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Steelhead pros and cons

Vendor: Riverbed
4.1 out of 5
Badge Ranked 1

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Steelhead provides strong TCP optimization by caching connections, making future connections faster.
The compression and replication features of Steelhead significantly enhance data handling and traffic management.
Steelhead's scalable data referencing and cloud migration optimization greatly improve workflow and user performance.
Steelhead efficiently saves on ISP costs by reducing actual traffic load through its optimization features.
The stability and quick technical support of Steelhead help avoid service interruptions, ensuring smooth operation.

CONS

Application response time and network performance could be improved.
Steelhead should include a network switch in a future release.
Integration capabilities with SDN and other systems need enhancement.
Switching firewalls in Steelhead results in loss of active connections.
Oracle DB traffic experiences lag and slowness while other applications perform fine.
 

Steelhead Pros review quotes

it_user146331 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Operations Specialist at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 31, 2014
The data compression through the WAN is like being on a LAN and is even more effective when the technology uses an adaptive transfer scheme known as warm transfer.
it_user153501 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant with 1,001-5,000 employees
Sep 25, 2014
Customer service is really efficient, Riverbed TAC access is quick and easy, and the service is globally valuable.
it_user403923 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at a construction company with 51-200 employees
Mar 10, 2016
The devices were great, and proved to be a very valuable asset to the company.
Learn what your peers think about Steelhead. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user413271 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Mar 28, 2016
Riverbed has excellent technical support.
it_user413307 - PeerSpot reviewer
Validation Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Mar 28, 2016
This product is far way ahead from its competitors.
it_user413427 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Mar 28, 2016
The data reduction that we realize (>85% for our most common protocols) is amazing.
it_user421509 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Administrator at a logistics company with 501-1,000 employees
Apr 10, 2016
The compression features are valuable, as at most sites it doubled our effective MPLS bandwidth capabilities for transfers.
it_user421521 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a government
Apr 10, 2016
Through this product, we can easily find the bottlenecks and where the traffic occurs or is generated in the network.
it_user421560 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Apr 10, 2016
It has improved the stability and throughput of the WAN, especially for remote small branches with low link speed, and reduced the impact on network performance from Windows updates deployment on users PCs.
it_user421635 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. IT Infrastructure and Systems Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Sep 12, 2016
Riverbed is great product and base functionality of these devices which is WAN optimization is handled by them in best and intelligent way.
 

Steelhead Cons review quotes

it_user146331 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Operations Specialist at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 31, 2014
Need to handle more traffic simultaneously.
it_user153501 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant with 1,001-5,000 employees
Sep 25, 2014
Applicative specifics optimizations shall always be improved.
it_user403923 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at a construction company with 51-200 employees
Mar 10, 2016
Personally, my expertise with this device I feel is too low to determine what areas could be improved.
Learn what your peers think about Steelhead. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user413271 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Mar 28, 2016
Setting up QoS marking is not all that intuitive.
it_user413307 - PeerSpot reviewer
Validation Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Mar 28, 2016
The RIOS upgrade/download process must be overhauled to be a direct step process instead of the multiple stage procedure that currently take place.
it_user413427 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Mar 28, 2016
The advertised “fail open” feature doesn’t work as expected.
it_user421509 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Administrator at a logistics company with 501-1,000 employees
Apr 10, 2016
I didn't like the way platforms were scaled – if you started with a top end model of one of the tiers, if you needed to upgrade you had to rip and replace the box with a whole new one.
it_user421521 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a government
Apr 10, 2016
Not all devices are available for creating the topology as per the need on your network, such as the three switch router or firewall in this product.
it_user421560 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Apr 10, 2016
We had some stability problems with a few devices.
it_user421635 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. IT Infrastructure and Systems Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Sep 12, 2016
There are issues with the tech support and scalability.