We performed a comparison between Cisco SD-WAN and Steelhead based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two WAN Edge solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most useful feature for our organization is the combination of on-prem and cloud-based deployments. We connect securely to our hybrid cloud using transit VPCs and cloud on-ramp for fast deployments."
"Cisco SD-WAN is a stable solution."
"Cisco SD-WAN is a highly stable solution."
"The initial setup is straightforward and easy to deploy."
"The orchestration on the VPN connection between remote locations is a fantastic feature. I used it some time ago."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of central management."
"The solution can scale. We haven't had any issues doing so."
"Huge companies use SD-WAN. It is largely scalable."
"SteelHead works from the application. I use it to optimize traffic from Amazon. It is mainly used for customers who need to increase the traffic to 33K. For other users, it has been more of an operation."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"Scalable data referencing is a great feature."
"TCP optimization... caches a particular TCP connection and the next time a user uses that connection he will reach the destination easily."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"I find the most valuable to be the compression and exchange replication."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"One of our most valuable features is Steelhead's cloud migration optimization. Moving to the cloud helped optimize our workflow, improving performance for end-users."
"Cisco SD-WAN doesn't have automation capabilities, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and isn't IOT-based."
"The solution needs to be more flexible around legacy devices."
"They have taken away our ability to do what we are good at, which is working on the CLI, the interface right on the router. They have limited the commands so much that troubleshooting is nearly impossible."
"I would recommend better-integrated management."
"If you don't have an in-house design team or outsource to a third party with expertise, the setup will be difficult."
"The security features could be improved."
"It's an expensive solution."
"The Cisco way of thinking is to create umbrella-like solutions. I would prefer it if this solution was separate from the entire monstrous Cisco portfolio."
"The solution needs to have alert notifications."
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
"The product should offer more integration capabilities."
"Steelhead's handling of encrypted traffic could be improved because it requires some complex configuration to optimize encrypted traffic, especially when working with Microsoft protocols for mail servers and VPN services"
"The application response time of the solution can be improved."
"I would like to see improvement in the solution’s configuration and protocol aspects. We have got some configurations that are not set. I would also like to simplify the call detection of some protocols."
"If we load a primary firewall, the secondary firewall usually handles all the active connections, but in Riverbed, this isn't the case. We lose all the active connections at the moment of failure."
"They should include a network switch in a future release."
Cisco SD-WAN is ranked 2nd in WAN Edge with 86 reviews while Steelhead is ranked 14th in WAN Edge with 23 reviews. Cisco SD-WAN is rated 8.0, while Steelhead is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco SD-WAN writes "A solution for integrating services to enhance up-time, performance and lower costs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Steelhead writes "Exceptionally stable and reliable but costly". Cisco SD-WAN is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Meraki SD-WAN, VMware SD-WAN, Juniper Session Smart Router and Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform, whereas Steelhead is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform, Noction IRP, WAAS and SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN. See our Cisco SD-WAN vs. Steelhead report.
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