Aruba Orchestrator vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and VMware are both solutions in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.8, while VMware is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.2. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 0.7% mindshare in SDW, compared to VMware’s 10.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of VMware users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN and Aruba Orchestrator are strong contenders in the SD-WAN market. VMware VeloCloud appears to have the upper hand with its advanced Dynamic Multipath Optimization, integration with cloud services, and dashboard visibility.

Features: VMware VeloCloud features Dynamic Multipath Optimization (DMPO) enhancing link quality, zero-touch provisioning for simplified setup, and seamless integration capabilities with cloud services. Aruba Orchestrator focuses on WAN optimization, intent overlay for easier network management, and provides a single pane of glass view for comprehensive network visibility.

Room for Improvement: VeloCloud could benefit from enhancing its security features and expanding its global support network while offering better pricing models and user-friendly documentation. Aruba Orchestrator needs simpler management menus, more deployment flexibility, and better reporting capabilities with improved dynamic security certificate management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware VeloCloud provides flexible deployment options across private, public, and hybrid cloud environments but faces challenges in technical support consistency. Aruba Orchestrator is straightforward for hybrid and on-premises deployments, facing some complexities due to fewer configuration touchpoints. Aruba's support is generally positive with room for enhancements in training and documentation.

Pricing and ROI: VMware VeloCloud is competitive yet pricey, justified by its features, offering ROI through improved productivity over time, particularly for large-scale deployments. Aruba Orchestrator is seen as more cost-effective with subscription-based models that eliminate maintenance contracts, providing an appealing cost-to-feature ratio for enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Aruba Orchestrator vs. VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Orchestrator vs. VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

April 2025

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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

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 20.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aruba Orchestrator is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN is 10.3%, up from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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Aneesh K

IT Solution Analyst II at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Provides complete internal visibility from LAN to Wi-Fi, resulting in higher stability and easier troubleshooting

Aruba has plenty of solutions showcased at this event. Perhaps they offer their firewall, which we are not currently utilizing—the LAN switching, ClearPass, and Wi-Fi. ClearPass is is still on-premises, but the switching, Wi-Fi, and security features are included. It has some capabilities, like automation intelligence, which they call AI operations. So it is helpful. Our time spent on troubleshooting will be significantly reduced with it. Another useful feature is that we can inquire about the health data from Aruba Central and receive the necessary answers. Aruba Central simplifies management. Yes, deployment will be much faster than on-premises setups, where you need many hardware gateways. With just an access point or minimal hardware, deployment will be quicker. Troubleshooting with it has also made it much more straightforward. A group of ten people should be more than sufficient to manage an extensive infrastructure. Aruba is providing better support. They are also improving their email services. They are up to market standards, so we choose to go with them. We were looking for a direct vendor, but they didn't meet our requirements. Aruba Orchestrator is meeting our current expectations and standards, so we are sticking with them. We don't have any issues because we have been with Aruba for many years. We don't mind moving from one vendor to another. We are simply transitioning from one rental type to another with Aruba. I prioritize enhancements in AI functionality over other features. There are several implementations, with AI being the primary focus. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

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Sami-Isoaho

Principal Cloud Architect at Loihe

To fully utilize cloud vendors' hardware networking, Microsoft and VMware support everything

To improve the product, the company, alone or with a good partner, should manufacture their own hardware brand with boxes to make the product more shippable. Implementing VMware is much more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive than implementing Fortinet or Check Point. With Fortinet, you pay a couple of hundred dollars for hosting and a low-cost firewall, there's only one box to ship to each site, and it's much easier to manage. Moreover, it would be easy for the large telecom operators and system integrators to sell the solution. It would also be a good fit for customers with multiple small offices, who I currently advise to choose hardware-vendor SD-WAN solutions over VMware.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very user-friendly."

"The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."

"Fortinet FortiGate positively provides my clients' organizations with a high return on investment."

"You can purchase switches and you don't need to do anything with them. You just put in the firewall and the switches get all the policies and rules that you already have in the firewall. With Fortinet, you just connect the FortiSwitch to the Fortinet and that's it."

"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."

"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."

"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."

"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The Business Intent Overlay is a great feature."

"We had to deal with separate management models for Wi-Fi and switches. With Aruba Orchestrator, it's now a unified solution, making things much easier for us. We log in and manage everything from a single console. It provides complete internal visibility from LAN to Wi-Fi, resulting in higher stability and easier troubleshooting. The management process is much quicker and more streamlined."

"The technical support services are excellent."

"The most important feature is WAN optimization."

"The product has reduced OpEx expenditure."

"The most valuable feature is optimization."

"Aruba Orchestrator has notably reduced enrollment setup times from several hours to within an hour if prepared and planned."

"The solution has a single pane of glass view that allows you to see everything happening in your SD-WAN world."

