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VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (7th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (11th)
Versa Unified Secure Access...
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (12th), WAN Edge (12th)
VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (3rd), WAN Edge (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
PriyankDubey - PeerSpot reviewer
A flexible, stable and scalable solution
I don't have issues with the hardware, as the requisite capacity is visible in the data sheets. All the details in the data sheets are accounted for. But, I find myself confused when it comes to combining this with the software. I have not come across documentation on the Versa website which would provide information about the parameters for selecting the appropriate license. For this we are assisted by the solution's design engineer and the Versa team. I do what I can as a project manager and make the best suggestions I am capable of concerning the competition. Future releases should contain AI for the voice feature. SSL VPN is lacking in the solution. I wish to see this in the near future.
Sami-Isoaho - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"The division of Control Plane and Data Plane is most valuable. It can be deployed anywhere, and you can control it and configure it from anywhere. This is one of the good features of this solution."
"The solution is stable and suitable."
"Versa FlexVNF is a scalable product because it does not have any hardware dependencies. This makes it a versatile solution that can be easily integrated with any firewall."
"Overall, it's nice and very user friendly. That's what makes it so successful. They give you complicated features but with a very simple user interface, and that's been a big success for them."
"I like all the features. We utilize different LAN, bandwidth transferring, bandwidth balancing, and mappings. We use it as a centralized solution, and use the same product at all our locations."
"The most valuable features are the main steering and the firewall. The security features and SD-WAN features are also quite good."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the next-generation firewall features and geo-blocking capabilities."
"Our customers are very satisfied with this solution. They have not mentioned any areas for improvement."
"VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN is recognized as an SD-WAN leader, offering user-friendly solutions that help end customers and enterprises solve network optimization issues efficiently."
"The most valuable features of VMware SD-WAN are the overall capabilities and ease of use."
"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."
"Initially, we had a scattered environment, but VMware SD-WAN helped us achieve centralization, which was beneficial."
"It is fairly similar to other solutions. It has the capability for testing link connectivity, which is its unique feature from a control perspective."
"VMware SD-WAN is easy-to-use."
"When extra capacity is needed, we can get it very quickly."
"There are 400 functionalities of the system."
 

Cons

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"The solution's current customer support is not that good. So, they need to improve that. Also, the solution's UI is quite complex, so they need to simplify it."
"I heard about them for the first time just before I started working on Versa. They do have blogs for information, but they could publicize more about the documentation and architecture. It doesn't seem to have that much exposure, and they should work on their customer base more."
"The cost of Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is higher than other solutions available in the market."
"The UTM features can be improved. It should offer better functionality."
"The stability of FlexVNF's controller and devices could be improved."
"The interface could be simpler."
"The VPN feature is relatively new. It came out two releases ago, and they're still fixing that up."
"The smaller units lack a lot of functionality."
"The product should have on-demand tunnels instead of fixed tunnels."
"Security is a challenge. I would like to see VMware add things like IPS, IDS, and web filtering. These features are the future of security, and most competing firewalls have them."
"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."
"This solution can be improved by integrating other security solutions."
"There is room for improvement with respect to security."
"There is no security included, which is something that should be improved."
"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."
"Technical support is in need of improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is neither cheap nor expensive. I rate the pricing a five out of ten on a scale where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"I find Versa a little more expensive than VMware in terms of remote access and secure web gateway elements."
"The price is expensive but it makes sense for the market."
"While I cannot provide too much commentary on the price, I feel it to be fair for the moment."
"We provide subscriptions for our customers on a yearly, not monthly, basis."
"Price wise, it's more expensive than is the competition. I would give pricing a rating of three out of five."
"It is not very expensive because of the white box support. Its hardware is much cheaper than other products. With the support for x86 and white box, it is one of the most cost-effective platforms that are currently available."
"The minimum cost is $10,000 a month to have a monitoring station set up."
"The price is reasonable for this solution, but the only challenge for us is that the Rand currency fluctuates to the dollar and provides some complexities. The price might go up just because the Rand has actually lost value."
"The price of VMware SD-WAN is less expensive than some solutions, such as Cisco."
"VeloCloud performs as well as the Cisco SD-WAN but it is cheaper in price."
"VMware SD-WAN provides competitive pricing."
"I would rate the product’s pricing a six out of ten since the license is costly."
"Price would be a challenge for customers, because it is expensive."
"We make monthly payments toward the licensing costs of the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have a couple of thoughts for improvement, but usually when I address them with my rep, they put it into the featur...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We use it primarily for simpler filtering because we're a K12 entity.
What do you like most about Versa FlexVNF?
Versa is a good centralized solution, where you're setting up your infrastructure in a data center type thing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Versa FlexVNF?
Both Versa and VMware are cheap in terms of the router. I find Versa a little more expensive than VMware in terms of ...
What needs improvement with Versa FlexVNF?
We've had the odd occasional stability issue with software upgrades, etcetera. They don't support certain other third...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Versa FlexVNF, FlexVNF, Versa Titan
VMware SD-WAN, VeloCloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
CenturyLink, RCN Business, Colt Technology Services
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 VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs. Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.