Smart switches have limited management features, while managed switches provide full management features such as some L3-functions not present in smart switches (for example, DHCP servers) or GARP-VLAN-Registration-Protocol (GVRP) etc. See the specifications for the switches for an exact list of the differences.

IMHO, smart switches are sufficient if you don't run a data center at home and of course most smart switches also have a CLI, which allows administration through SSH or telnet. Anyway, you should select a switch by checking for the features you actually will need.

captain! wrote

So, do "managed" switches enable actual security (https, ssh, etc.) while "smart" switches just allow anyone snooping traffic to get the plaintext credentials, sign in, and have full access to your critical network hardware?

As I wrote already, most smart switches also support HTTPS/SSH protocol for administration of the switch. Only " easy smart switches" don't offer those protocols, but are cheap and easy to use, intended for consumer's private LANs, which are always isolated from the Internet. You always get what you pay for.

So, if you plan to use an easy smart switch on the public Internet (WAN) b/c you have a data center at home or are trying to become an ISP, then you did buy the wrong product.

If you use the easy smart switch as intended as a consumer product for an isolated private LAN and "anyone" can access your private LAN to snoop on traffic therein, then your LAN is already exposed to the net and you have a much bigger problem than just your easy smart switch's web UI not using HTTPS.

But as I wrote in another thread opened by you with the same question: even if an intruder gains access to your private LAN, he cannot snoop on traffic between your PC and your switch, since it is not a hub, but a switch, meaning that traffic between the PC and the switch is not visible and therefore cannot be captured or snooped on at any other port of the switch.

If you are still worried about Joe Cracker "snooping on traffic" in your LAN, please proof your claim that the switch's HTTP protocol for its web UI is the cause for this, and describe in detail how an intruder into your LAN should be able to snoop on traffic between your PC and the switch's web UI.