Aruba Orchestrator vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cato Networks are both solutions in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.8, while Cato Networks is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 0.7% mindshare in SDW, compared to Cato Networks’s 6.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cato Networks users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Cato SASE Cloud Platform and Aruba Orchestrator compete in network security and management solutions. Cato has the upper hand in remote workforce support and global connectivity, while Aruba excels in network visibility and integration with existing environments.

Features: Cato SASE Cloud Platform offers next-gen firewall capabilities, cloud integration, and centralized management with an always-on VPN. Its web filtering and antivirus support remote workers effectively. It also provides global connectivity through a self-healing model. Aruba Orchestrator focuses on WAN optimization and SD-WAN features, offering advanced network visibility and control. It integrates well with LAN and Wi-Fi environments, providing a streamlined management experience through a single pane of glass.

Room for Improvement: Cato SASE Cloud Platform could enhance its security with intrusion detection systems and a Web Application Firewall. Improved integration with identity providers and third-party platforms is needed, along with broader language support. Aruba Orchestrator may require better security features and integration for public cloud adaptation. Simplifying its management interface and expanding training resources are areas for enhancement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cato SASE Cloud Platform supports various deployment models, including hybrid and public clouds, with strong praise for its 24/7 technical support. Users note swift problem resolution and comprehensive support. Aruba Orchestrator is easier to deploy in hybrid environments and receives positive feedback for knowledgeable support, although Cato's support system is consistently praised globally.

Pricing and ROI: Cato SASE Cloud Platform is moderately priced but considered expensive compared to some competitors. Its pricing flexibility accommodates varying bandwidths, achieving ROI within months. Aruba Orchestrator is more cost-effective with mid-range pricing, offering a valuable subscription model. Both platforms deliver commendable ROI, but Cato's extensive feature set justifies its higher cost for those needing broad network integration and security.

To learn more, read our detailed Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cato SASE Cloud Platform Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cato SASE Cloud Platform

April 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 20.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aruba Orchestrator is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cato SASE Cloud Platform is 6.9%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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Aneesh K

IT Solution Analyst II at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Provides complete internal visibility from LAN to Wi-Fi, resulting in higher stability and easier troubleshooting

Aruba has plenty of solutions showcased at this event. Perhaps they offer their firewall, which we are not currently utilizing—the LAN switching, ClearPass, and Wi-Fi. ClearPass is is still on-premises, but the switching, Wi-Fi, and security features are included. It has some capabilities, like automation intelligence, which they call AI operations. So it is helpful. Our time spent on troubleshooting will be significantly reduced with it. Another useful feature is that we can inquire about the health data from Aruba Central and receive the necessary answers. Aruba Central simplifies management. Yes, deployment will be much faster than on-premises setups, where you need many hardware gateways. With just an access point or minimal hardware, deployment will be quicker. Troubleshooting with it has also made it much more straightforward. A group of ten people should be more than sufficient to manage an extensive infrastructure. Aruba is providing better support. They are also improving their email services. They are up to market standards, so we choose to go with them. We were looking for a direct vendor, but they didn't meet our requirements. Aruba Orchestrator is meeting our current expectations and standards, so we are sticking with them. We don't have any issues because we have been with Aruba for many years. We don't mind moving from one vendor to another. We are simply transitioning from one rental type to another with Aruba. I prioritize enhancements in AI functionality over other features. There are several implementations, with AI being the primary focus. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

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Greg Altman

IT Infrastructure Manager at Strike

Useful remote worker VPN, centralized management, and simple on-boarding process

Prior to using Cato Networks we had to buy individual licenses for our remote users for VPN, and the VPN was not always-on, they had to remember to turn it on and remember to turn it off. When we went to Cato Networks it was an always-on automatic VPN, it reduced our help desk calls by about 10 percent.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."

"My clients appreciate it for its features. It is easy to install and manage, and it offers all-around protection, including web filtering, content filtering, IPS, and IDS."

"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."

"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."

"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."

"The reporting and monitoring are very good."

"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."

"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"We had to deal with separate management models for Wi-Fi and switches. With Aruba Orchestrator, it's now a unified solution, making things much easier for us. We log in and manage everything from a single console. It provides complete internal visibility from LAN to Wi-Fi, resulting in higher stability and easier troubleshooting. The management process is much quicker and more streamlined."

"The Business Intent Overlay is a great feature."

"The product has reduced OpEx expenditure."

"The solution has a single pane of glass view that allows you to see everything happening in your SD-WAN world."

"The most important feature is WAN optimization."

"Aruba Orchestrator has notably reduced enrollment setup times from several hours to within an hour if prepared and planned."

"The technical support services are excellent."

"The most valuable feature is optimization."

"I haven't had any trouble, and practically forget that I'm using it."

"The scalability is quite good."

"We appreciate the optimization and acceleration of the performance of SDP users."

"The feature that I find to be the most valuable is the bandwidth aggregation."

