We report a study of the switching behavior in the current–voltage characteristics of long (∼8 μm) Nb microbridges in the hysteretic regime. Microbridges of various widths, ranging from . 71 μ m to 3.7 μ m , were prepared via standard optical lithography and reactive plasma etching techniques and the switching behavior was studied in a temperature range of 0.8 T c ⩽ T ⩽ T c . The current driven switching from superconducting to normal state of the bridge was analyzed in the Ginzburg–Landau formalism while the resistive-to-superconducting switching was analyzed using the hotspot model.