We performed a comparison between Prisma SD-WAN and Steelhead based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two WAN Edge solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Prisma SD-WAN is intuitive. We have a better idea of the different tools we can use and jump between the menus quickly."
"I like that the integration with Palo Alto is easy."
"The product's initial setup phase is straightforward."
"When it comes to supporting large, complex, network architectures, it's a very simple architecture. The main component is the fabric. It's very easy to troubleshoot if there is an issue happening in the underlying network."
"From the main controller, we can administer the customer's devices, QoS, network, and traffic. We can monitor it and we can change and create policies as well as upgrade the software. We can totally control a customer's network from one site, the Prisma SD-WAN portal."
"Prisma supports all of the applications we're currently using."
"If the MPLS goes down, there is a really smooth transition for a branch site to take traffic over the Internet. It will advertise the routes of that site in a jiffy."
"Prisma's analytics provide a lot of valuable data. I like the internet health chart that shows latency, dropped packets, MOS for data quality, etc. It also runs a continuous speed test in the background. I've used it multiple times to troubleshoot internet connections when the service provider has attempted to claim nothing is wrong with the circuit. It gives me data to send them showing we're not getting the speed we should, or there is constant packet loss."
"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."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"I find the most valuable to be the compression and exchange replication."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"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."
"Prisma SD-WAN's technical support should be improved."
"I would also like to see improvement in the product training for customers. Palo Alto has not initiated very much training but they have to do so because this is a new product. If you have experience in a legacy environment, and you are moving to Prisma SD-WAN, you don't have a training framework. That is one of the disadvantages."
"Sometimes, during the product's initial setup phase, bypass pair or couple ports don't come up normally, and it requires an hour and a half to troubleshoot to reset the box from Prisma SD-WAN to factory default."
"The tool needs to work on price and complexity."
"The only con is the pricing because it's more premium."
"I'd like to see them move more towards CASB."
"There are two parallel things that we want Palo Alto to work on. First, customers want a unified appliance that does the work of all firewalls in addition to SD-WAN. Second, the cloud presence should be completely automated. If I purchase the SASE architecture, I shouldn't worry about deployments in Prisma Access or on Prisma SD-WAN. It should be deployed in one go."
"Prisma could be a little cheaper."
"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."
"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."
"They should include a network switch in a future release."
"Application response time and network performance could be improved."
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
"The solution needs to have alert notifications."
"The product needs improvement in its integration with SDN."
Prisma SD-WAN is ranked 7th in WAN Edge with 11 reviews while Steelhead is ranked 15th in WAN Edge with 23 reviews. Prisma SD-WAN is rated 8.6, while Steelhead is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Prisma SD-WAN writes "A stable tool that offers a good uptime and ensures a return on investment". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Steelhead writes "Exceptionally stable and reliable but costly". Prisma SD-WAN is most compared with Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Cisco SD-WAN, Meraki SD-WAN and Fortinet FortiGate, whereas Steelhead is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform, Citrix SD-WAN and Noction IRP. See our Prisma SD-WAN vs. Steelhead report.
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