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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 ...
Sponsored
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

"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."
"We like that there's load balancing, firewall capabilities, DDoS protection, et cetera, all covered by Cloudflare."
"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 is a SaaS solution unlike much of the competition."
"The product has improved our security posture by blocking bad actors."
"There is a huge signature repository"
"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."
"The query and the SD-WAN are useful features of the solution."
"The tool's advantage is that it provides a hassle-free solution that is easy to manage across all customers. For instance, we have a few customers with as few as 50 users, including one with a branch in Vietnam and others with thousands of users."
"My rating for Cato Networks is eight out of ten because it's an excellent product, especially for what it offers."
"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."
"It's a pretty straightforward solution."
"The scalability is quite good."
"It is difficult to find types of companies I would not recommend Cato SASE Cloud Platform to, and I believe you can use Cato SASE Cloud Platform in most environments, although there could be some cases where organizations are really cost-sensitive."
"If you really want to have a solution that has an easy deployment and provides SD-WAN and firewall abilities, go with Cato Networks."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to some of the stuff that I've used a decade ago, the Exinda solution is night and day."
"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."
"Customer Service: Top notchTechnical Support: Top notch"
"It has the ability to prioritize, providing an automatic optimization. I can put it in a hierarchy and know that certain devices will be prioritized over others. It is able to identify the traffic. It can pick out whether if its a Zoom meeting (or something like that), then it's able to put that somewhere in the hierarchy based on the traffic type."
"Exinda can show you which product uses how much throughput and can help you manage it."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to provide very granular classes of service. That's important because it allows us to prioritize certain traffic types over others, to a very granular level."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."
"Its stability could be better."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."
"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."
"There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules."
"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."
"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."
"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."
"A little tweaking or improvement of the UI in terms of logging when troubleshooting would be an improvement because it's very detailed."
"We would like the product to continue to improve its security."
"The product could provide more advanced features for networking."
"It could expand its reach into other sectors like professional services and finance, requiringmore specialized tools beyond Cato's current offerings. This includes better integration with third-party providers for more sophisticated tools such as intrusion prevention systems, anti-malware, and data loss prevention. Additionally, enhancing network speed and optimizing last-mile connectivity for managed service providers like us would be beneficial."
"They should add more sophisticated security features. It should also be integrated into the cloud."
"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's no principal in Malaysia, only a distributor."
"Cato Networks could improve their intrusion detection."
"It should improve the quality of service. It can improve their connection to the internet and your IP."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"More free training on the website for those just getting started."
"A lot of working with this solution is really intuitive. I have picked it up mostly on my own. I'm sure that there are some things that maybe I hadn't thought of or really hadn't considered, and I think it would be good just to promote some day courses. I don't really see a whole lot that comes out for Exinda as far as training or informational sessions through our normal resellers. It would be cool to know more about the solution by utilizing educational resources or even have Exinda promoted a bit better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not too pricey."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"The pricing of the solution depends upon the bandwidth required for different branches"
"If you compare with VeloCloud, the price is the same or even cheaper."
"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 seems more expensive than Cisco Meraki."
"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 solution is reasonably priced since Cato Networks provides features like SASE and monitoring, which I am very happy with currently."
"The price is not an issue for us, as it is priced more competitively than some other vendors."
"The pricing is on the higher side, almost an eight out of ten."
"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
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Business15
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.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.