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Juniper Contrail Networking vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Juniper Contrail Networking
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Networking (SDN) (6th)
VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (6th), WAN Edge (5th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Networking solutions, they serve different purposes. Juniper Contrail Networking is designed for Software Defined Networking (SDN) and holds a mindshare of 7.6%, up 6.3% compared to last year.
VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions, holds 7.7% mindshare, down 9.9% since last year.
Software Defined Networking (SDN) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Juniper Contrail Networking7.6%
Meraki SD-WAN11.7%
Cisco ACI9.1%
Other71.6%
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN7.7%
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN10.7%
Fortinet FortiGate9.5%
Other72.1%
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
 

Featured Reviews

TA
Solution Architect at ConnX Inc.
Smart configuration management eliminates the need to worry about managing the network's configurations
Based on my experience in the Indian market, there are four to five areas that need improvement. First, there is a lack of marketing and awareness about Juniper, making it difficult to reach end-users and deliver solutions. Second, Juniper's education and awareness centers are costly and not easily accessible like Cisco's resources and their understanding of users' requirements. The information is not easily available on online channels like Youtube. Third, Juniper needs to promote its Mist integration better, and pricing is also a significant factor. Finally, Juniper needs to address the market's specific requirements, such as the SME sector, and offer more lower-priced products like a lower-end segment switch. In summary, improving marketing and sales, education and awareness, Mist integration, pricing, and catering to specific market requirements are areas that need improvement. I just want a good feature in the SD-WAN. Juniper should consider integrating its firewall experience with its SD-WAN devices to create a complete package. With everything moving to the cloud, companies require intelligence and security solutions for their on-prem infrastructure. Moreover, Juniper should integrate its SOC solution into its Mist portal and SD-WAN devices, including IPs, IDS, web and content filters, and messaging. This would provide a complete product and give Juniper an advantage over competitors such as Cisco. I believe that with a bundle that includes SOC and UTM flavors in their Mist portal, Juniper can make a significant impact in the market.
Mohammed Gawas - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer at evolved systems
Enhancements in deployment and monitoring simplify network implementation experience
We are dealing with VMware products including VMware VeloCloud, Cisco Catalyst, and Fortinet FortiGate as a system integrator, handling customer requests.We utilize VeloCloud's centralized orchestration for traffic prioritization. The impact of VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN's Dynamic Multi-Path Optimization on network application performance has been significant. We have tested this feature multiple times, and it was really powerful for steering traffic and packet regeneration, resulting in better flow. We have leveraged the automatic link resiliency feature in VeloCloud SD-WAN, conducting a VoIP test scenario that involved disconnecting link A and seamlessly shifting traffic to link B without any packet loss. However, we have not sold any CPE for VeloCloud in the last one and a half years due to the impact of Broadcom's acquisition. The significance of VeloCloud SD-WAN's deployment flexibility in an organization's network strategy is critical now, as every organization needs to reduce costs and undergo digitalization. SD-WAN provides security and quality of service without needing costly links such as MPLS, and using this CPE from VMware meets the SLA the customer needs. I evaluate VeloCloud's comprehensive visibility into network traffic as enhancing the network security posture. It provides detailed information such as user IP addresses, MAC addresses, and operating systems, giving us visibility for everything related to which customer, end user, application, and link are involved. On a scale of one to ten, I rate VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN a nine.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"After we finished setting Contrail up, it seemed stable enough. Still, we never tested it in a real environment, so we don't have enough information to say whether it's stable with a given number of users and appliances. We have tested it in a lab environment, but we haven't tested enough to say that the platform is stable."
"Juniper Contrail Networking is a stable solution."
"Contrail automates the excellent communication between virtual appliances."
"After we finished setting Contrail up, it seemed stable enough."
"Juniper Contrail Networking is low-cost for small and medium-sized businesses, and Cisco and Palo Alto solutions are more expensive."
"It provides proactive alerting in a single dashboard solution."
"The most valuable feature for one of our customers is the ability to stage cloud workloads from the local network."
"VMware has been chosen by many of our customers who do not want to do a lot of complex routing in their environment and want a very easy-to-use solution. The most valuable features are simple troubleshooting, Dynamic Multipath Optimization (DMPO), and cybersecurity."
"Has an optimization feature that acts to ensure the quality of the services running on the overlay to be most valuable."
"The product is consistent and is one of the best despite the competition."
"VeloCloud performs as well as the Cisco SD-WAN but it is cheaper in price."
"With Office 365 applications like Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and Azure, the DMPO features increase the performance of the applications because it can remediate bad quality links."
"VMware SD-WAN can be used for on-premise and cloud integrations."
"VMware SD-WAN is a complete solution."
 

Cons

"Juniper needs to address the market's specific requirements, such as the SME sector, and offer more lower-priced products like a lower-end segment switch."
"Juniper Contrail Networking is difficult if you do not have a certificate for Juniper. Juniper is a different type of configuration or operation than Cisco."
"Visibility, especially for the top of the platform, is a nightmare. The top was documented incorrectly and really complex to complete. In the end, it worked but only after several weeks of work with the support of a Juniper solution engineer in Holland."
"Concerns were raised about the complexity of involving networking components like MX routers, which often required expertise beyond the scope of software engineers. As a result, users encountered challenges in achieving comprehensive understanding and troubleshooting of networking issues within the Contrail environment."
"Reports could be simplified."
"The solution is pricey. It could be cheaper."
"In an upcoming release, the solution can be more functional and have additional features."
"Currently, I don't see any such good documentation compared to their competitors, like Cisco, etc."
"Technical support for VeloCloud needs to be improved."
"Implementing VMware is much more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive than implementing Fortinet or Check Point."
"I would like to improve the tool’s cloud security features. I would like to see high-throughput hardware requests in the product’s next release. The solution should also support multiple gigs which could be around ten."
"They need to start focusing on the security functionality. They should find a way to embed the next-generation firewall functionality within the architecture. They should move more into applying SASE tenants to what they're doing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Juniper Contrail Networking is low-cost for small and medium-sized businesses. Cisco and Palo Alto solutions are more expensive."
"There are many vendors in the wireless market that offer better pricing, solutions, and management skills compared to Juniper."
"The minimum cost is $10,000 a month to have a monitoring station set up."
"We pay about $500 USD, or 700,000 Korean won."
"The pricing is very comparable to Fortinet."
"The price of this solution is higher than that of other SD-WAN vendors."
"VMware SD-WAN provides competitive pricing."
"VeloCloud performs as well as the Cisco SD-WAN but it is cheaper in price."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"My understanding is that the pricing is in the same range as other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
10%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

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What are the biggest differences between Fortinet Fortigate and VMware SD-WAN?
One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. It is a very stable, reliable, and consistent solution. We like that we can manage the entire...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware SD-WAN?
When it comes to setup cost and licensing cost for VMware, it is on the expensive side relative to the market. We are struggling to sell VMware as Fortinet offers SD-WAN with no additional costs. T...
What needs improvement with VMware SD-WAN?
The improvement needed for VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN is in the security area. The security part is the main issue for us when selling VeloCloud compared to Fortinet and Cisco.
 

Also Known As

Contrail Networking
VMware SD-WAN, VeloCloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lithium Technologies, Orange Business Services, Cloudwatt, Symantec, Cloud Dynamics, CloudSeeds
Redmond, Coca Cola, Roka Bioscience, MetTel, Deutsche Telekom, Rockford Construction,  The Bay Club, tru Independence, Triton Management Services, DevCon, AXPM
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Aviatrix, Megaport and others in Software Defined Networking (SDN). Updated: May 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.