We performed a comparison between Prisma SD-WAN and Steelhead based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two WAN Edge solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."When it comes to supporting large, complex, network architectures, it's a very simple architecture. The main component is the fabric. It's very easy to troubleshoot if there is an issue happening in the underlying network."
"Prisma's analytics provide a lot of valuable data. I like the internet health chart that shows latency, dropped packets, MOS for data quality, etc. It also runs a continuous speed test in the background. I've used it multiple times to troubleshoot internet connections when the service provider has attempted to claim nothing is wrong with the circuit. It gives me data to send them showing we're not getting the speed we should, or there is constant packet loss."
"I like that the integration with Palo Alto is easy."
"If the MPLS goes down, there is a really smooth transition for a branch site to take traffic over the Internet. It will advertise the routes of that site in a jiffy."
"Prisma SD-WAN is intuitive. We have a better idea of the different tools we can use and jump between the menus quickly."
"The gateway is available on the cloud which allows you access from anywhere and still connects to your home gateway."
"From the main controller, we can administer the customer's devices, QoS, network, and traffic. We can monitor it and we can change and create policies as well as upgrade the software. We can totally control a customer's network from one site, the Prisma SD-WAN portal."
"The security offered by the solution is pretty good."
"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."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"TCP optimization... caches a particular TCP connection and the next time a user uses that connection he will reach the destination easily."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"I would also like to see improvement in the product training for customers. Palo Alto has not initiated very much training but they have to do so because this is a new product. If you have experience in a legacy environment, and you are moving to Prisma SD-WAN, you don't have a training framework. That is one of the disadvantages."
"The only con is the pricing because it's more premium."
"Event correlation and analysis capabilities do not help minimize the number of alarms from a single event. That is the problem. We are getting a lot of incidents, and there is some issue with the correlation. That is still a drawback."
"Prisma SD-WAN's technical support should be improved."
"Sometimes, during the product's initial setup phase, bypass pair or couple ports don't come up normally, and it requires an hour and a half to troubleshoot to reset the box from Prisma SD-WAN to factory default."
"I'd like to see them move more towards CASB."
"Customer support is our biggest pain point. The quality of support has gone down a little since we initially deployed this product. I don't know if this is due to turnover at Palo Alto or a lack of training. It is now taking one or two days to get an initial response that says, "Hey, we've looked into this, can you pull this data for us?" In the past, we'd immediately get a response."
"The tool needs to work on price and complexity."
"The product should offer more integration capabilities."
"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."
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
"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"
"Application response time and network performance could be improved."
"The product needs improvement in its integration with SDN."
"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 application response time of the solution can be improved."
Prisma SD-WAN is ranked 6th in WAN Edge with 12 reviews while Steelhead is ranked 14th in WAN Edge with 23 reviews. Prisma SD-WAN is rated 8.6, while Steelhead is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Prisma SD-WAN writes "A stable tool that offers a good uptime and ensures a return on investment". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Steelhead writes "Exceptionally stable and reliable but costly". Prisma SD-WAN is most compared with Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Cisco SD-WAN, Meraki SD-WAN and Fortinet FortiGate, whereas Steelhead is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform, Noction IRP and WAAS. See our Prisma SD-WAN vs. Steelhead report.
See our list of best WAN Edge vendors.
We monitor all WAN Edge reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
