Steelhead and Cato SASE Cloud Platform are two competing network solutions. User feedback indicates Cato SASE Cloud Platform outperforms Steelhead due to its overall performance and features.
Features: Steelhead users value its efficient WAN optimization, data deduplication, and enhanced network speed. Cato SASE Cloud Platform users appreciate its comprehensive security, seamless cloud integration, and end-to-end coverage.
Room for Improvement: Steelhead users suggest better integration capabilities with newer cloud applications, enhanced analytics, and improved customer service responsiveness. Cato SASE Cloud Platform users recommend better offline support, more detailed reporting tools, and further enhancements in user interface.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Steelhead is known for its straightforward deployment with mixed customer service reviews. Cato SASE Cloud Platform is praised for its quick, user-friendly deployment and strong, proactive customer support.
Pricing and ROI: Steelhead users report higher initial setup costs but good long-term ROI. Cato SASE Cloud Platform users note competitive pricing and excellent ROI due to its comprehensive service offerings.
Without Steelhead, we would have spent much more on bandwidth costs.
Their knowledge portal and Cato Academy portal are excellent resources.
Our customer service experience is excellent
Steelhead's support is generally good for typical issues yet can be time-consuming during complex problem-solving across teams, particularly for Active Directory integration.
I have no issues with technical support from Riverbed.
Riverbed's customer service and technical support would be rated an eight.
As an MSSP, we find it scalable for end users across EPP platforms, network, and cloud sides.
If a customer has 1 GB traffic, they will only be able to utilize 600 MB of traffic with Steelhead.
It allows us to maximize use from our MPLS providers by handling traffic efficiently across phased deployments.
I would rate the stability of the solution as ten on a scale of one to ten.
It's quite stable and provides all necessary alerts if something is wrong.
For instance, even if there is a power failure, Riverbed still works.
Steelhead helps significantly with large data transfers.
The platform lacks strong security features on the edge.
Steelhead is very expensive, and the vendor should work on handling Oracle type of traffic better.
It would help if Riverbed could prevent such drastic impacts during updates.
It could still be useful in places with satellite communications, such as the south of Chile, or in the mining industry.
The pricing is flexible due to our special partnership with Cato Networks.
Buying the hardware initially is costly, but yearly maintenance and licenses are not as expensive.
Steelhead is considered an expensive solution in our country.
It is scalable for end users across network and cloud sides and saves operational costs.
Functions like acting as an NTP server, DNS, DHCP, and auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency.
My actual traffic is around 2 GB, but I purchased a link from the ISP for only around 700 to 800 MB. All the prices that need to be paid monthly to the ISP are saved, which is a significant saving for my company after using Riverbed.
Steelhead's most valuable feature is its ability to hash and send only the important parts of the information, avoiding the resending of data.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Cato SASE Cloud Platform | 18.8% |
| Steelhead | 13.5% |
| Other | 67.7% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 14 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 7 |
| Large Enterprise | 10 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 5 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 7 |
| Large Enterprise | 14 |
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.
What challenges does Cato Network solve?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Steelhead is the leading network optimization and application performance solution chosen by over 30,000 organizations worldwide. The performance of networks and applications directly impacts business productivity. Riverbed draws from nearly two decades of experience in driving network and application performance over Wide Area Networks with its flagship offering, SteelHead. SteelHead delivers the underlying technology that helps enterprises of all sizes maximize the efficiency and performance of the networks and applications used to run modern business.
SteelHead is proven to dramatically speed up the performance of applications anywhere in the organization while delivering the best end-user experience even under sub optimal network conditions. Reduce bandwidth utilization by up to 95%, deferring costly network bandwidth upgrades. Increase performance by up to 100x for on-premises applications.
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