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Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Huawei eSight comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Ranking in Network Management Applications
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (2nd)
Huawei eSight
Ranking in Network Management Applications
15th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (57th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is 2.3%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei eSight is 4.4%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN2.3%
Huawei eSight4.4%
Other93.3%
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Ashwani-Tyagi - PeerSpot reviewer
Regional Manager at Orange
Centralized control has simplified cloud access and has improved operational visibility
If they can have better firewall features as their competitors have, such as Fortinet and Versa, that would help to place this solution better so that we can address security related things. If they can have all the IPS, IDS, everything built on all the edge devices, whether physical or virtual, that could be one improvement. Actually, if customers are existing Cisco customers, if Cisco can be more flexible to leverage the existing investment, that could be another important aspect to save on cost and be more competitive from a pricing perspective. Overall, the pricing or the segment that Cisco deals with is a bit premium, which they charge a bit premium against the competition on the licensing, hardware, and services. The implementation is not straightforward. You need a specialized partner or specialized people who can implement this. It can be simplified a bit from that perspective as well. Mostly the way we implement the policies for a big environment requires a lot of things that we need to take care of. If that can somehow be improved, because they have different components, like they have vManage, they have vSmart, and vBond and all these components have to work with a certain flow that they need to follow.
Gary Strydom - PeerSpot reviewer
Desktop Analyst at Transnet
Used to monitor devices and provides the hardware alarms feature
Huawei eSight has helped me overcome many monitoring aspects of the hardware. From a single view, I can monitor all the hardware. Instead of logging on to each piece of hardware and monitoring it individually, I can monitor them from one single point. I would recommend the solution to other users because it provides a single point of view of the hardware. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco is definitely cutting edge, absolutely cutting edge in terms of robustness on the capability of the network to be very stable with very low delay."
"I have found the performance and the Zero-Touch provisioning helpful which makes it easier for us to develop."
"It's very good and stable compared to the others."
"The solution is great at aggregating the traffic and then sending it in one direction."
"Customizing SD-WAN is very easy because you can define two colors. You can define two different operators. You can deploy a partial mesh, a full mesh, or hub-and-spoke totally differently. If you want to do this on a DMVPN solution, that's really hard."
"I would rate Cisco's operational efficiency in my IT environment very highly."
"From a purely technical point of view, this is one of the best options."
"There is minimum blind space in this solution."
"We have found the product to be stable and reliable."
"eSight allows me to monitor and solve any problem in the backbone and any switch in real-time."
"The most important features are alarm management and the visualization of the health of our network devices."
"We use Huawei eSight to monitor devices like Wi-Fi controllers, LAN switches, and routers."
"The solution's most valuable dashboard features include monitoring storage, resource availability, and hardware alarms."
"We can scale the solution."
"I like that it supports all our Huawei devices. Unlike other network monitoring tools that monitor Huawei devices, it provides more details when it comes to monitoring or management. We can get complete details about the devices, and management is also simple."
"Technical support is good from Huawei."
 

Cons

"Cisco could provide you your firewall and your SD-WAN solution together."
"Some competitors are much faster in providing out-of-the-box solutions, more innovative solutions. In terms of innovation, in many cases, they're lagging behind."
"Stability (especially running in virtualized environment) is an issue SDN vendors do not talk about until customer learns the hard way."
"The solution is a bit buggy, which makes it slightly unstable."
"The solution could be more secure. Security is always a priority for us."
"It is expensive."
"We had some issues with Cisco SD-WAN but somehow we troubleshot it and things are going well. The issues have not been a large problem."
"The product could improve its pricing; they are very expensive."
"When I implemented this Huawei solution, I faced some limitations in particular areas like wireless scanning."
"eSight has many features and options, but sometimes, we feel that it should be more advanced, like Cisco. It would be good if they can enable some automation part in eSight. Most of our customers want automation in their network. They don't want a dependency on everything. That's why the automation part must be improved in Huawei. It will be beneficial for customers. Cisco has different products, and there are multiple products for monitoring, automation, etc. In the software-defined network, Cisco has ACI, and VMware has NSX. Such options must be there in Huawei to move to a software-defined network. Unlike Cisco, in the case of eSight, there is only one product. I am not aware of any other product. It would be good to enhance it with at least some automation options so that we can use it effectively in the campus network or big data center environment. When I implemented this Huawei solution, I faced some limitations in particular areas like wireless scanning. This is another part that they can improve. Wireless reporting option is not as effective as other monitoring solutions. For a particular use case, if a customer is asking for some reports, sometimes they are not 100% satisfactory. The reporting structure must be improved."
"The price is very expensive."
"The solution and the operating system come separately. It would be easier if we did not have to deploy anything. A bundle feature would be better."
"This solution could be improved by offering monitoring for all devices and not only Huawei devices."
"Huawei eSight should work on the option to have the email notification working on Office 365 Exchange."
"In my experience with eSight, I can tell you that you will experience a number of alerts that can be stressful to the administrator monitoring plenty of devices."
"The variety of license types should be made simpler as, at present, it is complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for Cisco SD-WAN is more expensive than other brands or solutions, such as Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks, so it's one out of ten."
"The costs are a bit on the high side."
"Licensing is on a subscription basis."
"Cisco SD-WAN is more expensive than its competitors."
"The solution is quite expensive so it is important to enhance its cost efficiency."
"In the Russian market where we operate, this solution is expensive."
"The cost of Cisco SD-WAN is high and has room for improvement compared to competitors such as Fortinet which has similar functionality."
"The Cisco SD-WAN licensing model needs to be simplified. There are currently three types of licenses: enterprise agreements, individual licenses, and DNA subscriptions. This can confuse customers, requiring a dedicated person to determine which type of license is right for their organization."
"Pricing depends on the competition. If your competitor is like Cisco, then Huawei is much more competitive when it comes to pricing."
"The pricing for Huawei eSight is reasonable, especially with the base license and incremental licenses for additional devices. However, the variety of license types can be a bit complex. We used to sell eSight but switched to another solution, so we're not actively trading it anymore."
"The price is very expensive."
"I would rate this solution a nine out of ten for pricing. The pricing depends on which features you use and can become expensive."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"Its pricing is better than any other Huawei product. Some products are cheaper in Huawei, and some products are cheaper in Cisco. Cisco has more benefits and options than Huawei if you consider different network environments."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business52
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco SD-WAN?
The pricing for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is something I don't know as the tender is not in my department or at my level, but I know it is very expensive.
What needs improvement with Cisco SD-WAN?
I cannot speak to programming-side improvements since that is not my area of expertise. On a base level, improvements could include a better interface, more AI capabilities, better pricing, and bet...
What is your primary use case for Cisco SD-WAN?
The primary use case is for network management and routers we have for WAN connectivity.
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Also Known As

Cisco SD-WAN
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Doyle Research, Ashton Metzler & Associates
Marina Bay, CITIC Pacific Mining
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs. Huawei eSight and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.