SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN comparison

Riverbed and VMware are both solutions in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category. Riverbed is ranked #29, while VMware is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2. Riverbed holds a 0.2% mindshare in SDW, compared to VMware’s 10.3% mindshare. Additionally, 50% of Riverbed users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of VMware users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN and VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, VMware and others in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

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 SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN is 0.2%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN is 10.3%, up from 8.8% 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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Jason Best

Data center network architect at Cloudwire

Analytics feature is very granular and comprehensive, although complicated to use

It's like an SD-WAN project basically. You really need to make sure that the product matches the needs of what the customer's trying to achieve and their overall strategy to meet their core business requirements. I think a certain customer made a mistake in choosing this solution because a large part of their network was Cisco and they had firewalls that were from Fortinet. I think they would have been better off and it would have been better from a CAPEX, OPEX point of view. It would've been more advantageous for them to have maybe chosen a Cisco or Fortinet solution based on their existing environment. Make sure you understand your network correctly before you try to implement any SD-WAN solution. That was one of the good lessons I learned about SD-WANs with this specific product. I wouldn't say it was a fault of the product. I would say it's more a fault of the CTO who tries to do things quickly without taking into account the existing environment or give the internal faculties the time to provide real low-level design implementation. It was more of a management mistake than from their technical team. In the next release, I would like to see things like integrated security but with local internet breakout instead of using third party solutions like NetScaler or Palo Alto. I would also like to see the integration of things like a VPN so that if you have remote sites where you might have remote workers that need to access the site from home or something, there's a VPN solution. Those are two key features and hotspots in the sort of global crisis. I would rate Riverbed a seven out of ten. I could never give any solution a 10 cause they all have good and bad points. To get any solution to a ten is pretty much impossible. If I was to rate it against others like Fortinet, I would probably give Fortinet an eight or nine. Again, I think you have to be careful because it's very subjective. I think it really depends on the type of environment, the type of customer you're deploying the SD-WAN solution for, and from which perspective you're looking at like if you an operator, if you're a large enterprise, if you're looking for a plug and play type solution. If you're looking for more of a security solution, I would go for Fortinet. It's kind of tough to say. I'd probably put the clouds a little bit ahead of the game because it does what it's supposed to do and easily. It's a little more of a plug and play type solution. Fortinet, for example, is more complex. I put it in a close second place, it's better from a security perspective. It has integration with FortiGuard. After that, I would put Riverbed in third place.

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Sami-Isoaho

Principal Cloud Architect at Loihe

To fully utilize cloud vendors' hardware networking, Microsoft and VMware support everything

To improve the product, the company, alone or with a good partner, should manufacture their own hardware brand with boxes to make the product more shippable. Implementing VMware is much more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive than implementing Fortinet or Check Point. With Fortinet, you pay a couple of hundred dollars for hosting and a low-cost firewall, there's only one box to ship to each site, and it's much easier to manage. Moreover, it would be easy for the large telecom operators and system integrators to sell the solution. It would also be a good fit for customers with multiple small offices, who I currently advise to choose hardware-vendor SD-WAN solutions over VMware.

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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

"It is easy to use and performs very well."

"The VPN is the most valuable feature."

"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."

"Its stability is the most valuable."

"The technical support is great."

"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."

"Good performance, stability, and virtual domain ability."

"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The analytics is the most valuable feature because it was very granular and very comprehensive, although a little complicated to use. If you're really interested in knowing what's happening on your network, it's a very good solution. That was the .NET Profiler part of the solution."

"I would absolutely recommend VeloCloud because it's user-friendly and because the integration is easier than with other solutions."

"The most valuable feature is the Dynamic Multipath Optimization (DMPO), which allows the customer to maintain and monitor their link quality in real-time."

"They have a lot of built-ins. There are so many applications defined inside the solution. It makes it so that we don't have to create some policies. Each and every application is already defined in it."

"The most valuable feature of VMware SD-WAN is flexibility. It is more flexible than other vendors."

"The most valuable feature of VMware SD-WAN is the virtualization platform. You can use the software on any hardware. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."

"The product is consistent and is one of the best despite the competition."

"One of the key use cases for VMware SD-WAN was assisting a customer in the industrial zone. They required virtualized servers and wanted to enable VMware SD-WAN to connect their sites in Japan or China. We assisted in building the system by integrating VMware servers and utilizing the Cisco suite."

"The most valuable features of VMware SD-WAN are the overall capabilities and ease of use."

More VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN pros

Cons

"FortiGate can improve its token system, as it requires a purchase before use."

"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."

"The UTM filtering needs improvement."

"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."

"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."

"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."

"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."

"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The routing scalability needs improvement. We have run into a lot of limitations and also primarily from a routine perspective, things like RSPs line support. It was supportive but not really supportive."

"The reporting feature needs improvement. Unlike the comprehensive reports we receive from Palo Alto for our firewalls, VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN doesn't offer detailed reports that effectively convey the solution's benefits to management."

"Its integration with the security systems would be a nice implementation. They can also consider using a management platform for both network and security operations. This would be a great improvement."

"Reports could be simplified."

"VeloCloud needs improvement in terms of its security features."

"I would like for them to upgrade to 5G integration. Our customers have 4G now and the connectivity isn't good. It should be much faster."

"The firewall can be more advanced."

"The cost of VeloCloud could be lowered."

