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."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 VPN and the load balancing are the most valuable features."
"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."
"The best feature is the backup capability, where all of the users' computers are tied into a central data repository."
"The most valuable feature is security, as it gives me the port bindings that cannot be accomplished using other solutions."
"It allows us to use additional VPNs, offering more options compared to other VPN solutions."
"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."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"TCP optimization... caches a particular TCP connection and the next time a user uses that connection he will reach the destination easily."
"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."
"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 only improvement for Citrix SD-WAN would be to lower its cost."
"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."
"Even though the monitoring is pretty good, there is some room for improvement there."
"Overall, network security and next-generation firewall features are areas that they can improve on."
"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"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."
"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 application response time of the solution can be improved."
"The solution needs to have alert notifications."
"They should include a network switch in a future release."
"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."
"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 needs improvement in its integration with SDN."
"Application response time and network performance could be improved."
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, 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.
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