"I would definitely recommend Cato Networks to other users."

"The tool's advantage is that it provides a hassle-free solution that is easy to manage across all customers. For instance, we have a few customers with as few as 50 users, including one with a branch in Vietnam and others with thousands of users."

"The most valuable features of Cato Networks are the always-on VPN for remote workers and centralized management. Additionally, web filtering and antivirus are good."

"The WAN aggregation feature is the most valuable."

More Cato SASE Cloud Platform pros

Cons

"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."

"They need to improve their technical support."

"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."

"We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs."

"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."

"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."

"I would like to see a more intuitive dashboard."

"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The solution can be improved by lowering the cost and making it more user-friendly for first-time users."

"Aruba Orchestrator should implement dynamic certificate changes for security."

"They could provide essential training to understand the product functionality."

"The initial setup is complex, depending on the overall planning for the entire environment."

"The management menu should be simplified."

"The solution lacks sufficient security features."

"We would like the product to continue to improve its security."

"A little tweaking or improvement of the UI in terms of logging when troubleshooting would be an improvement because it's very detailed."

"The product may be complex for users with few years of experience."

"The price could be better."

"They should add more sophisticated security features. It should also be integrated into the cloud."

"It could expand its reach into other sectors like professional services and finance, requiringmore specialized tools beyond Cato's current offerings. This includes better integration with third-party providers for more sophisticated tools such as intrusion prevention systems, anti-malware, and data loss prevention. Additionally, enhancing network speed and optimizing last-mile connectivity for managed service providers like us would be beneficial."

"For a packaged solution, needing external intervention or a system integrator to get other features not offered by Cato Networks could be an area for improvement. Cato Networks does what it's meant to do and is even overstretching capabilities when introducing new features. The product can only have very few features added on top of what its currently doing. Managed service providers can deliver the extra features you'd need. It's a set of managed services, and what Cato Networks does is very comprehensive. So, for the time being, when the actual incarnation of the SASE solution is deployed, Cato Networks is a very effective product. Naturally, technology will evolve, so everybody knows that in three, four, or five years, there will be a new kid on the block, a new game. Still, at the moment, Cato Networks only needs to improve a little regarding SASE delivery. The product is doing very well, but one feature the Cato Networks team is doing right is preparing for the future through deploying the SSE 360, so the security service is at that edge. It's an excellent strategy to prepare for the future. SSE 360 is what Cato Networks should invest in the most to keep prospering."

"Cato Networks could improve their intrusion detection. There is not a lot in place."

More Cato SASE Cloud Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing scheme of Fortinet is better than Cisco. It is more logical."

"The price range is quite acceptable and normal."

"The main reason we chose Fortinet FortiGate was that the price was better than the competition."

"Fortinet FortiGate allows you to purchase licenses for hardware and software."

"We are on an annual license to use Fortinet FortiGate."

"Setup cost may be not so low, as you expect, because it depends on different factors, but TCO for 5 years may pleasantly surprise you."

"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."

"Other firewalls are more expensive than Fortinet FortiGate, such as the Azure firewall."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"I rate the platform’s pricing a five out of ten."

"Aruba Orchestrator is free to use."

"The solution's licensing costs are yearly. It is not expensive, and I rate it around three to four out of ten."

"I think it is quite expensive compared to other vendors in the market because it depends on what kind of features you really want to acquire in the product."

"The price is not an issue for us, as it is priced more competitively than some other vendors."

"If you compare with VeloCloud, the price is the same or even cheaper."

"I rate the price of Cato Networks a four out of five."

"The product is very competitively priced, and that's compelling. They don't charge the customer based on the operational cost like other brands such as Palo Alto. Cato has its own fully-fledged cloud, with their own data centers, equipment, and so on, which is an advantage. I rate the solution five out of five for affordability."

"The solution has reasonable pricing. It has a yearly subscription. The pricing depends on the permit to code. Sometimes, we need to increase the permit, and the cost will automatically change. There's no fixed cost. Unless we request additional modules such as DNS security, ELP, and decent features, there will be no additional cost."

"The price of Cato Networks is in the middle range compared to other solutions. NetFoundry is a less expensive solution than Cato Networks."

"The pricing of this solution depends on what you need. It is based on bandwidth."

"Cato Networks is an expensive product, but it works out of the box, so that's the usual trade-off, make versus buy. If you decide to buy a product that doesn't require much programming, then you'd want to go for Cato Networks, which will work naturally, and immediately without any complex setup. However, the product is a little bit more expensive than the competitors. On a scale of one to five, I'd rate the pricing for Cato Networks as four."

More Cato SASE Cloud Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

19%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Computer Software Company

25%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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What do you like most about Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator?

The most important feature is WAN optimization.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator?

Aruba Orchestrator is free to use.

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What needs improvement with Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator?

The management menu should be simplified.

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What do you like most about Cato Networks?

