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Citrix SD-WAN [EOL] vs Steelhead comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

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)
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
Steelhead
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (3rd), WAN Edge (13th)
 

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.
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.
Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency & bandwidth saving, best layer 7 QoS shaping policy can be achieved with ease
There are several features specific to branches, like keeping data hot and active on Steelhead devices. These features prevent unnecessary data travel across the international MPLS. Additionally, functions like acting as an NTP server, DNS, DHCP for branches and auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency along with really good QoS for bandwidth shaping.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."
"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."
"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."
"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the 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 solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."
"The technical support is good."
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"It allows us to use additional VPNs, offering more options compared to other VPN solutions."
"The VPN and the load balancing are the most valuable features."
"The reliability of connectivity is most valuable."
"Downtime for branch offices is now almost zero. We have 100% real-time visibility into all of our lines. MPLS links have been replaced with lower-cost links, saving a larger percentage of line costs. Overall, I see SD-WAN as a must. And the Citrix SD-WAN product has delivered on expectations and exceeded them. (With later firmware updates we now have good firewall capabilities in the product too)."
"The most valuable feature of Citrix SD-WAN is customization. You are able to customize the solution to your needs."
"The SD-WAN solution as it is already is quite feature-rich and the upgrade process is very simple."
"It lowered our Internet costs and gave me the flexibility to choose providers based on each location's connectivity."
"The zero-touch deployment is most valuable for us."
"Steelhead has drastically improved user experience."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"There are several features specific to branches, like keeping data hot and active on Steelhead devices. These features prevent unnecessary data travel across the international LAN."
"Scalable data referencing is a great feature."
"Steelhead is stable, and it can even help you avoid service interruption in the event of a power outage. If your hardware fails, technical support will replace your device quickly."
"SteelHead works from the application. I use it to optimize traffic from Amazon. It is mainly used for customers who need to increase the traffic to 33K. For other users, it has been more of an operation."
"One of our most valuable features is Steelhead's cloud migration optimization. Moving to the cloud helped optimize our workflow, improving performance for end-users."
"The connectivity to speed is the valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"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."
"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Technical support is lacking."
"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."
"Overall, network security and next-generation firewall features are areas that they can improve on."
"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."
"Citrix SD-WAN does not have the SD-WAN with one optimization in a single license. Other competitors have this option and it should be added to this solution."
"Citrix should continue to offer a perpetual licensing model because it is very important to us."
"The solution's licensing model could be improved."
"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."
"I would like to either see the price reduced or have it packaged with other products to give better value for the money."
"Even though the monitoring is pretty good, there is some room for improvement there."
"Steelhead is considered an expensive solution in our country. On a scale of one to ten for expense, it would be rated an eight."
"The product should offer more integration capabilities."
"I would like to see improvement in the solution’s configuration and protocol aspects. We have got some configurations that are not set. I would also like to simplify the call detection of some protocols."
"The product needs improvement in its integration with SDN."
"The application response time of the solution can be improved."
"If we load a primary firewall, the secondary firewall usually handles all the active connections, but in Riverbed, this isn't the case. We lose all the active connections at the moment of failure."
"There was a significant challenge when moving from an older version to a newer one due to changed quality of service policies."
"Steelhead's handling of encrypted traffic could be improved because it requires some complex configuration to optimize encrypted traffic, especially when working with Microsoft protocols for mail servers and VPN services"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"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 tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"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 give the price a five out of ten."
"The price is reasonable."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The price of the subscription should be cheaper."
"I believe that Citrix SD-WAN is a good investment, but I do not have the information to be more specific."
"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 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."
"As NetScaler is now, I find it quite pricey."
"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."
"The price is relatively expensive."
"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."
"The solution is expensive and the service contacts are costly too. The cost of the device makes the value proposition borderline acceptable for us. The service contract fees we pay is approximately $30,000 annually."
"Across our 12 data centers, we spend around $150k annually."
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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
26%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
 

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 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...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
We just did an assessment for our 47 datacenters around North America. The top two enterprise-level network monitorin...
What do you like most about Riverbed Steelhead?
One of our most valuable features is Steelhead's cloud migration optimization. Moving to the cloud helped optimize ou...
What is your primary use case for Riverbed Steelhead?
In the past, we have sold a lot of Steelhead ( /products/steelhead-reviews ) for retail companies, insurance companie...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Citrix CloudBridge, WOC, NetScaler SD-WAN
RIverbed Steelhead
 

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.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Cornerstone Home Lending Inc., Dallara, ecVision, Essar, Eurofred, Groupe Promutuel, HMSHost Corporation, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines Ltd, Royal Caribbean International
ElAraby, SFK Leblanc, Bobst Group, Northwest Pipe Company, Halkbank, Tradebridge, EFG Hermes
Find out what your peers are saying about Cato Networks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Riverbed and others in WAN Optimization. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.