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Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Exinda 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...
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Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)
Cato SASE Cloud Platform
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (11th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (4th), WAN Edge (6th), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (2nd)
Exinda
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
CTO at PlayNirvana
Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.
reviewer2697738 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product & Services Integrator at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Cloud security has unified global network design and has simplified threat visibility
I think all of the functionalities, such as the secure web gateway feature, are quite good. I also believe Cato SASE Cloud Platform is one of the only solutions that has not only a software firewall solution but also a physical software solution where you can change the company's firewalls and put in sockets from Cato SASE Cloud Platform, which I see as an advantage for them. The single-pass architecture has improved user experience with Cato SASE Cloud Platform as it provides security teams in companies a platform where they can easily obtain information if there are breaches or security issues. I assess the benefit of integrating WAN optimization as good. There is ease in making rules between WAN optimization, especially when it comes to global connections because of all their points of presence that are spread over the world. I think the real-time threat protection of Cato SASE Cloud Platform is also good. Their points of presence are quite efficient, and I do not see any delays in that area.
MJ
Senior Engineer, Team Lead, Network Operations at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Allows us to have better control over our network by shaping traffic more gently
There might be room for improvement in the speed and throughput of some of their devices. They're getting a bit slow on some of the bigger devices. It would be helpful if there were some sort of an ISP model. Also, while I don't think it would be possible for them to do, it would be better if they had the Citrix support and the visualization to visualize your network. Besides that, it fits its purpose as a shaper and accelerator. Some people would say things like, "Add a firewall to it," but I disagree. I think a firewall's a firewall, and Exinda's a shaper and accelerator.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup process is simple."
"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."
"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."
"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."
"It's pretty convenient and pretty easy to set up and run. And then kind of for static content, it also offers caching."
"For us, the key feature of Cloudflare is DDoS protection and IP hiding, especially since we are a crypto company."
"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."
"Cloudflare has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple clients; I can easily go in and access their accounts, make changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."
"I would definitely recommend Cato Networks to other users."
"The Cato SASE Cloud Platform supports my customers' needs for connectivity and security by removing the throttling from the headquarters and putting a firewall in the cloud, instead of having to use a costly MPLS network to perform security inspection on all traffic from various branches."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution is stable and reliable, our customers haven't had any complaints about its quality, it is quite simple and easy to use, and the support, overall, has been okay."
"Technical support was always helpful and responsive."
"We never really had any outages."
"The most valuable feature is that it also works as a next-gen firewall because it has security features."
"The WAN aggregation feature is the most valuable."
"You can use Exinda as a network orchestrator so you can be sure that the throughput is managed well and everything gets what it needs."
"One of the great things for us is that the solution works, and it works whether you're looking at it or not."
"Getting Exinda was a life saver for our voice traffic"
"The most valuable feature is the ability to create policies where we can tailor them to the customer. It enables us to prioritize apps and users for bandwidth."
"A customer can either buy 50 Mb with us or 50 Mb with somebody else, but they'll get a 70 Mb feel with us because we can shape it a little bit better."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to manage the traffic at the application layer. It makes things a lot easier. We're not digging for port numbers and IP addresses and different services... It makes us far more responsive in our ability to do things and speed up the process. We're a very small shop, so having something that's straightforward and easy to use is a big help."
"The most valuable features are the shaper, accelerator, and the reporting... it will shape the traffic better than, for example, a Cisco, because it's more gentle on the shaping side of things. Suppose you were selling a 20-meg link. Because you can shape to the nth degree of traffic, the 20-meg link feels like about a 30 to 40-meg link."
"Exinda can show you which product uses how much throughput and can help you manage it."
 

Cons

"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."
"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."
"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."
"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"
"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."
"Its stability could be better."
"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."
"They should add more sophisticated security features. It should also be integrated into the cloud."
"The product could provide more advanced features for networking."
"There's no principal in Malaysia, only a distributor."
"The product's technical support could be more responsive."
"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."
"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."
"To improve Cato SASE Cloud Platform, I think they sometimes need more built-in features for security in larger networks when doing local authentication, as they currently leave that to other vendors."
"Cato Networks could improve their intrusion detection. There is not a lot in place."
"More free training on the website for those just getting started."
"One of the concerns that we've had with Exinda is the fact that ever since GFI took over Exinda, they haven't really put in much time into actually developing the product."
"The updating of applications that the system knows about could be a little quicker. For example, Zoom had been out for a while, but it took a while for it to show up as an application that Exinda could natively handle. We had to write some things in order to handle Zoom, initially."
"The stability was terrible in version 7.0 but it's been good since version 7.2."
"Creating the custom application is a bit awkward. I kind of have to guess my way through it sometimes."
"The areas for improvement would be around the support service that GFI provides."
"In terms of improvement, one thing that has always frustrated me about it is that when you look at real-time monitoring, you can only filter it by IP address. You can't filter it by anything else. It would be good if we could filter by VLAN."
"It should improve the quality of service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"It is not too pricey."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"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."
"The platform is expensive."
"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 price of Cato Networks is in the middle range compared to other solutions. NetFoundry is a less expensive solution than Cato Networks."
"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 rate the price of Cato Networks a four out of five."
"The pricing of the solution depends upon the bandwidth required for different branches"
"The pricing and licensing are pretty fair and really competitive. There are other SD-WAN solutions that are pretty costly because they build in a service where they'll manage it for you, which is really great. I don't know if Exinda has that option as well. However, we are a small shop and cost-conscious. For things like this, we are accustomed to self-managing and this solution suits us just fine. For a tool that gives you, like the graphs and reporting, it has a fair price point."
"It is priced well for the market, for what it needs to do."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...
What is your primary use case for Cato Networks?
I can see that I am a consultant at a reseller and I am the architect of Cato SASE Cloud Platform designs. In the bas...
What advice do you have for others considering Cato Networks?
It is difficult to find types of companies I would not recommend Cato SASE Cloud Platform to, and I believe you can u...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cato Networks?
I do not find it particularly expensive, but for some companies, they may not have the budget to be at that level of ...
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Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Cato Networks
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Paysafe, AdRoll, Pet Lovers Centre, Arlington Orthopedics, Humphreys & Partners Architects
UMass Dartmouth, MLB Network, R&R Ice Cream, Savills, Manhattan School of Music, Blum Shapiro, Cincinnati Public Schools, City of Richmond, Genting Casinos, The Salvation Army, VoIP Unlimited, Frontier Silicon, Lakeshore Toltest, CTI Foods
Find out what your peers are saying about Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs. Exinda and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.