We performed a comparison between Cisco 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."It is very simple and easy to manage, compared to other methods."
"The product helps to aggregate network links. The tool increases security and makes it possible for you to have remote workers."
"When considering the most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN, the decoupling of self-monitoring stands out significantly."
"The most useful feature for our organization is the combination of on-prem and cloud-based deployments. We connect securely to our hybrid cloud using transit VPCs and cloud on-ramp for fast deployments."
"This solution can scale from SMB to the enterprise level. It is very impressive."
"It is really easy to deploy and use. It is also easy to use for failovers and designing solutions. The rollout is really quick. It is easy to adjust and roll out."
"I like the feature that lets you transfer from old devices to new devices without changing the hardware and subscription."
"The solution has great scalability."
"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."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"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."
"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."
"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 most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"We recently found some bugs."
"Cisco SD-WAN could improve on the ease of integration, the configuration should be easier. At the moment the process is more command line based and it would be better if it was able to be done through an interface."
"The product should improve its prices."
"The initial setup could be a bit less complex."
"Compresson deduplication should be added."
"All of the configurations are based on templates, and we need to spend a lot of time doing the templates. It's good because that means that all of the configurations will be equal in the network. However, we need to spend a lot of time implementing the templates and doing the customizations."
"An area for improvement lies in enhancing the integration with the security functions of the SD-WAN."
"I would like to see features related to security compliance, including a view of compliance with standards. With this, I should be able to do an audit of my network with SDWAN."
"Application response time and network performance could be improved."
"The solution needs to have alert notifications."
"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"
"They should include a network switch in a future release."
"The product needs improvement in its integration with SDN."
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
"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."
Cisco SD-WAN is ranked 2nd in WAN Edge with 86 reviews while Steelhead is ranked 14th in WAN Edge with 23 reviews. Cisco SD-WAN is rated 8.0, while Steelhead is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco SD-WAN writes "A solution for integrating services to enhance up-time, performance and lower costs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Steelhead writes "Exceptionally stable and reliable but costly". Cisco SD-WAN is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Meraki SD-WAN, VMware SD-WAN, Juniper Session Smart Router and Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform, whereas Steelhead is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform, Noction IRP, WAAS and SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN. See our Cisco SD-WAN vs. Steelhead report.
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