The solution is a simple WAN solution. We've onboarded the socket on the Cato platform, and it provides connectivity....

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cato Networks?

I use Cato SASE Cloud Platform primarily as a single vendor, integrated SD-WAN plus SASE solution.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Cato Networks?

I rate Cato SASE Cloud Platform at 9.5 out of 10. There is always room for improvement, especially in edge security f...

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 21% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Aruba Orchestrator

Compared 64% of the time

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Aruba Orchestrator

Compared 36% of the time

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Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 15% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Netskope vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 3% of the time

More Cato SASE Cloud Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Orchestrator

May 2025

Download Aruba Orchestrator product report

Buyer's Guide

Cato SASE Cloud Platform

April 2025

Download Cato SASE Cloud Platform product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator, Unity Orchestrator

Cato Networks

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Aruba Orchestrator has an intuitive interface that allows you to centrally define, assign, and enforce policies across the WAN. Network managers experience the highest quality of experience to:

Centrally define, assign and enforce policies based on business intent to secure and control all application traffic across the WAN.

Orchestrator dashboards provide real time visibility into SD-WAN health and performance in a single screen, monitoring traffic throughput along with loss, latency and jitter across overlays and underlays.

Maintain the highest levels of application performance by automatically assigning application and security policies across 100s or 1000s of sites, including automated orchestration with cloud security services.

Central orchestration of network functions including SD-WAN routing, firewall, segmentation, WAN optimization, application visibility and control, and automated orchestration with cloud security services.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Cato Networks is a leading SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) platform, combining SD-WAN and network security to obtain a cloud-native service. Cato Networks optimizes and secures application access for users and identities. The platform delivers a next-generation secure networking architecture that minimizes legacy IT infrastructures’ complexity, costs, and risks. The goal of Cato Suite is to connect any user to any application securely and optimally.

Cato Suite runs on a private global network of more than 65 PoPs (points of presence) connected via SLA-backed network providers. The service can connect branches, data centers, users, and clouds. Cato can be deployed in stages to augment legacy network services.

Cato Suite delivers end-to-end route optimization for WAN and cloud traffic. The architecture is self-healing, enabling a high service uptime.

Cato Features

Cato Cloud has a global backbone to deliver a reliable, global network. Here are some key SD-WAN features of Cato Cloud.

Optimizes traffic flows: The Cato Suite can individually optimize traffic flows in the last mile - from the customer’s location to the point of presence, and also between PoPs. This feature eliminates the need for internet providers to hand off traffic to each other, avoiding the resulting latency and congestion.
Controls and manages bandwidth: The software-defined overlay is encrypted across the entire cloud infrastructure. This overlay uses application-aware routing, analyzing latency and loss data to choose the best route according to network conditions. These features, like protocol priority marking, enable the system to ensure the performance of real-time applications.
Delivers redundancy and failover: By connecting the points of presence with multiple Tier-1 IPs, Cato builds the redundancy needed to ensure security and highly available service.
Cloud-native: Cato is built as a scalable, resilient, and elastic cloud service.
Converged: The platform converges SD-WAN and network security into a single infrastructure framework.
Secures all edges: Cato Network can secure and optimize traffic from all users, locations, applications, and clouds.

What challenges does Cato Network solve?

Migration to SD-WAN

MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) networks are usually expensive and limited in their capacity. Cato simplifies migrating to a faster, higher-capacity internet and SASE cloud. Cato SD-WAN appliances enable customers to improve usable capacity and resiliency.

Global connectivity optimization

Customers who suffer from the challenge of high latency and network inconsistency can use Cato to deliver a consistent connection and user experience to access on-premises and cloud applications.

Securing branch internet access

Cato’s complete network security stack connects all branch locations to the Cato cloud, therefore protecting all traffic, both internet-bound and WAN, with enterprise-grade, cloud-based security services. This capability avoids having to backhaul internet traffic to a data center or hub or having to implement stand-alone cloud security solutions.

Cloud acceleration and control

Organizations using Cato notice an acceleration of cloud traffic. Cato achieves this by routing all traffic from the edges to the PoP closest to the data center. Because of the close distance between the two, the latency is near zero.

Reviews from Real Users

An IT manager/project coordinator at a healthcare company says that “[Cato is] a cloud-based solution that integrates well with everything. They are the classic SaaS solution.”

Yeong-Gi L., a network engineer at Snetsystems, notes that “The solution is very stable. The scalability is quite good. Technical support was always helpful and responsive. The integration capabilities are not a problem at all.”

"The most valuable feature is that it also works as a next-gen firewall because it has security features," says Lorenzo S., senior solutions consultant Lead at MDI.

Cato Networks

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Information Not Available

Paysafe, AdRoll, Pet Lovers Centre, Arlington Orthopedics, Humphreys & Partners Architects

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cato SASE Cloud Platform

April 2025

Free Report: Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cato SASE Cloud Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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