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Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform vs Steelhead comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 10, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
Cloudflare enhances performance, reduces operational costs, and boosts revenue, with reported benefits of $903,000 over three years.
Sentiment score
7.4
Organizations achieved 25% ROI from Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN by eliminating costly MPLS, enhancing efficiency, and reducing costs.
Sentiment score
8.5
Steelhead enhanced bandwidth efficiency, resulting in substantial cost savings and improved user experience without additional tools or upgrades.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
We have had ROI with the tool's use since it never gave us downtime and made us lose millions.
For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.
Without Steelhead, we would have spent much more on bandwidth costs.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Cloudflare's service is praised for responsiveness, but some users face delays, often relying on extensive documentation for solutions.
Sentiment score
7.4
Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN support is efficient and responsive, though post-acquisition agent knowledge needs improvement, especially on licensing.
Sentiment score
6.4
Steelhead's customer service and technical support are efficient, knowledgeable, and responsive, though complex issues may face slower resolution.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
We'd like a dedicated account manager.
You can get a support engineer with the best qualifications.
Aruba's technical support is very responsive.
I can harness the power of the teacher model without lowering my top and laser focus.
Steelhead's support is generally good for typical issues yet can be time-consuming during complex problem-solving across teams, particularly for Active Directory integration.
Riverbed's customer service and technical support would be rated an eight.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Cloudflare's scalable architecture is praised for efficient traffic handling, seamless expansion, and meeting diverse enterprise needs globally.
Sentiment score
7.4
The Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform offers seamless scalability and performance for large enterprise implementations with extensive user support.
Sentiment score
8.4
Steelhead efficiently scales for SMBs and enterprises, managing up to 20,000 users with effective traffic handling and deployment support.
I would rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten since I didn't encounter any issues with it.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten because I had no issues with it.
I rate the scalability a ten out of ten.
It allows us to maximize use from our MPLS providers by handling traffic efficiently across phased deployments.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Users praise Cloudflare for improved reliability, effective DDoS protection, and excellent DNS services despite initial configuration needs.
Sentiment score
8.2
The Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform is stable with high user satisfaction, though custom deployments can present occasional issues.
Sentiment score
8.5
Steelhead offers stable, efficient network operations with minimal downtime, robust performance, and reliable support, ensuring continuous traffic flow.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.
It is very stable, with no significant issues.
It's quite stable and provides all necessary alerts if something is wrong.
Steelhead helps significantly with large data transfers.
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare users seek better analytics, integration, support, pricing clarity, and enhanced features like caching and multi-user access.
Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN needs better documentation, enhanced integration, improved tools, security features, and technical resources for optimal use.
Steelhead needs improved traffic handling, encryption optimization, enhanced response times, better integration, and user support with fewer scaling limitations.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
the ability to integrate with the on-site active directory instead of just AD through Azure AD
I would also like the management of EdgeConnect appliances to be incorporated into Aruba Central Cloud Central.
The security could also improve.
It would help if Riverbed could prevent such drastic impacts during updates.
It could still be useful in places with satellite communications, such as the south of Chile, or in the mining industry.
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers flexible pricing plans from free to $1,500 monthly, ideal for businesses of different sizes and traffic needs.
Aruba EdgeConnect offers competitive pricing with flexible licenses, valued for affordability and ease of deployment, yet some licensing enhancements needed.
Enterprise users find Steelhead costly yet valuable for TCP optimization, with complex licensing and comparable alternatives like SolarWinds.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
I find it to be cheap.
It's cost-effective, but I think they should have a custom pricing model for enterprise customers based on the features you use.
The licensing is not too expensive, however, it is also not cheap.
It is an affordable product and yet still a bit expensive.
Buying the hardware initially is costly, but yearly maintenance and licenses are not as expensive.
Steelhead is considered an expensive solution in our country.
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare enhances performance and security with CDN, caching, DDoS protection, easy DNS management, analytics, and intuitive interface.
Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform enhances connectivity and performance with advanced features, intuitive interface, and robust security.
Steelhead optimizes WAN with compression and caching, enhancing network efficiency and reducing costs in bandwidth-limited environments.
Our scenario consisted of two web servers in different allocations to control access demands, and the load balancer did the job as expected, bringing security and stability to access points.
For me, the valuable feature is DDoS protection.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
Additionally, it integrates perfectly with Aruba ClearPass, offering a robust security solution, covering network admin, access control, authentication, and authorization.
Many features are valuable for automation, connectivity, and throughput.
Functions like acting as an NTP server, DNS, DHCP, and auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency.
Steelhead's most valuable feature is its ability to hash and send only the important parts of the information, avoiding the resending of data.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Pl...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (7th), WAN Edge (7th)
Steelhead
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (3rd), WAN Edge (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes
Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.
JOHN UNAMBA - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrated security features and robust support improve network management
The solution was installed across two branches for a financial institution. One location had a data center, and the other was a branch office. For SaaS applications, traffic broke out from EdgeConnect directly to the cloud. Applications using the data center were channeled through the MPLS link…
Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency & bandwidth saving, best layer 7 QoS shaping policy can be achieved with ease
There are several features specific to branches, like keeping data hot and active on Steelhead devices. These features prevent unnecessary data travel across the international MPLS. Additionally, functions like acting as an NTP server, DNS, DHCP for branches and auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency along with really good QoS for bandwidth shaping.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
What do you like most about Silver Peak NX?
The tool's most valuable feature is bandwidth optimization.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Silver Peak NX?
It is an affordable product and yet still a bit expensive.
What needs improvement with Silver Peak NX?
One area for improvement is the Intel support integration. The security could also improve.
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We just did an assessment for our 47 datacenters around North America. The top two enterprise-level network monitorin...
What do you like most about Riverbed Steelhead?
One of our most valuable features is Steelhead's cloud migration optimization. Moving to the cloud helped optimize ou...
What is your primary use case for Riverbed Steelhead?
We use Riverbed Steelhead devices for WAN optimization, which saves us considerable money on our international bandwi...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Silver Peak NX, Silver Peak VX, Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect
RIverbed Steelhead
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Group Dekko, Kingston Technology, American Student Assistance, Ares Management, Charlotte Metro Credit Union, Colonial Savings, Community Bank, Denali Credit Union, Bed Bath & Beyond, Breweries of Cameroon, Carnival Australia, Coastal Beverages, Toshiba Electronics, Tru Blu Beverages, WAXIE Sanitary Supply, Charleston Area Medical Center, Community Health Plan, Healthcare Company, Mercy Health, Linklaters, Miles & Stockbridge, Thomson Snell & Passmore
ElAraby, SFK Leblanc, Bobst Group, Northwest Pipe Company, Halkbank, Tradebridge, EFG Hermes
Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform vs. Steelhead and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.