"The biggest feature is called D.M.P.O., or Dynamic Multipath Optimization, which is one of the technologies that they use to deliver or ensure data integrity."

"I would absolutely recommend VeloCloud because it's user-friendly and because the integration is easier than with other solutions."

"The setup is very straightforward."

"VMware has been chosen by many of our customers who do not want to do a lot of complex routing in their environment and want a very easy-to-use solution. The most valuable features are simple troubleshooting, Dynamic Multipath Optimization (DMPO), and cybersecurity."

"VMware SD-WAN is scalable."

"We define the quality of service layer to improve their application service experience globally."

"I love the solution because of its many features like cluster and cloud VPN."

"I find the application-aware routing feature to be the most valuable."

More VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN pros

Cons

"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."

"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more capabilities for troubleshooting VPN connections. For example, I do get some feedback about the current status, but I could use some history and logging of important events. The information is logged in our Syslog server, but I could use that information from the device. If they could provide a GUI to have some more insight on what's going with my VPN would be useful."

"Fortinet already improved FortiGate, but in the current market, many brands of security devices have improved together. Fortinet still needs to catch up with market standards. Fortinet is lacking in features in comparison to competitors."

"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."

"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."

"In my opinion, Fortinet FortiGate could be improved by making the appliance smaller than what we have here, as it is pretty big."

"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"Aruba Orchestrator should implement dynamic certificate changes for security."

"The initial setup is complex, depending on the overall planning for the entire environment."

"The solution lacks sufficient security features."

"They could provide essential training to understand the product functionality."

"The management menu should be simplified."

"The solution can be improved by lowering the cost and making it more user-friendly for first-time users."

"In an upcoming release, the solution can be more functional and have additional features."

"VMware SD-WAN is harder than Cisco. It is complex, and we must take many steps to get the service. I think it would be beneficial if obtaining licenses could be simplified. Currently, numerous options and integrations are bundled together, which can make it quite complex."

"The initial setup of VMware SD-WAN was simple. However, it took six days to complete."

"VMware SD-WAN can improve on the security features."

"Some of the service providers that use VeloCloud as their SD-WAN should be enabled to have better global visibility."

"I would like for them to upgrade to 5G integration. Our customers have 4G now and the connectivity isn't good. It should be much faster."

"In an upcoming release, they should allow customers the flexibility to use mobile applications where they can go and check on the information about their networks. A lot of vendors, such as Meraki, have a lot more integration with the use of portals to a mobile application. Having this feature as an alternative to logging into a laptop would be beneficial. If you are a SaaS-based company why not make a mobile application as well. You might not be able to do configurations but at least monitor while away or on vacation."

"Security is a challenge. I would like to see VMware add things like IPS, IDS, and web filtering. These features are the future of security, and most competing firewalls have them."

More VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of Fortinet FortiGate is competitive and not expensive compared to other enterprise- grade solutions. On average, the license cost per year is around seventy percent of the firewall's purchase price."

"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."

"These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive. Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco."

"The price depends on the size of the company. From the beginning, you just want to know the internet bandwidths, speed, and the number of users to be able to offer the right product and model. They have a lot of products in FortiGate according to the size of the company, like 200D and 300D."

"The price of FortiGate is reasonable as I plan to buy new switches. The initial gadgets are already booted, and the pricing seems normal on the market. As for additional costs, I haven't subscribed to many extra features, so I'm only using what I need. Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us."

"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."

"At the time we bought them, I was satisfied with their pricing; I don't know how the new pricing will be."

"The price, in comparison to other products is very cheap."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"I think it is quite expensive compared to other vendors in the market because it depends on what kind of features you really want to acquire in the product."

"I rate the platform’s pricing a five out of ten."

"The solution's licensing costs are yearly. It is not expensive, and I rate it around three to four out of ten."

"Aruba Orchestrator is free to use."

"I would rate the product’s pricing a six out of ten since the license is costly."

"The price of VMware SD-WAN is less expensive than some solutions, such as Cisco."

"The price of this solution should be lower."

"VeloCloud performs as well as the Cisco SD-WAN but it is cheaper in price."

"You need to pay for a license to use this product."

"The licensing model of VMware SD-WAN could be improved, it is not always that competitive. The biggest concern is to be competitive against other solutions. However, the way that the licensing model is designed is not corresponding to the real use cases of my customers."

"We pay about $500 USD, or 700,000 Korean won."

"The price is reasonable for this solution, but the only challenge for us is that the Rand currency fluctuates to the dollar and provides some complexities. The price might go up just because the Rand has actually lost value."

More VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

See all answers

What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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What do you like most about Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator?

The most important feature is WAN optimization.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator?

Aruba Orchestrator is free to use.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator?

The management menu should be simplified.

