We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate 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."I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the simple configuration."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"It is easy to use and performs very well."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"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."
"TCP optimization... caches a particular TCP connection and the next time a user uses that connection he will reach the destination easily."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"Steelhead is stable, and it can even help you avoid service interruption in the event of a power outage. If your hardware fails, technical support will replace your device quickly."
"Scalable data referencing is a great feature."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"The UI could be improved."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"The initial setup is complex."
"It would be good if they had fewer updates."
"The application response time of the solution can be improved."
"The product needs improvement in its integration with SDN."
"The product should offer more integration capabilities."
"Application response time and network performance could be improved."
"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"
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
"They should include a network switch in a future release."
"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."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 1st in WAN Edge with 306 reviews while Steelhead is ranked 14th in WAN Edge with 23 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Steelhead is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Steelhead writes "Exceptionally stable and reliable but costly". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Steelhead is most compared with Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform, Noction IRP, WAAS, Citrix SD-WAN and Cisco SD-WAN. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Steelhead report.
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