Aruba Orchestrator vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cato Networks are both solutions in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.8, while Cato Networks is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 0.7% mindshare in SDW, compared to Cato Networks’s 6.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cato Networks users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Cato SASE Cloud Platform and Aruba Orchestrator compete in network security and management solutions. Cato has the upper hand in remote workforce support and global connectivity, while Aruba excels in network visibility and integration with existing environments.

Features: Cato SASE Cloud Platform offers next-gen firewall capabilities, cloud integration, and centralized management with an always-on VPN. Its web filtering and antivirus support remote workers effectively. It also provides global connectivity through a self-healing model. Aruba Orchestrator focuses on WAN optimization and SD-WAN features, offering advanced network visibility and control. It integrates well with LAN and Wi-Fi environments, providing a streamlined management experience through a single pane of glass.

Room for Improvement: Cato SASE Cloud Platform could enhance its security with intrusion detection systems and a Web Application Firewall. Improved integration with identity providers and third-party platforms is needed, along with broader language support. Aruba Orchestrator may require better security features and integration for public cloud adaptation. Simplifying its management interface and expanding training resources are areas for enhancement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cato SASE Cloud Platform supports various deployment models, including hybrid and public clouds, with strong praise for its 24/7 technical support. Users note swift problem resolution and comprehensive support. Aruba Orchestrator is easier to deploy in hybrid environments and receives positive feedback for knowledgeable support, although Cato's support system is consistently praised globally.

Pricing and ROI: Cato SASE Cloud Platform is moderately priced but considered expensive compared to some competitors. Its pricing flexibility accommodates varying bandwidths, achieving ROI within months. Aruba Orchestrator is more cost-effective with mid-range pricing, offering a valuable subscription model. Both platforms deliver commendable ROI, but Cato's extensive feature set justifies its higher cost for those needing broad network integration and security.

To learn more, read our detailed Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cato SASE Cloud Platform Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cato SASE Cloud Platform

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 April 2025, in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 21.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aruba Orchestrator is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cato SASE Cloud Platform is 6.6%, up from 5.9% 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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Aneesh K

IT Solution Analyst II at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Provides complete internal visibility from LAN to Wi-Fi, resulting in higher stability and easier troubleshooting

Aruba has plenty of solutions showcased at this event. Perhaps they offer their firewall, which we are not currently utilizing—the LAN switching, ClearPass, and Wi-Fi. ClearPass is is still on-premises, but the switching, Wi-Fi, and security features are included. It has some capabilities, like automation intelligence, which they call AI operations. So it is helpful. Our time spent on troubleshooting will be significantly reduced with it. Another useful feature is that we can inquire about the health data from Aruba Central and receive the necessary answers. Aruba Central simplifies management. Yes, deployment will be much faster than on-premises setups, where you need many hardware gateways. With just an access point or minimal hardware, deployment will be quicker. Troubleshooting with it has also made it much more straightforward. A group of ten people should be more than sufficient to manage an extensive infrastructure. Aruba is providing better support. They are also improving their email services. They are up to market standards, so we choose to go with them. We were looking for a direct vendor, but they didn't meet our requirements. Aruba Orchestrator is meeting our current expectations and standards, so we are sticking with them. We don't have any issues because we have been with Aruba for many years. We don't mind moving from one vendor to another. We are simply transitioning from one rental type to another with Aruba. I prioritize enhancements in AI functionality over other features. There are several implementations, with AI being the primary focus. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

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Alexander Azikov

It Manager at Diamond Braces

Provide a seamless experience for end users with internet duplication feature

The setup and onboarding process is very straightforward - I'd rate it a ten out of ten for ease. We use CatoCloud as our cloud provider. They have points of presence, and we connect to the nearest one to our physical location. All the routing, inspection, and logic for what to route, block, or allow happens in the cloud, not on the local device. Our deployment took a couple of weeks because we installed the sites manually. If we had a team to help switch locally, it could have been done in a week. The deployment process is straightforward. We set up all the sites in their cloud system; then, they ship the sockets directly to the location or our main office. We connect the device to the internet, it gets activated, we assign it to a specific site inside the cloud, and it's online and ready to use. It's very easy.

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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

"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."

"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."

"We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."

"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."

"The most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."

"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."

"Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."

"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The most valuable feature is optimization."

"The product has reduced OpEx expenditure."

"The solution has a single pane of glass view that allows you to see everything happening in your SD-WAN world."

"We had to deal with separate management models for Wi-Fi and switches. With Aruba Orchestrator, it's now a unified solution, making things much easier for us. We log in and manage everything from a single console. It provides complete internal visibility from LAN to Wi-Fi, resulting in higher stability and easier troubleshooting. The management process is much quicker and more streamlined."

"The technical support services are excellent."

"The Business Intent Overlay is a great feature."

"The most important feature is WAN optimization."

