Managed vs. Unmanaged Switch: Making the Right Choice for Your Network

Quick Definition: A managed switch offers network administrators advanced control with features like Quality of Service (QoS), VLANs, and port mirroring, ideal for larger networks requiring detailed management. On the other hand, an unmanaged switch is plug-and-play, suitable for simpler or smaller networks without the need for custom configurations. Choosing between the two depends on your network's size and specific requirements. Switches serve as the backbone of every network. These humble devices connect devices across LANs and reliably move data traffic. However, not all switches are equal. There are two broad categories of switches every admin should know: managed and unmanaged.

These two switches each have their own unique features, pros, and cons. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution; each switch has specific use cases that determine which is the right choice. Larger networks often use a combination of both types of switches — but which switch goes where?

Let’s delve into this world and explore what managed and unmanaged switches each bring to the table. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of both and understand when to pick one over the other. For those pursuing Network+ certification, mastering this knowledge is a valuable step towards acing the exam.

What are Managed Switches?

Managed switches are network devices with powerful features to control the traffic that passes through them. The configurations you can create can greatly enhance the performance and security of your network.

Management and Control Capabilities

Managed switches have an admin interface, accessed either via a website or the command line. This interface is used to configure, troubleshoot, and monitor the switch. This is the most substantial difference managed switches have over unmanaged switches, which have no interface or settings to configure.

Feature Sets of Managed Switches

What kind of things can you do on these admin interfaces? While it can vary by switch, there are four common sets of features.

Virtual LANs (or VLANs) are used to segment out a switch, isolating traffic on some ports from traffic on others. They essentially break up one big physical switch into smaller logical switches that can’t talk to each other. You might use this on a larger LAN to securely separate sections of the network, for example, separating the public Wi-Fi from the rest of the private network.

The admin interface would allow you to create VLANs and tag certain ports to designate them as a part of a VLAN, isolating traffic on those ports from other VLANs. VLANs are a broad but essential networking security subject and worth a deeper dive. Another feature of managed switches is Quality of Service (QoS). This allows you to prioritize certain traffic based on whatever criteria you set; including network ports, protocols, source or destination IP addresses, or VLANs.

Typically, you would prioritize traffic in scenarios where minimizing latency is crucial, like phone calls using the SIP protocol or traffic to and from video conferencing services. QoS policies would take effect when the switch becomes loaded down with traffic and can’t handle everything at once. Check out our training for configuring QoS on Cisco hardware for more info. Another helpful feature of managed switches is Spanning Tree Protocol. STP can prevent network loops by blocking redundant links. For example, if a network cable is inadvertently connected to two ports on a switch, all traffic going through the switch will stop because the loop overloads the switch with endlessly circulating traffic.

This can happen accidentally if someone connects a cable between two wall jacks anywhere in a network, taking down the network. STP detects the loops and acts as a traffic cop, stopping the flow between the two ports. 

This can also be used to intentionally create redundancy between switches, connecting multiple ports to create backup connections. If multiple switches are interconnected using STP, this removes single points of failure in larger networks.

More complex implementations of STP can even use multiple links for load balancing and trunking, distributing large volumes of traffic over more than one port. STP has a lot of deeper details; we dig into the fundamentals here.

Finally, managed switches have monitoring and troubleshooting tools available through their admin interfaces. These allow admins to easily view traffic metrics, connectivity statuses, and search logs to hunt down problems.

Use Cases for Managed Switches

Managed switches are invaluable on networks where advanced network management and security are essential. They are most commonly used in organizations with larger, more complex networks where security and traffic control are important for the networking team. They are commonly used in data centers for the same reasons. Finally, any network with large IP phone deployments or a heavy reliance on videoconferencing will benefit greatly from the ability to prioritize that traffic using QoS.

What are Unmanaged Switches?

Unmanaged switches are a simple, straightforward, zero-config piece of network kit compared to their managed brethren. You connect your devices, they can talk to each other, and…you’re done! There’s no admin interface, no extra features to configure, and no logs to pull.

While the lack of bells and whistles might make unmanaged switches look inferior, they actually have some strong benefits.

Advantages of Unmanaged Switches

One is plug-and-play functionality. With nothing to configure, they just work out of the box. Layer 2 switching by default just does its thing to move packets around automatically. This makes unmanaged switches a great user-friendly choice for someone with limited networking experience.

Another benefit is cost effectiveness. Managed switches are very expensive. All that power comes with a hefty price tag; they can cost at least twice as much given a similar base feature set. More advanced managed switches can easily be four or more times as expensive.

Use Cases for Unmanaged Switches

Unmanaged switches are ideal in situations where simplicity and cost-effectiveness are most important. Home networks and small businesses are perfect use cases for unmanaged switches as they probably don’t require the features that managed switches bring.

Making the Choice: Managed or Unmanaged?

There aren’t one-size-fits-all answers when choosing between managed and unmanaged switches, but we can give some general guidance given broad circumstances.

For more complex networks, networks with strong network or traffic shaping requirements, and at organizations with the budget and experienced staff to administer them, managed switches are a strong candidate.

Networks with more complex requirements might use a mix of both, with managed switches forming a network core connected to unmanaged switches serving the desktops and other devices across the LAN. For small businesses with tight budgets or less experienced staff, unmanaged switches are the way to go.

Ultimately, the choice depends on your circumstances and requirements. As is true for all hardware decisions, it pays to dig deep into what will serve your organization best in the long term while balancing your personnel bandwidth and budgetary flexibility. And, if this topic pops up on your Network+ exam, rest assured, you'll be tackling it like a pro.