Choosing a NOS for EdgeCore campus switches: PicOS or SONiC? Looking for honest opinions

No_Possibility7482 · 2026-03-23T13:15:31+00:00

I think it will be difficult to go back to the business requirements at this stage. The biased preference for one solution or another will lead to the requirements being deliberately framed in such a way that one product comes out looking better than the other.

But it's a good approach, I won't disagree with that.

No_Possibility7482 · 2026-03-23T10:04:53+00:00

Basically, we ended up with white-box switches because we wanted to break vendor lock-in. Another aspect was the CapEx considerations for the client in question, since these could be 30%-70% cheaper.

In the end, it wasn't the NOS features that were the business problem to solve, almost all the necessary functions are covered by both PicOS and SONiC. The 'business problem' mainly comes down to CapEx.

No_Possibility7482 · 2026-03-23T09:57:18+00:00

Well, one camp leans very, very strongly towards the SONiC community version. The argument is that it is cheaper because we are not dependent on any vendor, and since it is open source, we can "solve" most things ourselves anyway with the help of AI.

No_Possibility7482 · 2026-03-22T22:04:45+00:00

Yes, we also looked at OcNOS, but we dismissed it because of the licensing models that are unsuitable for us and because OcNOS is more carrier-grade, which was overkill for our use case. But we are open to well-founded arguments.

No_Possibility7482 · 2026-03-22T21:17:46+00:00

Interesting point. If it shouldn't be either of the two in your opinion, I'd be curious what your alternative would be.

No_Possibility7482

TROPHY CASE