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

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 30, 2025

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
7.2
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)
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 (4th), ZTNA as a Service (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (5th)
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

"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"
"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."
"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."
"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"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."
"The product is very simple, and everything can be done very quickly."
"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."
"I would definitely recommend Cato Networks to other users."
"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."
"Cato offers all the functionality found in other solution. The life cycle management is always very stable."
"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 most valuable feature of Cato Networks is the CASB and the documentation is useful."
"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."
"The best feature is the backup capability, where all of the users' computers are tied into a central data repository."
"The SD-WAN solution as it is already is quite feature-rich and the upgrade process is very simple."
"It allows you to combine two asymmetrical connections."
"The reliability of connectivity is most valuable."
"We are using it widely for the local record for SaaS-based applications. Another valuable feature is a local breakout."
"The solution's most valuable feature is load balancing."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is security, as it gives me the port bindings that cannot be accomplished using other solutions."
 

Cons

"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."
"Support response time could be improved."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"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 reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."
"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."
"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"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."
"We would like the product to continue to improve its security."
"Web application firewalling (WAF) is a feature we would like to have in this solution and does not exist yet."
"Cato Networks could improve their intrusion detection. There is not a lot in place."
"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."
"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."
"The different languages in the user interface should be enhanced."
"The price could be better."
"The only improvement for Citrix SD-WAN would be to lower its cost."
"I would like to see support for additional reporting."
"Citrix should continue to offer a perpetual licensing model because it is very important to us."
"The price could be improved, it's an expensive solution."
"The communication around the life cycle would have been really helpful. The main issue we have had is related to the life cycle because some of the things that we are using were discontinued. They were discontinued within a year after we had purchased it, which is a bit painful. If we had known that, we would've made some other decisions."
"The reports need to be improved. We need to have them customized but they don't have that right now. I would like for them to have better system predictions. We don't have that right now. My system may be working fine right now but after making some changes, that can change."
"The firewall reporting could be easier to use and filter. (It works well enough, but if I need to give an area for improvement, I think this would be it.). The built-in reporting on the product in this regard is not great."
"Given that Citrix SD-WAN solved all our problems by providing us with everything we needed to unify communications with our branches and data centers, I cannot suggest anything further in terms of improvements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"I'd rate Cato SASE Cloud Platform's pricing as about five or six out of ten. It's not the cheapest solution, but it is cheaper than Palo Alto and even VeloCloud. We've been working with them for a while and have significant discounts. Our licensing costs vary because we keep adding sites, but it's about 280 per month per site. This includes additional features beyond the base product, starting at around 200."
"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."
"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 price of Cato Networks is in the middle range compared to other solutions. NetFoundry is a less expensive solution than Cato Networks."
"The platform is expensive."
"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"
"The pricing is on the higher side, almost an eight out of ten."
"The price is relatively expensive."
"As NetScaler is now, I find it quite pricey."
"It's a little bit on the high side compared to the other products."
"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."
"Citrix SD-WAN is quite an affordable product."
"The license was a one-time purchase. It's expensive."
"The price of the subscription should be cheaper."
"It is a bit expensive. A cheaper product would be good, but everybody likes things to be cheaper. We bought the devices up front, and then we pay for the annual support."
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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%
Computer Software Company
27%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
25%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Energy/Utilities 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: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.