We compared Cato Networks and Cisco SD-WAN across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Cato Networks provides useful features like continuous VPN, web filtering, and antivirus capabilities. Users appreciate its simplicity and efficiency. Cisco SD-WAN is praised for its service quality, real-time traffic visibility, and automation capabilities.
Room for Improvement: Cato Networks could enhance its security measures by incorporating a web application firewall feature and improving intrusion detection. Cisco SD-WAN should enhance its connectivity to prominent cloud providers and incorporate additional security features.
Ease of Deployment: Users have found the initial setup process for Cato Networks to be straightforward, and it takes only a short time. Cisco SD-WAN can be more complicated and may require expert help. While some users found it to be easy, others encountered difficulties and uncertainty during the setup.
Service and Support: Cato Networks' customer service is commended for its prompt and involved assistance during implementation. Some reported occasional issues with support consistency and internal communication. While some Cisco SD customers found the support to be outstanding, others encounter delays and challenges in connecting with the appropriate personnel.
Pricing: Cato Networks offers flexible pricing based on bandwidth and socket type, while Cisco SD-WAN has received mixed feedback regarding its cost. Cato Networks is regarded as competitively priced and affordable, whereas Cisco SD-WAN is perceived as pricier compared to its rivals.
ROI: Cato Networks provides noticeable cost savings and efficiency improvements within a year, resulting in a positive return on investment. Cisco SD-WAN offers flexibility and scalability, leading to long-term benefits and cost reduction.
Comparison Results: Cato Networks offers valuable features like always-on VPN and web filtering. However, it lacks advanced networking capabilities and a web application firewall. The pricing is reasonable but slightly higher compared to some competitors. Cisco SD-WAN is a highly scalable solution with a comprehensive feature set and scalability, but it requires improvements in stability and native connectivity to cloud providers.
"It's a pretty straightforward solution."
"The product is very simple, and everything can be done very quickly."
"It's a cloud-based solution that integrates well with everything."
"The visibility control and security aspects are amazing."
"The most valuable features of Cato Networks are the always-on VPN for remote workers and centralized management. Additionally, web filtering and antivirus are good."
"I haven't had any trouble, and practically forget that I'm using it."
"The most valuable feature of Cato Networks is the CASB and the documentation is useful."
"The WAN aggregation feature is the most valuable."
"The reliability is high and we have only had to restart it once or twice over the years."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The most valuable features are zero-disk provisioning and link load balancing on an application basis."
"The solution can scale. We haven't had any issues doing so."
"The solution is great at aggregating the traffic and then sending it in one direction."
"We would recommend this solution to customers looking to implement it on a global scale. We recommend the solution, not only because of the functionality or the technical support, but also because of the delivery of the solution, and the docking and upgrading capabilities."
"The solution is good to use and easy to handle and manage from the centralized location or from the cloud."
"You get security, all of the service you need, and it's easy to deploy."
"Modifying or incorporating Cato Network to work with a third-party platform, such as Microsoft, or other Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings would be beneficial. Having more integration partners would help the users implement the solution."
"Cato Networks could improve their intrusion detection. There is not a lot in place."
"We would like the product to continue to improve its security."
"A little tweaking or improvement of the UI in terms of logging when troubleshooting would be an improvement because it's very detailed."
"I am located in South Korea, and I can say that most people here have no idea about Cato Networks. I think Cato Networks should promote its network services in various countries."
"The solution could be made more user friendly for the administrator to use the portal. It is difficult to use it for people who are not experienced with Cato Networks."
"Cato Networks security could be better."
"They can't do one-to-one NAT (Network Address Translation) in AP (their access point), and that is something that Palo Alto can do."
"Cisco SD-WAN is not as easy to deploy as the Meraki and FortiGate solutions. The zero-touch deployment could be a lot better. The deployment and initial setup are complicated and could be better."
"The process of onboarding the vSmart, vBond, and vManage should be improved to make it easier to manage in general."
"The cost is too high for certain countries, for example, those in Africa. The solution needs to be more cost-effective."
"The platform needs to be updated to be more stable and simple."
"It's an expensive solution."
"One of the major areas that Cisco can improve on with their SD-WAN offering is their security features. When compared with Fortinet, who have what they call their 'security pillars' (e.g. firewall and security features built-in to their SD-WAN solutions), Cisco generally comes up short. With Cisco, if you need a security component, you have to pay more to get it done. So if they could add more security features that come part and parcel with their existing solutions, then I think Cisco could be very aggressive in the market."
"The UI has room for improvement."
"When you buy the equipment, they should already put it into your cloud account. It should already be set up so that we can manage with vBond. We came across an issue where it wasn't resolved in the DNS. We are using Umbrella, so we need to create a VPN IPSec tunnel to Umbrella to enable the users to browse. I would really like to see an internal built-in firewall so that we don't have to go to Umbrella. This functionality might already be there. We are quite new to this solution, and we are still learning about it."
Cato SASE Cloud Platform is ranked 5th in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 21 reviews while Cisco SD-WAN is ranked 1st in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 86 reviews. Cato SASE Cloud Platform is rated 8.8, while Cisco SD-WAN is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cato SASE Cloud Platform writes "Useful remote worker VPN, centralized management, and simple on-boarding process". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco SD-WAN writes "A solution for integrating services to enhance up-time, performance and lower costs". Cato SASE Cloud Platform is most compared with Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet FortiGate, VMware SD-WAN and Cisco Umbrella, whereas Cisco SD-WAN is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Meraki SD-WAN, VMware SD-WAN, Juniper Session Smart Router and Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform. See our Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs. Cisco SD-WAN report.
See our list of best Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions vendors and best WAN Edge vendors.
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