Citrix SD-WAN vs Steelhead comparison

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Executive Summary

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.
To learn more, read our detailed Citrix SD-WAN vs. Steelhead Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Chaudhary Muhammad Moez Manzar
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"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).""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.""The scalability and stability are quite good in general.""We are using it widely for the local record for SaaS-based applications. Another valuable feature is a local breakout.""The solution is brilliant, the way it calculates its paths and trails is great.""The VPN and the load balancing are the most valuable features.""The most valuable feature of Citrix SD-WAN is customization. You are able to customize the solution to your needs."

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"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.""The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities.""Scalable data referencing is a great feature.""It is very easy to install the solution.""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.""TCP optimization... caches a particular TCP connection and the next time a user uses that connection he will reach the destination easily."

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Cons
"Overall, network security and next-generation firewall features are areas that they can improve on.""I would like to see more customization to adjust for the WAN lock-out due to our unexpected power outages.""Citrix should continue to offer a perpetual licensing model because it is very important to us.""The price could be improved, it's an expensive solution.""There are a few things that can be improved, are domain-based routing and the slowness of virtual parts, and it may be due to the wrong configuration, which we have been unable to find out.""The price is the only thing that could be improved. Citrix is not a cheap solution.""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.""I would like to see support for additional reporting."

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"They should include a network switch in a future release.""The product should offer more integration capabilities.""Application response time and network performance could be improved.""One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility.""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.""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."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It's a little bit on the high side compared to the other products."
  • "As NetScaler is now, I find it quite pricey."
  • "The price of the subscription should be cheaper."
  • "It is a bit expensive. A cheaper product would be good, but everybody likes things to be cheaper. We bought the devices up front, and then we pay for the annual support."
  • "The license was a one-time purchase. It's expensive."
  • "It depends on the scale. In our case, it would have been better if we had known about the life cycling steps, but otherwise, it is worth the money."
  • "I believe that Citrix SD-WAN is a good investment, but I do not have the information to be more specific."
  • "I'm not quite sure of the price ranges. Roughly, the hidden devices can scale up to $20K for one appliance. However, the branch CPs are USD $1,000 to $2,500."
  • More Citrix SD-WAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The solution is expensive and the service contacts are costly too. The cost of the device makes the value proposition borderline acceptable for us. The service contract fees we pay is approximately $30,000 annually."
  • More Steelhead Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It lowered our Internet costs and gave me the flexibility to choose providers based on each location's connectivity.
    Top Answer:It is on the expensive side. I would give it an eight out of ten in terms of costliness. In my region, the approximate cost for the Citrix SD-WAN license is around $150 per user per year. However, the… more »
    Top Answer:The only improvement for Citrix SD-WAN would be to lower its cost.
    Top Answer:We just did an assessment for our 47 datacenters around North America. The top two enterprise-level network monitoring solutions were ExtraHop first, Riverbed SteelCenter second. Their negotiated cost… more »
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities.
    Top Answer:The application response time of the solution can be improved.
    Ranking
    3rd
    out of 15 in WAN Optimization
    Views
    510
    Comparisons
    373
    Reviews
    11
    Average Words per Review
    547
    Rating
    7.8
    4th
    out of 15 in WAN Optimization
    Views
    1,148
    Comparisons
    625
    Reviews
    1
    Average Words per Review
    337
    Rating
    7.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Citrix CloudBridge, WOC, NetScaler SD-WAN
    RIverbed Steelhead
    Learn More
    Riverbed
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    Overview

    Citrix SD-WAN is a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), WAN optimization, and WAN edge solution. Citrix SD-WAN is recognized for providing a robust, trustworthy user experience so that an organization's distributed workforce can deliver the best possible outcomes at all times. Organizations can easily deploy solid security protocols wherever needed and also have the option to choose from a diverse choice of security options with unified security service and seamless integration with today’s top next-gen firewalls.

    Citrix SD-WAN provides a single cloud-based user dashboard that enables organizations to easily manage their WAN, prioritize and audit applications, and configure security protocols. Citrix SD-WAN enables users to easily manage hybrid multi-cloud processes by improving applications and automating connectivity. Citrix SD-WAN gives organizations tremendous flexibility for deployment from public clouds, data centers, home offices, and branches.

    Citrix SD-WAN is the basis of the Citrix consolidated process to SASE (secure access service edge) combined with cloud-delivered security and zero-trust network access to provide organizations with safe, trustworthy, secure access to each and every application anywhere, using any device.

    The Citrix SD-WAN solution is made up of three basic components:

    • Two software editions.
    • Cloud-hosted (or on-premises) orchestrator for clear visibility and unified protocol management.
    • Appliances: data center, home, branch, physical or virtual.

    Citrix SD-WAN Orchestrator

    The Citrix SD-WAN Orchestrator can be on premises or cloud-hosted and is a multi-tenant management service offered to Citrix partners and do-it-yourself enterprise organizations. The dashboard delivers a comprehensive view of your organization’s SD-WAN network concerning the functionality and usage of every site. The intuitive dashboard delivers a summary of uptime of the overlay and underlay paths, usage trends, and network-wide alerts.

    Available application-centric policies: quality of service (QoS), firewall policies, and application-based traffic steering can all be easily configurable globally or per site.

    Reviews from Real Users

    “With SD-WAN, they have all the features and benefits they need to send live streaming information to the database and to headquarters without requiring a server at each site. Our other clients have various sites with just one type of communication, say a radio or a mobile network. SD-WAN helps them to combine and get a better bandwidth to balance all their applications and services.” - Business Consultant at a tech services company

    “We needed to create some kind of network that was distributed through data and media or big files. It was a retail company, so there were branches, and the branches needed to connect to HQ. We provided HQ and each branch with Citrix SD-WAN. We tried to use it, and it worked well. The transmission was good, and they were losing less data.” - Ruslan M., SMB Sales Director, Regional Business Development Department at Softline

    Steelhead is the leading network optimization and application performance solution chosen by over 30,000 organizations worldwide. The performance of networks and applications directly impacts business productivity. Riverbed draws from nearly two decades of experience in driving network and application performance over Wide Area Networks with its flagship offering, SteelHead. SteelHead delivers the underlying technology that helps enterprises of all sizes maximize the efficiency and performance of the networks and applications used to run modern business. 

    SteelHead is proven to dramatically speed up the performance of applications anywhere in the organization while delivering the best end-user experience even under sub optimal network conditions. Reduce bandwidth utilization by up to 95%, deferring costly network bandwidth upgrades. Increase performance by up to 100x for on-premises applications.

    Sample Customers
    AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Cornerstone Home Lending Inc., Dallara, ecVision, Essar, Eurofred, Groupe Promutuel, HMSHost Corporation, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines Ltd, Royal Caribbean International
    ElAraby, SFK Leblanc, Bobst Group, Northwest Pipe Company, Halkbank, Tradebridge, EFG Hermes
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company25%
    Insurance Company19%
    Wholesaler/Distributor19%
    Integrator6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Retailer9%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Construction Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Government25%
    Energy/Utilities Company19%
    Construction Company6%
    Non Tech Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Government12%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise55%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise33%
    Large Enterprise52%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise62%
    Buyer's Guide
    Citrix SD-WAN vs. Steelhead
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix SD-WAN vs. Steelhead and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    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, VMware SD-WAN and Cato SASE Cloud Platform, 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.

    We monitor all WAN Optimization reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.