Cisco ISR 4000 Series routers Comparison Chart : Simple and Quick to choose ( 50 Mbps till 2 Gbps WAN Speed )

There are lot of questions of asked on the Cisco ISR 4000 Series router. Cisco just added this router ISR series in its portfolio 2 years ago and it actually fills the gap between 200 Mbps to 1 Gbps WAN bandwidth speed. I knew whenever 3 years ago someone asked me to design the WAN network and said we required 500 Mbps or 600 Mbps speed on the WAN side, which Cisco router we will take into consideration, I always thought and said, go with ASR 1001 Routers. Although it can handle backplane bandwidth till 20 Gbps with the embedded processor but i have no choice to fill this gap of 500 Mbps or 600 Mbps.

I was surprised why Cisco is not having any router in this space to fill the gap between 200 Mbps to 1Gbps of WAN bandwidth speed. I knew till 200 Mbps you can go with the Cisco 3900 series router which will actually recommended WAN speed till 150 Mbps with Cisco 3945 series routers.

I guess Cisco releasing this gap soon and 2 years ago they added a new series routers in its portfolio named as " ISR 4000 series router" which fill the gaps between 200 Mbps till 1 Gbps. if your requirement is more than 1 Gbps always go with ASR routers ( ASR 1001-X; ASR 1002-X) depends upon the requirement of your network.

Let's talk about the ISR 4000 series router models and the comparison between them.
So we have 5 different models in Cisco 4000 series routers and these routers are shown as below

• Cisco ISR 4321
• Cisco ISR 4331
• Cisco ISR 4351
• Cisco ISR 4431
• Cisco ISR 4451

Fig 1.1- Cisco ISR 4000 Series Routers Portfolio

So Cisco decided to have 5 different models in this ISR 4000 series portfolio. So now as per the feature set and the comparison  we can easily notice that Cisco ISR 4451 router is biggest of the its family while Cisco ISR 4321 router is one of the smallest family member.

Below is the chart showing the comparison between all these models and pick your model accordingly with respect your design and the demand, needs of your enterprise network. If you have a small or remote office, please don't these routers as these routers will not design for your branch and small offices and of course the cost of the models are high as per the demand of the small offices.

For small offices always go with the Cisco 1900 or Cisco 2900 Series routers with their different models and they are the best suitable recommended models for your.

Below is the table showing the feature sets and the base price of these models.

Fig 1.2- Cisco ISR 4000 Series Router Chart with models 

Thanks for this article, please let me know if you like this article and if there is any questions for further evaluation of these routers for your design, i will happy to help you out there.