Last month, our office finally replaced an aging network that constantly dropped connections during meetings. The IT manager suggested upgrading to Cisco networking devices, and honestly, most of us expected another expensive tech experiment. A few weeks later, the difference was obvious faster file sharing, stable video calls, and almost zero downtime.

Now I’m curious what others think. Are Cisco networking devices really worth the investment in 2026 for small businesses and growing teams, or are there better alternatives with similar performance at a lower cost?