We performed a comparison between Citrix SD-WAN and Steelhead based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two WAN Optimization solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It lowered our Internet costs and gave me the flexibility to choose providers based on each location's connectivity."
"Downtime for branch offices is now almost zero. We have 100% real-time visibility into all of our lines. MPLS links have been replaced with lower-cost links, saving a larger percentage of line costs. Overall, I see SD-WAN as a must. And the Citrix SD-WAN product has delivered on expectations and exceeded them. (With later firmware updates we now have good firewall capabilities in the product too)."
"We are using it widely for the local record for SaaS-based applications. Another valuable feature is a local breakout."
"They have a zero downtime failover mechanism, where, when there's a link failure or a link weakness, or bad link conditions, they provide the ability to fail back seamlessly."
"The tool is quite cost-effective because it replaces the need for MPLS, which is a bit expensive...Citrix SD-WAN doesn't need much maintenance."
"The reliability of connectivity is most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is security, as it gives me the port bindings that cannot be accomplished using other solutions."
"The zero-touch deployment is most valuable for us."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"The connectivity to speed is the valuable feature."
"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."
"I find the most valuable to be the compression and exchange replication."
"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."
"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."
"Overall, network security and next-generation firewall features are areas that they can improve on."
"The communication around the life cycle would have been really helpful. The main issue we have had is related to the life cycle because some of the things that we are using were discontinued. They were discontinued within a year after we had purchased it, which is a bit painful. If we had known that, we would've made some other decisions."
"Citrix should continue to offer a perpetual licensing model because it is very important to us."
"The only improvement for Citrix SD-WAN would be to lower its cost."
"Enhancements are needed to improve the stability."
"The firewall reporting could be easier to use and filter. (It works well enough, but if I need to give an area for improvement, I think this would be it.). The built-in reporting on the product in this regard is not great."
"The price could be improved, it's an expensive solution."
"I would like to see more customization to adjust for the WAN lock-out due to our unexpected power outages."
"The solution needs to have alert notifications."
"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."
"The application response time of the solution can 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."
"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."
"The product should offer more integration capabilities."
"They should include a network switch in a future release."
Citrix SD-WAN is ranked 3rd in WAN Optimization with 21 reviews while Steelhead is ranked 4th in WAN Optimization with 22 reviews. Citrix SD-WAN is rated 8.2, while Steelhead is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Citrix SD-WAN writes " A scalable solution for MCN controller but lacks technical supports, upgrades". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Steelhead writes "Exceptionally stable and reliable but costly". Citrix SD-WAN is most compared with Cisco SD-WAN, Fortinet FortiGate, Meraki SD-WAN, Cato SASE Cloud Platform and VMware SD-WAN, whereas Steelhead is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform, WAAS, Noction IRP and Cisco SD-WAN. See our Citrix SD-WAN vs. Steelhead report.
See our list of best WAN Optimization vendors and best WAN Edge vendors.
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