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 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 most valuable feature of Citrix SD-WAN is customization. You are able to customize the solution to your needs."
"The solution is brilliant, the way it calculates its paths and trails is great."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability."
"The reliability of connectivity is most valuable."
"The SD-WAN solution as it is already is quite feature-rich and the upgrade process is very simple."
"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)."
"It allows us to use additional VPNs, offering more options compared to other VPN solutions."
"TCP optimization... caches a particular TCP connection and the next time a user uses that connection he will reach the destination easily."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"Scalable data referencing is a great feature."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"I find the most valuable to be the compression and exchange replication."
"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."
"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 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."
"Enhancements are needed to improve the stability."
"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."
"Citrix SD-WAN's knowledge base has a few missing things, so you may need to seek help from support."
"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."
"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"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 product needs improvement in its integration with SDN."
"The application response time of the solution can be improved."
"Application response time and network performance could 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."
"They should include a network switch in a future release."
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
"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."
Citrix SD-WAN is ranked 4th in WAN Optimization with 21 reviews while Steelhead is ranked 3rd in WAN Optimization with 23 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 Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN 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.
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