"Aruba Orchestrator has notably reduced enrollment setup times from several hours to within an hour if prepared and planned."

"The feature that I find to be the most valuable is the bandwidth aggregation."

"Cato SASE Cloud Platform's self-healing model is the most valuable feature."

"Additionally, Cato has a global point of presence, which means instead of using other technologies to connect branches and provide access for a retail organization or any organization with branches, we can utilize Cato's backbone. Furthermore, by consolidating different technologies into one solution, there are additional cost savings from that perspective."

"The most valuable feature is that it also works as a next-gen firewall because it has security features."

"It's a cloud-based solution that integrates well with everything."

"When I first encountered Cato, I didn't know how to use it, but after a week of training, I could onboard our systems to it, so the solution was easy to learn and navigate."

"The product's most valuable features include advanced firewall capabilities for robust security, a secure gateway for safe data transmission, and next-generation anti-malware for threat prevention."

"The product is efficient and easy to use."

More Cato SASE Cloud Platform pros

Cons

"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."

"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."

"Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement."

"Fortinet technical support is lacking, as OEM support is slightly better. Improvement in their technical support could include response time as well as having more technically sound people in tech support."

"I would like some automated custom reporting."

"The support we receive when we need to upgrade is not satisfactory and has room for improvement."

"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."

"The search tool needs improvement. It's very difficult to search for policies right now."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The solution lacks sufficient security features."

"Aruba Orchestrator should implement dynamic certificate changes for security."

"The initial setup is complex, depending on the overall planning for the entire environment."

"The solution can be improved by lowering the cost and making it more user-friendly for first-time users."

"The management menu should be simplified."

"They could provide essential training to understand the product functionality."

"There isn't much to improve as we have a close relationship with them, providing information for research and development."

"I would like to see better integration with identity providers."

"The different languages in the user interface should be enhanced."

"A little tweaking or improvement of the UI in terms of logging when troubleshooting would be an improvement because it's very detailed."

"However, Cato's solution is modular. You don't have to buy the whole package; instead, you can start with some of the functionality and then expand it as you see fit, based on its value and as your other contracts expire."

"The product's technical support could be more responsive."

"Its functionality is a bit limited in some areas as compared to a Cisco solution. It is not as granular. It doesn't have the manageability, feature set, and capabilities of a larger or an enterprise-level solution. It just needs a more robust feature set and granularity."

"The solution is not cheap."

More Cato SASE Cloud Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"Setup costs and pricing depends on many variables, but it's mostly affordable."

"Fortinet FortiGate is cheaper than Palo Alto. It is about 20% cheaper."

"There is no challenge in Fortinet FortiGate pricing."

"It is too expensive for us. My organization is very small, and we have a total of ten users. We have three internal users and seven external users. The FortiGate 100D series is too expensive for renewing the licenses."

"Pricing for this product is comparatively lower than other products. It's an affordable solution, but when expanding the number of users, they'll ask you to replace the model, so that's an added cost."

"The price of FortiGate is comparable to that of most other firewall solutions and is more affordable than Cisco."

"Fortinet FortiGate is reasonably priced."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"I rate the platform’s pricing a five out of ten."

"I think it is quite expensive compared to other vendors in the market because it depends on what kind of features you really want to acquire in the product."

"The solution's licensing costs are yearly. It is not expensive, and I rate it around three to four out of ten."

"Aruba Orchestrator is free to use."

"The pricing of the solution depends upon the bandwidth required for different branches"

"The platform is expensive."

"Cato Networks is an expensive product, but it works out of the box, so that's the usual trade-off, make versus buy. If you decide to buy a product that doesn't require much programming, then you'd want to go for Cato Networks, which will work naturally, and immediately without any complex setup. However, the product is a little bit more expensive than the competitors. On a scale of one to five, I'd rate the pricing for Cato Networks as four."

"The pricing of this solution depends on what you need. It is based on bandwidth."

"I rate the price of Cato Networks a four out of five."

"The product is very competitively priced, and that's compelling. They don't charge the customer based on the operational cost like other brands such as Palo Alto. Cato has its own fully-fledged cloud, with their own data centers, equipment, and so on, which is an advantage. I rate the solution five out of five for affordability."

"You pay yearly based on the speed of your network. If you increase the speed of your network, you increase the cost for your throughput. It is by bandwidth for the most part and then licenses for VPN. There is some per-seat licensing for VPN access, but the majority of it is minimal. It is like $30 a year per client. The rest is based on how much bandwidth you'll use. You pay for that upfront for the year, and if you have to increase it, you increase it, and then they let you send more data through. There are no additional costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"The solution's pricing is flexible."

More Cato SASE Cloud Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Computer Software Company

26%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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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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What do you like most about Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator?

The most important feature is WAN optimization.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator?

Aruba Orchestrator is free to use.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator?

The management menu should be simplified.

