased from 3.5% in 2012 to 18.8% during the first half of 2019. Last quarter, Cisco's cybersecurity segment grew 5%, and services grew 5% as well. Last month, it announced a new network operating system (IOS XR7) and a silicon architecture (Silicon One) that cloud titans and third parties can use to build their own network devices.But given Cisco's solid dominant position and its capacity to adapt -- with some delay -- to cloud computing, its modest valuation seems a better choice for prudent investors. Arista Networks is an American computer networking company headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Which of these two fierce competitors looks like a better bet at this juncture?Cisco has long dominated campus switching for all kinds of enterprises, but Arista, by focusing on products specifically for the changing data center industry -- especially cloud data centers -- has been able to take market share away from industry giant Cisco in the data center segment over the past five years. Returns as of 07/31/2020.Thus, while the main hardware business can be volatile, Cisco's portfolio is more diversified, making its results somewhat steadier than Arista's in down markets like this one.Of course, Cisco is much, much bigger than just the data center market, and it's benefiting from years of acquisitions in complementary technologies such as application monitoring and cybersecurity along with steadier service revenue for its installed base.