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Citrix SD-WAN [EOL] vs Meraki SD-WAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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) (7th)
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
Meraki SD-WAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Networking (SDN) (1st)
 

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.
Rohit Ghorpade - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud network engineer at Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Co. Ltd.
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.
Mageshwaran S - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at airtel
Experienced streamlined network management with enhanced usability and room for improved security features
On the security features, when compared to Fortinet, they have more patterns and AI-generated ones. Meraki SD-WAN is slowly implementing AI, but it is not yet full-fledged. If AI comes into the picture, it will be helpful. I work with Fortinet where with a single command you can deploy the entire SD-WAN along with FortiGuard within minutes. For AI, it can discover and connect, but currently, we are doing it manually. In Meraki SD-WAN, some features require additional licenses and subscriptions. If these were bundled together, such as 10 or 20 licenses, it would be very helpful for a mini branch or small campus area coverage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support has a very fast response time and they are helpful."
"The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10."
"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."
"The Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's most valuable feature is its ease of configuration."
"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."
"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."
"It protects web applications efficiently."
"It is configurable via API."
"The solution is brilliant, the way it calculates its paths and trails is great."
"We are using it widely for the local record for SaaS-based applications. Another valuable feature is a local breakout."
"The main advantage of Citrix SD-WAN is that it enables fast communication between our branches and data centers. And, with its cloud management features, it also makes the process of adding new branches into our company network much easier."
"The reliability of connectivity is most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability."
"The most valuable feature is security, as it gives me the port bindings that cannot be accomplished using other solutions."
"The stability is the main feature of Citrix SD-WAN. You can also upgrade the data packages or have less transmission."
"It lowered our Internet costs and gave me the flexibility to choose providers based on each location's connectivity."
"Using Meraki just solves a lot of problems."
"The most valuable features I find in Meraki SD-WAN are that it's easier to manage cloud, cloud-managed, with a simpler deployment from Cisco Viptela or Cisco enterprise SD-WAN solution, and it combines the access point, so it is a much simpler deployment, usually fit for retail."
"The solution is easy to use."
"SD-WAN is a complete enterprise solution for securing traffic."
"The solution has a great UI."
"The most interesting feature is the amount of information you can get from overseeing the system from a centralized place."
"The most valuable feature is the single management plane dashboard. Our organization has a global site, we have separated the area, and we have more than five hundred small sites around the world."
"Meraki Solutions setups make it one of the best products I have ever worked with."
 

Cons

"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."
"There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules."
"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."
"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."
"Its stability could be better."
"The reporting could be more granular."
"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."
"If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."
"The price could be improved, it's an expensive solution."
"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."
"Even though the monitoring is pretty good, there is some room for improvement there."
"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."
"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 price is the only thing that could be improved. Citrix is not a cheap solution."
"Overall, network security and next-generation firewall features are areas that they can improve on."
"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."
"Cisco should enhance the GUI interface to provide more details for users to troubleshoot."
"Meraki SD-WAN could improve by adding wireless access time-scheduled and overall capabilities."
"Overall, we are satisfied with the support, although I cannot state this unequivocally."
"Meraki SD-WAN has to significantly improve the company's network performance."
"The solution lacks a certain amount of functionality and features."
"With Meraki, it's more of a basic connectivity. It doesn't have all the feature sets that a Cisco SD-WAN solution has. It's limited."
"The granularity could be improved."
"It should be easier to install BGP and it should have a better backup."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"It is not too pricey."
"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"The solution is expensive."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"The price is relatively expensive."
"Citrix SD-WAN is quite an affordable product."
"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 license was a one-time purchase. It's 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."
"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's a little bit on the high side compared to the other products."
"I don't have information on the exact cost of Meraki SD-WAN, but I'd rate it a three out of five just because the licensing model is very much associated with the Meraki solution."
"The solution is a bit expensive when compared to other products."
"From the perspective of the customer, the price is not terribly cost-effective."
"If you purchase a Meeraki box, you have to purchase a license, and it's already the basic license, you will have you SD-WAN included."
"The licensing fees are approximately $1,000 USD annually."
"The product is not very expensive."
"Meraki's pricing is on the higher side, which may limit who can afford to use them."
"The product is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
6%
 

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 Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise32
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't really use the rule-based logic feature or utilize the WAF's ability to scale as a cloud-based service. I don...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I'm using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall on all my domains and any client domains I have; I set them up with a C...
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 advice do you have for others considering Citrix SD-WAN?
If a customer already has Citrix NetScaler and is not looking to change anything in their existing environment, we pr...
What do you like most about Meraki SD-WAN?
The auto VPN feature is important because it automates many tasks, making things simpler and faster. It helps with se...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki SD-WAN?
When compared for the long run, it is reasonable, but for the short term, such as one year, it is costlier, especiall...
What needs improvement with Meraki SD-WAN?
The pricing of Meraki SD-WAN depends compared to which vendors, because it's a bit pricey, so not all retail would go...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Citrix CloudBridge, WOC, NetScaler SD-WAN
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Cornerstone Home Lending Inc., Dallara, ecVision, Essar, Eurofred, Groupe Promutuel, HMSHost Corporation, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines Ltd, Royal Caribbean International
École Jeannine Manuel
Find out what your peers are saying about Cato Networks, Riverbed, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in WAN Optimization. Updated: January 2026.
882,744 professionals have used our research since 2012.