"The prep time and understanding what you want to do and how much bandwidth you'll need and how you're going to configure it on the network, that's more of an issue than anything else."

More VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of FortiGate is average and I would say that based on the top five products available on the market, it is in the affordable range."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

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

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

"The license of Fortinet FortiGate should be reduced."

"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."

"Fortinet costs are 25% lower than the high-cost provider. There is an equipment cost and a recurring monthly cost for licenses and technical support."

"The price is really low. It's cheap in comparison to the cost of Cisco or CheckPoint, for example."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"The price of the solution could be reduced."

"I would rate the product’s pricing a six out of ten since the license is costly."

"There is only a standard fee for the solution."

"We pay about $500 USD, or 700,000 Korean won."

"The licensing model of VMware SD-WAN could be improved, it is not always that competitive. The biggest concern is to be competitive against other solutions. However, the way that the licensing model is designed is not corresponding to the real use cases of my customers."

"VMware SD-WAN provides competitive pricing."

"My understanding is that the pricing is in the same range as other solutions."

"The price of this solution is higher than that of other SD-WAN vendors."

More VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

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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Earn 20 points

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 ...

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What do you like most about VMware SD-WAN?

One of the key use cases for VMware SD-WAN was assisting a customer in the industrial zone. They required virtualized...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware SD-WAN?

The pricing involves licensing for the VeloCloud gateway based on the bandwidth used. The license is required to use ...

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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

No data available

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Compared 18% of the time

Meraki SD-WAN vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Compared 11% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Compared 6% of the time

Peplink SpeedFusion vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Compared 6% of the time

Prisma SD-WAN vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

April 2025

SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN report

Download SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

April 2025

Download VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN product report

Also Known As

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

SteelConnect, Riverbed SteelConnect

VMware SD-WAN, VeloCloud

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

Accelerate business velocity with enterprise-class SD-WAN. As enterprises and organizations adopt more cloud and SaaS applications to support an increasingly distributed workforce, the hybrid networks connecting it all have been more complex, less predictable and less secure.

Riverbed SteelConnect EX is a powerful enterprise SD-WAN solution that integrates best-in-class routing, application acceleration, network visibility, and security services – a flexible and complete WAN Edge platform that gives you what you need to modernize your network and propel your business in the digital age.

Riverbed

VMware Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is a secure access service edge (SASE) platform that combines many types of software-based network technologies in an attempt to enable users to virtualize their wide area networks and reduce their reliance on hardware. In essence, this solution makes it possible for users to reliably access their applications from anywhere in the world by leveraging cloud technologies. Users can simply, efficiently, and completely control their network devices and traffic. It ensures that organizations are always able to use the best possible connection to their data centers. VMware SD-WAN steers traffic so that it is always using the most reliable connections and at the same time takes steps to remediate any problems that it detects in other network links. This guarantees that organizations can access high-priority applications at all times.

VMware SD-WAN Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by deploying VMware SD-WAN include:

Reduced cost of network management. Organizations that choose to employ VMware SD-WAN can manage their network at a cost that is 2.5 times less expensive than what it costs to use traditional WAN architectures. Its ability to both augment existing hardware and replace said hardware if the user chooses to do so is part of what enables users to reduce their overhead costs.

Ease of deployment. VMware SD-WAN makes it possible for organizations to deploy it without having to rely on the assistance of technical experts. When the device - whether virtual or otherwise - is connected to the internet, it integrates with a central orchestrator that pushes the correct integrations to the device in question. This automates the installation process and makes it so that anybody can initiate and follow the deployment through to the end of the process.

Easily segment networks to improve environmental performance. Users can divide their networks into multiple segments that share a single IP address. These networks can be incorporated into an organization’s IT infrastructure and enable it to run more reliably. One way it does this is by providing multiple potential channels for data to use to travel in the event that one of the data pathways is suffering from some kind of issue.

VMware SD-WAN Features

Centralized monitoring. VMware SD-WAN is monitored at all times by a centralized orchestrator. From one place, an organization can watch every part of its network. Instead of having to search for the data they need, it can all be found in one location.

Integration capabilities. VMware SD-WAN offers users the capability to integrate their network with the environment of their choosing. This enables them to connect their network to the IT environment that best meets their needs. It makes it easy for them to work with multi-cloud and hybrid environments.

Real-time data analytics. VMware SD-WAN can analyze network data in real time. This makes it easy for users to monitor their network’s performance. It also allows them to take steps to quickly remediate any issues that arise before they can become worse.

Reviews from Real Users

VMware SD-WAN is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its ability to automate the process of creating and maintaining a virtual local area network and its intuitive user dashboard.

Sami I., principal cloud architect at Loihe, writes, “One of the solution's most valuable features is the VMware core automation stack at an SDDC. It includes NSX, the VMware virtualization layer for the networks (the LAN virtualization), which works extremely well with the VMware SD-WAN solution and is the primary advantage over all the others. None of the other vendors could integrate with the virtual LAN, making it quite complicated and virtualized to be fully automated.”

Chih S., senior technical consultant at a tech services company, says, “The product has a very good user dashboard that is simple to navigate.”

VMware

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

Roxtec, Software Solutions Company, Rignet

Redmond, Coca Cola, Roka Bioscience, MetTel, Deutsche Telekom, Rockford Construction, The Bay Club, tru Independence, Triton Management Services, DevCon, AXPM

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

April 2025

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