See all answers

What are the biggest differences between Fortinet Fortigate and VMware SD-WAN?

One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. It is a very ...

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What do you like most about VMware SD-WAN?

One of the key use cases for VMware SD-WAN was assisting a customer in the industrial zone. They required virtualized...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware SD-WAN?

The pricing is high, making the margin thin, which limits mark-up opportunities from the wholesale price.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Aruba Orchestrator

Compared 36% of the time

More Aruba Orchestrator Competitors

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Compared 18% of the time

Meraki SD-WAN vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Compared 12% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Compared 6% of the time

Peplink SpeedFusion vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Compared 6% of the time

BigLeaf vs VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Compared 2% of the time

More VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Aruba Orchestrator

April 2025

Download Aruba Orchestrator product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

April 2025

Download VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator, Unity Orchestrator

VMware SD-WAN, VeloCloud

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Aruba Orchestrator has an intuitive interface that allows you to centrally define, assign, and enforce policies across the WAN. Network managers experience the highest quality of experience to:

Centrally define, assign and enforce policies based on business intent to secure and control all application traffic across the WAN.

Orchestrator dashboards provide real time visibility into SD-WAN health and performance in a single screen, monitoring traffic throughput along with loss, latency and jitter across overlays and underlays.

Maintain the highest levels of application performance by automatically assigning application and security policies across 100s or 1000s of sites, including automated orchestration with cloud security services.

Central orchestration of network functions including SD-WAN routing, firewall, segmentation, WAN optimization, application visibility and control, and automated orchestration with cloud security services.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

VMware Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is a secure access service edge (SASE) platform that combines many types of software-based network technologies in an attempt to enable users to virtualize their wide area networks and reduce their reliance on hardware. In essence, this solution makes it possible for users to reliably access their applications from anywhere in the world by leveraging cloud technologies. Users can simply, efficiently, and completely control their network devices and traffic. It ensures that organizations are always able to use the best possible connection to their data centers. VMware SD-WAN steers traffic so that it is always using the most reliable connections and at the same time takes steps to remediate any problems that it detects in other network links. This guarantees that organizations can access high-priority applications at all times.

VMware SD-WAN Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by deploying VMware SD-WAN include:

Reduced cost of network management. Organizations that choose to employ VMware SD-WAN can manage their network at a cost that is 2.5 times less expensive than what it costs to use traditional WAN architectures. Its ability to both augment existing hardware and replace said hardware if the user chooses to do so is part of what enables users to reduce their overhead costs.

Ease of deployment. VMware SD-WAN makes it possible for organizations to deploy it without having to rely on the assistance of technical experts. When the device - whether virtual or otherwise - is connected to the internet, it integrates with a central orchestrator that pushes the correct integrations to the device in question. This automates the installation process and makes it so that anybody can initiate and follow the deployment through to the end of the process.

Easily segment networks to improve environmental performance. Users can divide their networks into multiple segments that share a single IP address. These networks can be incorporated into an organization’s IT infrastructure and enable it to run more reliably. One way it does this is by providing multiple potential channels for data to use to travel in the event that one of the data pathways is suffering from some kind of issue.

VMware SD-WAN Features

Centralized monitoring. VMware SD-WAN is monitored at all times by a centralized orchestrator. From one place, an organization can watch every part of its network. Instead of having to search for the data they need, it can all be found in one location.

Integration capabilities. VMware SD-WAN offers users the capability to integrate their network with the environment of their choosing. This enables them to connect their network to the IT environment that best meets their needs. It makes it easy for them to work with multi-cloud and hybrid environments.

Real-time data analytics. VMware SD-WAN can analyze network data in real time. This makes it easy for users to monitor their network’s performance. It also allows them to take steps to quickly remediate any issues that arise before they can become worse.

Reviews from Real Users

VMware SD-WAN is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its ability to automate the process of creating and maintaining a virtual local area network and its intuitive user dashboard.

Sami I., principal cloud architect at Loihe, writes, “One of the solution's most valuable features is the VMware core automation stack at an SDDC. It includes NSX, the VMware virtualization layer for the networks (the LAN virtualization), which works extremely well with the VMware SD-WAN solution and is the primary advantage over all the others. None of the other vendors could integrate with the virtual LAN, making it quite complicated and virtualized to be fully automated.”

Chih S., senior technical consultant at a tech services company, says, “The product has a very good user dashboard that is simple to navigate.”

VMware

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Information Not Available

Redmond, Coca Cola, Roka Bioscience, MetTel, Deutsche Telekom, Rockford Construction, The Bay Club, tru Independence, Triton Management Services, DevCon, AXPM

Buyer's Guide

Aruba Orchestrator vs. VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

April 2025

Free Report: Aruba Orchestrator vs. VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN

Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba Orchestrator vs. VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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