See all answers

What do you like most about Cato Networks?

The solution is a simple WAN solution. We've onboarded the socket on the Cato platform, and it provides connectivity....

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cato Networks?

We have been using Cato Networks as a solution for firewall and secure web gateway.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Cato Networks?

I would definitely recommend Cato Networks to other users. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% 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

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VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Aruba Orchestrator

Compared 62% of the time

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Aruba Orchestrator

Compared 38% of the time

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Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 16% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Netskope vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

April 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Orchestrator

April 2025

Download Aruba Orchestrator product report

Buyer's Guide

Cato SASE Cloud Platform

April 2025

Download Cato SASE Cloud Platform product report

Also Known As

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

Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator, Unity Orchestrator

Cato Networks

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

Aruba Orchestrator has an intuitive interface that allows you to centrally define, assign, and enforce policies across the WAN. Network managers experience the highest quality of experience to:

Centrally define, assign and enforce policies based on business intent to secure and control all application traffic across the WAN.

Orchestrator dashboards provide real time visibility into SD-WAN health and performance in a single screen, monitoring traffic throughput along with loss, latency and jitter across overlays and underlays.

Maintain the highest levels of application performance by automatically assigning application and security policies across 100s or 1000s of sites, including automated orchestration with cloud security services.

Central orchestration of network functions including SD-WAN routing, firewall, segmentation, WAN optimization, application visibility and control, and automated orchestration with cloud security services.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Cato Networks is a leading SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) platform, combining SD-WAN and network security to obtain a cloud-native service. Cato Networks optimizes and secures application access for users and identities. The platform delivers a next-generation secure networking architecture that minimizes legacy IT infrastructures’ complexity, costs, and risks. The goal of Cato Suite is to connect any user to any application securely and optimally.

Cato Suite runs on a private global network of more than 65 PoPs (points of presence) connected via SLA-backed network providers. The service can connect branches, data centers, users, and clouds. Cato can be deployed in stages to augment legacy network services.

Cato Suite delivers end-to-end route optimization for WAN and cloud traffic. The architecture is self-healing, enabling a high service uptime.

Cato Features

Cato Cloud has a global backbone to deliver a reliable, global network. Here are some key SD-WAN features of Cato Cloud.

Optimizes traffic flows: The Cato Suite can individually optimize traffic flows in the last mile - from the customer’s location to the point of presence, and also between PoPs. This feature eliminates the need for internet providers to hand off traffic to each other, avoiding the resulting latency and congestion.
Controls and manages bandwidth: The software-defined overlay is encrypted across the entire cloud infrastructure. This overlay uses application-aware routing, analyzing latency and loss data to choose the best route according to network conditions. These features, like protocol priority marking, enable the system to ensure the performance of real-time applications.
Delivers redundancy and failover: By connecting the points of presence with multiple Tier-1 IPs, Cato builds the redundancy needed to ensure security and highly available service.
Cloud-native: Cato is built as a scalable, resilient, and elastic cloud service.
Converged: The platform converges SD-WAN and network security into a single infrastructure framework.
Secures all edges: Cato Network can secure and optimize traffic from all users, locations, applications, and clouds.

What challenges does Cato Network solve?

Migration to SD-WAN

MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) networks are usually expensive and limited in their capacity. Cato simplifies migrating to a faster, higher-capacity internet and SASE cloud. Cato SD-WAN appliances enable customers to improve usable capacity and resiliency.

Global connectivity optimization

Customers who suffer from the challenge of high latency and network inconsistency can use Cato to deliver a consistent connection and user experience to access on-premises and cloud applications.

Securing branch internet access

Cato’s complete network security stack connects all branch locations to the Cato cloud, therefore protecting all traffic, both internet-bound and WAN, with enterprise-grade, cloud-based security services. This capability avoids having to backhaul internet traffic to a data center or hub or having to implement stand-alone cloud security solutions.

Cloud acceleration and control

Organizations using Cato notice an acceleration of cloud traffic. Cato achieves this by routing all traffic from the edges to the PoP closest to the data center. Because of the close distance between the two, the latency is near zero.

Reviews from Real Users

An IT manager/project coordinator at a healthcare company says that “[Cato is] a cloud-based solution that integrates well with everything. They are the classic SaaS solution.”

Yeong-Gi L., a network engineer at Snetsystems, notes that “The solution is very stable. The scalability is quite good. Technical support was always helpful and responsive. The integration capabilities are not a problem at all.”

"The most valuable feature is that it also works as a next-gen firewall because it has security features," says Lorenzo S., senior solutions consultant Lead at MDI.

Cato Networks

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

Information Not Available

Paysafe, AdRoll, Pet Lovers Centre, Arlington Orthopedics, Humphreys & Partners Architects

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cato SASE Cloud Platform

April 2025

Free Report: Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cato SASE Cloud Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cato SASE Cloud Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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