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Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Steelhead comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Organizations achieve up to 80% WAN cost reduction with Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, enhancing scalability, flexibility, and connectivity efficiency.
Sentiment score
8.5
Steelhead enhanced bandwidth efficiency, resulting in substantial cost savings and improved user experience without additional tools or upgrades.
They are now back to do that with the remainder of their company, so they've realized the value in 12 months and are willing to invest in the remainder of their organization.
Without Steelhead, we would have spent much more on bandwidth costs.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN's customer service is praised for its responsiveness, expertise, and superior support compared to competitors.
Sentiment score
6.4
Steelhead's customer service and technical support are efficient, knowledgeable, and responsive, though complex issues may face slower resolution.
The principal third-level support is very good.
I would rate Cisco's support, their customer service, and technical support as excellent.
I would consider Cisco support a 10 out of 10.
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.
Riverbed's customer service and technical support would be rated an eight.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is scalable, integrates with Cisco products, offers flexible licensing, and is ideal for complex networks.
Sentiment score
8.4
Steelhead efficiently scales for SMBs and enterprises, managing up to 20,000 users with effective traffic handling and deployment support.
The ease of configuration and features like zero-touch provisioning enhance the scalability of Cisco SD-WAN, especially in disaster recovery situations.
Cisco SD-WAN is highly scalable and can be expanded to more than 10,000 sites.
It allows us to maximize use from our MPLS providers by handling traffic efficiently across phased deployments.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is stable and reliable, with improvements, though some challenges arise in complex setups and transitions.
Sentiment score
8.5
Steelhead offers stable, efficient network operations with minimal downtime, robust performance, and reliable support, ensuring continuous traffic flow.
While some software-related issues and bugs were encountered, they did not cause the whole environment to crash.
It's quite stable and provides all necessary alerts if something is wrong.
Steelhead helps significantly with large data transfers.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is expensive with complex licensing, needs better security, management, documentation, UI, and improved support.
Steelhead needs improved traffic handling, encryption optimization, enhanced response times, better integration, and user support with fewer scaling limitations.
Now, they change frequently, making it difficult to obtain long-term support.
In terms of market leaders, Cisco is capable of doing anything you want it to do, as far as I can see.
Including more features like integrating with Splunk for monitoring vulnerabilities would help eliminate the need for other SOC solutions.
It could still be useful in places with satellite communications, such as the south of Chile, or in the mining industry.
It would help if Riverbed could prevent such drastic impacts during updates.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is costly due to complex licensing and high pricing, favored by large enterprises for its features.
Enterprise users find Steelhead costly yet valuable for TCP optimization, with complex licensing and comparable alternatives like SolarWinds.
Its pricing is justifiable due to the comprehensive solution it offers.
The pricing of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is rated between eight and nine out of ten, where ten is the most expensive.
It is also relatively cost-effective for smaller businesses when using the Meraki version.
Buying the hardware initially is costly, but yearly maintenance and licenses are not as expensive.
Steelhead is considered an expensive solution in our country.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN offers centralized management, robust security, scalability, and seamless integration, enhancing performance and security for enterprises.
Steelhead optimizes WAN with compression and caching, enhancing network efficiency and reducing costs in bandwidth-limited environments.
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN has integrated security features which include base firewall, URL filtering, IPS, and secure segmentation.
It also provides robust security features, including port security, analysis, mirroring, and multiple other security solutions.
Security is standard compliant, eliminating config drift that was prevalent before manual configurations.
Functions like acting as an NTP server, DNS, DHCP, and auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency.
Steelhead's most valuable feature is its ability to hash and send only the important parts of the information, avoiding the resending of data.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Ranking in WAN Edge
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (6th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (2nd)
Steelhead
Ranking in WAN Edge
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Henry Rosenstiehl - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive support and ease of implementation enhance operational efficiency
With Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, I have centralized orchestration and management. The transport independence of MPLS or connectivity and internet connectivity is another excellent feature. End-to-end segmentation is also provided. I use the application-aware routing feature. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN supports dynamic police-based routing decisions based on application type or different performance metrics such as jitter or latency. The benefit of that feature is that it improves user experience. The principal benefit of application-aware routing is that critical applications are prioritized or routed over the best performing paths to reduce outages and service degradation. There is full visibility of applications. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN has integrated security features which include base firewall, URL filtering, IPS, and secure segmentation, and it supports integration with other Cisco products such as Umbrella or Snort. This feature is beneficial for the client because the information is secure. It is important that Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN supports cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments for my organization because it allows for scalability and faster deployment in the cloud. It reduces operational needs because I don't need to manage physical controller hardware, and updates and maintenance can be centralized and automated. The zero-touch provisioning feature is very important for the speed of deploying new branch locations. I can deliver the device to the branch, and it is important because simplified deployment makes the implementation start more easily since devices are auto-configured and authenticate without manual intervention.
Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency & bandwidth saving, best layer 7 QoS shaping policy can be achieved with ease
There are several features specific to branches, like keeping data hot and active on Steelhead devices. These features prevent unnecessary data travel across the international MPLS. Additionally, functions like acting as an NTP server, DNS, DHCP for branches and auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency along with really good QoS for bandwidth shaping.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco SD-WAN?
When considering the most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN, the decoupling of self-monitoring stands out significantly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco SD-WAN?
The pricing of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is rated between eight and nine out of ten, where ten is the most expensive.
What needs improvement with Cisco SD-WAN?
There's nothing I could put my finger on right away for improvements in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. There is definitely nothing that Juniper does that Cisco doesn't do. Cisco will do everything Juniper ...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We just did an assessment for our 47 datacenters around North America. The top two enterprise-level network monitoring solutions were ExtraHop first, Riverbed SteelCenter second. Their negotiated c...
What do you like most about Riverbed Steelhead?
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.
What is your primary use case for Riverbed Steelhead?
In the past, we have sold a lot of Steelhead ( /products/steelhead-reviews ) for retail companies, insurance companies, some finance companies, and some engineering companies. Steelhead ( /products...
 

Also Known As

Cisco SD-WAN
RIverbed Steelhead
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Doyle Research, Ashton Metzler & Associates
ElAraby, SFK Leblanc, Bobst Group, Northwest Pipe Company, Halkbank, Tradebridge, EFG Hermes
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs. Steelhead and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.