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."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 solution is brilliant, the way it calculates its paths and trails is great."
"The SD-WAN solution as it is already is quite feature-rich and the upgrade process is very simple."
"The scalability and stability are quite good in general."
"It allows you to combine two asymmetrical connections."
"The VPN and the load balancing are the most valuable features."
"The stability is the main feature of Citrix SD-WAN. You can also upgrade the data packages or have less transmission."
"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."
"I find the most valuable to be the compression and exchange replication."
"Scalable data referencing is a great feature."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"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 connectivity to speed is the valuable feature."
"TCP optimization... caches a particular TCP connection and the next time a user uses that connection he will reach the destination easily."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"Enhancements are needed to improve the stability."
"I would like to see support for additional reporting."
"Citrix SD-WAN does not have the SD-WAN with one optimization in a single license. Other competitors have this option and it should be added to this solution."
"The only improvement for Citrix SD-WAN would be to lower its cost."
"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."
"Overall, network security and next-generation firewall features are areas that they can improve on."
"The price is the only thing that could be improved. Citrix is not a cheap solution."
"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."
"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."
"They should include a network switch in a future release."
"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 product should offer more integration capabilities."
"The solution needs to have alert notifications."
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
"The application response time of the solution can be improved."
"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."
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, Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform 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.