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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

"It is a SaaS solution unlike much of the competition."
"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."
"The setup process is very simple for me."
"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."
"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."
"The initial setup process is simple."
"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."
"It's pretty convenient and pretty easy to set up and run. And then kind of for static content, it also offers caching."
"The SD-WAN solution as it is already is quite feature-rich and the upgrade process is very simple."
"The most valuable feature is security, as it gives me the port bindings that cannot be accomplished using other solutions."
"The most valuable feature of Citrix SD-WAN is customization. You are able to customize the solution to your needs."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability."
"We are using it widely for the local record for SaaS-based applications. Another valuable feature is a local breakout."
"The tool is quite cost-effective because it replaces the need for MPLS, which is a bit expensive...Citrix SD-WAN doesn't need much maintenance."
"The solution's most valuable feature is load balancing."
"The stability is the main feature of Citrix SD-WAN. You can also upgrade the data packages or have less transmission."
"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 features of SD-WAN are very appealing because you have a centralized dashboard and multiple options to terminate. You have an internet leased line, which means that you can connect your broadband and 3G and 4G cellular networks on the same router. This makes it easy for us to manage everything on a single dashboard. That is, you can integrate multiple stacks in such a way that you do not have to maintain any other dashboard. You get single-pane-of-glass accessibility with Meraki."
"Meraki SD-WAN is a very stable and scalable solution with good technical support."
"We have found the product to be quite scalable."
"The dashboard is user-friendly. It's very simple to use."
"We can control and monitor everything."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The Meraki interface is really well driven and very mature."
 

Cons

"There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules."
"If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."
"The reporting could be more granular."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."
"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."
"The learning curve was steep initially."
"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."
"They need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long."
"I would like to see support for additional reporting."
"The solution's licensing model could be improved."
"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's knowledge base has a few missing things, so you may need to seek help from support."
"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."
"The only improvement for Citrix SD-WAN would be to lower its cost."
"Enhancements are needed to improve the stability."
"The price could be improved, it's an expensive solution."
"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."
"Some of the on-premise security features of Meraki SD-WAN are on the cloud and some of my customers do not want to use the cloud. They should have on-premise security features for those that do not want to use the cloud."
"They stopped doing WAN optimization as a feature set, which is lacking. They need to relook at that and consider WAN optimization as an option."
"The port density should be improved because this solution is limited to two."
"There is still some work to do when it comes to AI."
"Meraki SD-WAN has to significantly improve the company's network performance."
"Meraki is lagging behind in using a single pipe from service providers. That is, it would be good if they could use both the internet leased line and broadband connectivity."
"Cisco should enhance the GUI interface to provide more details for users to troubleshoot."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not too pricey."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"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."
"Citrix SD-WAN is quite an affordable product."
"The license was a one-time purchase. It's expensive."
"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's a little bit on the high side compared to the other products."
"I believe that Citrix SD-WAN is a good investment, but I do not have the information to be more specific."
"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."
"There are no licensing costs for the product subscription."
"From the perspective of the customer, the price is not terribly cost-effective."
"Our clients pay Meraki an annual licensing fee and the pricing is not too bad when compared to other products in the Cisco portfolio."
"The price of Meraki SD-WAN could improve, it is expensive when compared to other solutions on the market, such as Aruba."
"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 pricing is fair, but if they can make it less it would be even more attractive."
"I am not aware of the licensing fees."
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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.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.