Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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

Sponsored
 

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

"The product has improved our security posture by blocking bad actors."
"The Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's most valuable feature is its ease of configuration."
"Technical support has a very fast response time and they are helpful."
"We like that there's load balancing, firewall capabilities, DDoS protection, et cetera, all covered by Cloudflare."
"The product has a valuable security control functionality."
"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."
"The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10."
"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."
"It lowered our Internet costs and gave me the flexibility to choose providers based on each location's connectivity."
"The solution is brilliant, the way it calculates its paths and trails is great."
"The solution's most valuable feature is load balancing."
"The SD-WAN solution as it is already is quite feature-rich and the upgrade process is very simple."
"The best feature is the backup capability, where all of the users' computers are tied into a central data repository."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability."
"The scalability and stability are quite good in general."
"They have a zero downtime failover mechanism, where, when there's a link failure or a link weakness, or bad link conditions, they provide the ability to fail back seamlessly."
"The most valuable feature is application awareness."
"Meraki SD-WAN is user friendly."
"The centralized console manageable from the cloud is one of the advantages."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of maintenance."
"The auto VPN feature is important because it automates many tasks, making things simpler and faster. It helps with setting up devices and changing configurations without manual effort."
"Meraki SD-WAN is stable and the performance is good."
"Tech support is willing to go the extra mile to resolve issues."
"In my experience, Meraki is very easy, simple, and clear to set up and use."
 

Cons

"If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."
"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."
"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."
"We don't even use Cloudflare Bot Management because it's too expensive; you need to pay per request, and it's much cheaper to get one or two additional machines."
"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."
"The platform's control features related to real-time authentication and response time need improvement."
"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."
"The price is the only thing that could be improved. Citrix is not a cheap solution."
"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 solution's licensing model could be improved."
"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."
"Enhancements are needed to improve the stability."
"I am happy with this product. If anything, its price can be reduced. It is a bit expensive."
"I would like to see support for additional reporting."
"I would like to either see the price reduced or have it packaged with other products to give better value for the money."
"From the vice perspective, they just are not as robust as some of the other vendors. They have limitations in throughput and the number of circuits that they can support on a wide area network. Their higher-end security is all cloud-based. They have some capability with the premise-based solutions, but the higher ends are all cloud-based, and that's via Cisco Umbrella."
"This solution can only support up to two WAN ports."
"The solution needs to enact more advanced protections."
"In Meraki SD-WAN, we have some limitations with the traffic shaping capabilities."
"Overall, we are satisfied with the support, although I cannot state this unequivocally."
"We have a lot of problems with distribution. The late deliveries likely have to do with the time it takes for the fabrication of components. It is a principal problem at this moment."
"The configuration from the firewall side could be improved a little bit more."
"There could be more options for integration between other devices — sort of being able to more easily make everything integrated in one solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"It is not too pricey."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"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 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."
"I believe that Citrix SD-WAN is a good investment, but I do not have the information to be more specific."
"The price of the subscription should be cheaper."
"The price is relatively expensive."
"As NetScaler is now, I find it quite pricey."
"The license was a one-time purchase. It's expensive."
"Citrix SD-WAN is quite an affordable product."
"The solution's pricing is in line with what we expected."
"They have a baseline software license, and then they've got an SD-WAN software license, and then they've got an advanced security software license. They're low cost, and they'll provide any amount of flexibility that you want from a modeling perspective for payment. Typically, it's either annually or multi-year, but they are a lower-cost company. They're not the most expensive by far."
"The tool offers term licenses. You have the same term licensing model available for all of your equipment, which is good for management."
"The licenses cost a fortune."
"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."
"Any license you buy until January 2021 gets you an extra year for that purchase."
"One of the most valuable aspects of Meraki SD-WAN is the price. It is highly cost-effective."
"The licensing fees are approximately $1,000 USD annually."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which WAN Optimization solutions are best for your needs.
883,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
8%
Government
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.
883,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.