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Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Citrix SD-WAN [EOL] comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 29, 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

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Cato SASE Cloud Platform
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (4th), WAN Edge (5th), ZTNA as a Service (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (4th)
Citrix SD-WAN [EOL]
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
Alexander Azikov - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Rohit Ghorpade - PeerSpot reviewer
A scalable solution for MCN controller but lacks technical supports, upgrades
There are a few things that can be improved, are domain-based routing and the slowness of virtual parts, and it may be due to the wrong configuration, which we have been unable to find out. Previously, we faced some issues with the slowness part. Apart from that, feature like end gateway level antivirus. We are currently using a NetFlow proxy to establish a virtual position for the NetFlow. Our current environment has many use cases, but we are not using them on the Citrix SD-WAN. When I navigate the NCL part, it involves configuration. I want to highlight this disadvantage. Sometimes, when we push the configuration, it tries to push it to all branch locations. This process takes a lot of time, nearly 30 minutes, to push a single change from the NCL. Overall, I don't think Citrix meets our use cases what we have. This is based on my feedback after using it for the past year and working on this Citrix SD-WAN. However, from my experience, it is the worst solution I have seen. There's no domain-based routing, which is horrible. That's why we are moving to other products. We have checked our use case requirements with Fortinet, Palo Alto, and they meet them. I will consider the PoC or another OEM. There are many things in the area you need to be prompt, like the automation part. If any link or device goes down, alerting notification, etc. We need to perform and highlight so many things to your management. This should be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."
"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service."
"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."
"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."
"The solution is a simple WAN solution. We've onboarded the socket on the Cato platform, and it provides connectivity. There is no complex routing."
"Cato offers all the functionality found in other solution. The life cycle management is always very stable."
"It's a pretty straightforward solution."
"It is quite simple and easy to use."
"The visibility control and security aspects are amazing."
"The most valuable feature of Cato Networks is the CASB and the documentation is useful."
"We appreciate the optimization and acceleration of the performance of SDP users."
"The main features we use are the firewall and secure web gateway."
"It allows us to use additional VPNs, offering more options compared to other VPN solutions."
"The tool is quite cost-effective because it replaces the need for MPLS, which is a bit expensive...Citrix SD-WAN doesn't need much maintenance."
"They have a zero downtime failover mechanism, where, when there's a link failure or a link weakness, or bad link conditions, they provide the ability to fail back seamlessly."
"We are using it widely for the local record for SaaS-based applications. Another valuable feature is a local breakout."
"The most valuable feature is security, as it gives me the port bindings that cannot be accomplished using other solutions."
"It allows you to combine two asymmetrical connections."
"It lowered our Internet costs and gave me the flexibility to choose providers based on each location's connectivity."
"The most valuable feature of Citrix SD-WAN is customization. You are able to customize the solution to your needs."
 

Cons

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."
"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."
"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."
"I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"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."
"There isn't much to improve as we have a close relationship with them, providing information for research and development."
"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."
"We would like the product to continue to improve its security."
"The price could be better."
"The tool needs to be more granular. Its reports are not very in-depth."
"The tool should improve its interface."
"I would like to see better integration with identity providers."
"Overall, network security and next-generation firewall features are areas that they can improve on."
"The price could be improved, it's an expensive solution."
"Enhancements are needed to improve the stability."
"Citrix should continue to offer a perpetual licensing model because it is very important to us."
"The price is the only thing that could be improved. Citrix is not a cheap solution."
"I would like to see more customization to adjust for the WAN lock-out due to our unexpected power outages."
"Even though the monitoring is pretty good, there is some room for improvement there."
"I would like to see support for additional reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."
"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"The price is reasonable."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The solution's pricing is flexible."
"Cato Networks seems more expensive than Cisco Meraki."
"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."
"The pricing is on the higher side, almost an eight out of ten."
"The solution has reasonable pricing. It has a yearly subscription. The pricing depends on the permit to code. Sometimes, we need to increase the permit, and the cost will automatically change. There's no fixed cost. Unless we request additional modules such as DNS security, ELP, and decent features, there will be no additional cost."
"The pricing of the solution depends upon the bandwidth required for different branches"
"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."
"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."
"I believe that Citrix SD-WAN is a good investment, but I do not have the information to be more specific."
"It's a little bit on the high side compared to the other products."
"The license was a one-time purchase. It's expensive."
"As NetScaler is now, I find it quite pricey."
"The price is relatively expensive."
"It depends on the scale. In our case, it would have been better if we had known about the life cycling steps, but otherwise, it is worth the money."
"I'm not quite sure of the price ranges. Roughly, the hidden devices can scale up to $20K for one appliance. However, the branch CPs are USD $1,000 to $2,500."
"It would be helpful to have a demo license available for customers who want to prove the concept and conduct a proof of concept (POC) before committing to the solution. This is particularly important for customers in Egypt who often require a demonstration of the solution's features and compatibility with their needs before making any investment or incurring costs. Providing a demo license would allow customers to assess whether the solution would meet their needs or not."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
29%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Retailer
5%
Computer Software Company
25%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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 Cato Networks?
The solution is a simple WAN solution. We've onboarded the socket on the Cato platform, and it provides connectivity....
What is your primary use case for Cato Networks?
We have been using Cato Networks as a solution for firewall and secure web gateway.
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.
What do you like most about Citrix SD-WAN?
It lowered our Internet costs and gave me the flexibility to choose providers based on each location's connectivity.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix SD-WAN?
It is on the expensive side. I would give it an eight out of ten in terms of costliness. In my region, the approximat...
What needs improvement with Citrix SD-WAN?
The solution's licensing model could be improved. Citrix SD-WAN is a good product from a technical point of view. How...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Cato Networks
Citrix CloudBridge, WOC, NetScaler SD-WAN
 

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.
Paysafe, AdRoll, Pet Lovers Centre, Arlington Orthopedics, Humphreys & Partners Architects
AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Cornerstone Home Lending Inc., Dallara, ecVision, Essar, Eurofred, Groupe Promutuel, HMSHost Corporation, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines Ltd, Royal Caribbean International
Find out what your peers are saying about Cato Networks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Riverbed and others in WAN Optimization. Updated: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.