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."The scalability and stability are quite good in general."
"It allows us to use additional VPNs, offering more options compared to other VPN solutions."
"It allows you to combine two asymmetrical connections."
"We are using it widely for the local record for SaaS-based applications. Another valuable feature is a local breakout."
"The SD-WAN solution as it is already is quite feature-rich and the upgrade process is very simple."
"It lowered our Internet costs and gave me the flexibility to choose providers based on each location's connectivity."
"The main advantage of Citrix SD-WAN is that it enables fast communication between our branches and data centers. And, with its cloud management features, it also makes the process of adding new branches into our company network much easier."
"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)."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"The connectivity to speed is the valuable feature."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"Scalable data referencing is a great 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."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"TCP optimization... caches a particular TCP connection and the next time a user uses that connection he will reach the destination easily."
"I find the most valuable to be the compression and exchange replication."
"The price is the only thing that could be improved. Citrix is not a cheap solution."
"Given that Citrix SD-WAN solved all our problems by providing us with everything we needed to unify communications with our branches and data centers, I cannot suggest anything further in terms of improvements."
"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."
"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 initial setup could be a bit easier."
"Even though the monitoring is pretty good, there is some room for improvement there."
"I would like to either see the price reduced or have it packaged with other products to give better value for the money."
"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"
"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 solution needs to have alert notifications."
"The product should offer more integration capabilities."
"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."
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
"Application response time and network performance could be improved."
"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.
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