We compared Cato Networks and Cisco SD-WAN across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Cato Networks provides useful features like continuous VPN, web filtering, and antivirus capabilities. Users appreciate its simplicity and efficiency. Cisco SD-WAN is praised for its service quality, real-time traffic visibility, and automation capabilities.
Room for Improvement: Cato Networks could enhance its security measures by incorporating a web application firewall feature and improving intrusion detection. Cisco SD-WAN should enhance its connectivity to prominent cloud providers and incorporate additional security features.
Ease of Deployment: Users have found the initial setup process for Cato Networks to be straightforward, and it takes only a short time. Cisco SD-WAN can be more complicated and may require expert help. While some users found it to be easy, others encountered difficulties and uncertainty during the setup.
Service and Support: Cato Networks' customer service is commended for its prompt and involved assistance during implementation. Some reported occasional issues with support consistency and internal communication. While some Cisco SD customers found the support to be outstanding, others encounter delays and challenges in connecting with the appropriate personnel.
Pricing: Cato Networks offers flexible pricing based on bandwidth and socket type, while Cisco SD-WAN has received mixed feedback regarding its cost. Cato Networks is regarded as competitively priced and affordable, whereas Cisco SD-WAN is perceived as pricier compared to its rivals.
ROI: Cato Networks provides noticeable cost savings and efficiency improvements within a year, resulting in a positive return on investment. Cisco SD-WAN offers flexibility and scalability, leading to long-term benefits and cost reduction.
Comparison Results: Cato Networks offers valuable features like always-on VPN and web filtering. However, it lacks advanced networking capabilities and a web application firewall. The pricing is reasonable but slightly higher compared to some competitors. Cisco SD-WAN is a highly scalable solution with a comprehensive feature set and scalability, but it requires improvements in stability and native connectivity to cloud providers.
"The feature that I find to be the most valuable is the bandwidth aggregation."
"The product is efficient and easy to use."
"It's a cloud-based solution that integrates well with everything."
"When I first encountered Cato, I didn't know how to use it, but after a week of training, I could onboard our systems to it, so the solution was easy to learn and navigate."
"It is quite simple and easy to use."
"What I found most helpful in Cato Networks is that it works out of the box. One of its main advantages is that it's a simple product to deploy. You subscribe, and you're ready to run."
"The visibility control and security aspects are amazing."
"The WAN aggregation feature is the most valuable."
"The technical support is very responsive."
"The first part that we like is that we can reuse certain hardware, which is a valuable asset. You can use hardware SKUs that already exist in the network. The second part that we like is the integration with the cloud and the measurement of the cloud's quality. These are the two values that this solution gives as compared to other implementations that we have seen."
"There is minimum blind space in this solution."
"It's a scalable solution."
"It is very stable with very good firmware."
"The reliability is high and we have only had to restart it once or twice over the years."
"Troubleshooting is swift, allowing for fast turnaround times whenever we encounter an issue."
"The solution's application control and application traffic steering tool are its most valuable aspects in terms of how we utilize the product."
"Cato Networks security could be better."
"A little tweaking or improvement of the UI in terms of logging when troubleshooting would be an improvement because it's very detailed."
"The different languages in the user interface should be enhanced."
"Cato Networks could improve their intrusion detection. There is not a lot in place."
"There's no principal in Malaysia, only a distributor."
"We would like the product to continue to improve its security."
"The tool needs to be more granular. Its reports are not very in-depth."
"They should add more sophisticated security features. It should also be integrated into the cloud."
"The initial setup is really complex."
"The solution should not be so bound to ISPs."
"Cisco needs to improve the technical support for this solution."
"Cisco SD-WAN's clustering mechanism needs to be improved. If there are more than five milliseconds of latency time between installations of the VM manager, the cluster automatically breaks down."
"The cost is too high for certain countries, for example, those in Africa. The solution needs to be more cost-effective."
"Customers require features that are secure for endpoints, on-premises, and for the cloud."
"Cisco products are a little bit complicated, so making them a little bit easier would be an improvement."
"This solution is expensive so pricing is a concern."
Cato SASE Cloud Platform is ranked 5th in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 21 reviews while Cisco SD-WAN is ranked 1st in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 86 reviews. Cato SASE Cloud Platform is rated 8.8, while Cisco SD-WAN is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cato SASE Cloud Platform writes "Useful remote worker VPN, centralized management, and simple on-boarding process". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco SD-WAN writes "A solution for integrating services to enhance up-time, performance and lower costs". Cato SASE Cloud Platform is most compared with Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet FortiGate, VMware SD-WAN and Cisco Umbrella, whereas Cisco SD-WAN is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Meraki SD-WAN, VMware SD-WAN, Juniper Session Smart Router and Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform. See our Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs. Cisco SD-WAN report.
See our list of best Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions vendors and best WAN Edge vendors.
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