Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] vs Steelhead comparison

Broadcom and Riverbed are both solutions in the WAN Optimization category. Additionally, 83% of Broadcom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Riverbed users who would recommend it.

Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL]

Read 5 Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] reviews

83% willing to recommend

Steelhead

Read 26 Steelhead reviews

1,193 Views
656 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL]

Steelhead

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] and Steelhead based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cato Networks, Riverbed, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in WAN Optimization.

To learn more, read our detailed WAN Optimization Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

WAN Optimization

January 2026

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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

Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Steelhead

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

WAN Optimization (2nd), WAN Edge (10th)

Featured Reviews

Suhas Suryavanshi

Information Security Engineer at M.Tech

Granular control over website access has lead to decreased bandwidth and increased performance

If you have previously worked on the product then it is quite simple. However, if you are new to it then the implementation is a little bit tricky. On the Cloud Proxy, the deployment takes less than one day. If you are using the ProxySG or the on-premises solution, it will take one to two weeks depending on the policy configuration, the size of the organization, and what kinds of policies are needed. The number of staff you need to maintain the solution depends on the size of the organization, and how many changes occur on a daily basis. If you have one thousand employees then you need at least one employee to look after it.

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Chaudhary Muhammad Moez Manzar

Senior manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Reduces operational costs through bandwidth optimization but struggles with high traffic licensing and complex deployments

The logs in Steelhead are fantastic. There is a deep level of logs such as top 10 docker and top 50 docker. I can check from the top 50 docker which type of application is optimizing well and which type of traffic is not optimized. Steelhead provides logs and percentage levels, which is good. I can see any type of log report, report security, different types of report availability, but it is not customizable. Overall, this is a good feature. Steelhead provides real-time optimization with graphs and tables on real-time optimization, informing us packet by packet including port, source IP, destination IP, and destination port number. This reporting and real-time monitoring is fantastic, although I faced a problem in Oracle. Steelhead mainly saves the money that needs to be paid to ISPs. My actual traffic is around 2 GB, but I purchased a link from the ISP for only around 700 to 800 MB. All the prices that need to be paid monthly to the ISP are saved, which is a significant saving for my company after using Riverbed.

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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

"Proxy Solution and ADN and their integration capability with Blue Coat director are positive features."

"Since the implementation of this solution, the bandwidth has decreased and the performance in terms of Internet access has increased."

"It features intuitive proxy policy deployment using a VPN."

"Steelhead mainly saves the money that needs to be paid to ISPs; my actual traffic is around 2 GB, but I purchased a link from the ISP for only around 700 to 800 MB, and all the prices that need to be paid monthly to the ISP are saved, which is a significant saving for my company after using Riverbed."

"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."

"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's most valuable feature is its ability to hash and send only the important parts of the information, avoiding the resending of data."

"Scalable data referencing is a great feature."

"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 compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."

"There are several features specific to branches, like keeping data hot and active on Steelhead devices. These features prevent unnecessary data travel across the international LAN."

More Steelhead pros

Cons

"We cannot automate the product since the IP address can only be assigned after acquisition of the serial number."

"It lacks deployment over multiple platforms and integration with SDN architecture."

"It would be great if the product had inbuilt queuing for Quality of Service."

"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."

"The traffic is passing, but Oracle DB traffic experiences lag and slowness due to Steelhead, while other applications perform fine."

"The product should offer more integration capabilities."

"The traffic is passing, but Oracle DB traffic experiences lag and slowness due to Steelhead, while other applications perform fine."

"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."

"There was a significant challenge when moving from an older version to a newer one due to changed quality of service policies."

"Oracle DB traffic experiences lag and slowness due to Steelhead, while other applications perform fine."

More Steelhead cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Additional features, such as Flash Proxies, have their own licensing fees that depend on what the requirements are."

"Across our 12 data centers, we spend around $150k annually."

"The solution is expensive and the service contacts are costly too. The cost of the device makes the value proposition borderline acceptable for us. The service contract fees we pay is approximately $30,000 annually."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Manufacturing Company

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

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What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

We just did an assessment for our 47 datacenters around North America. The top two enterprise-level network monitoring solutions were ExtraHop first, Riverbed SteelCenter second. Their negotiated c...

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What do you like most about Riverbed Steelhead?

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.

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What is your primary use case for Riverbed Steelhead?

I am currently working with Riverbed for replication between PR to DR for synchronization purposes, and for WAN optimization between replication from one data center to another data center. The mai...

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Comparisons

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

WAN Optimization

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Steelhead

January 2026

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Also Known As

No data available

RIverbed Steelhead

Overview

ProxySG appliances provide complete control over all your web traffic, delivering world-class threat protection. Robust features include user authentication, web filtering, data loss prevention, inspection, and visibility of SSL-encrypted traffic, content caching, bandwidth management, stream-splitting and more.

Broadcom

Steelhead is the leading network optimization and application performance solution chosen by over 30,000 organizations worldwide. The performance of networks and applications directly impacts business productivity. Riverbed draws from nearly two decades of experience in driving network and application performance over Wide Area Networks with its flagship offering, SteelHead. SteelHead delivers the underlying technology that helps enterprises of all sizes maximize the efficiency and performance of the networks and applications used to run modern business.

SteelHead is proven to dramatically speed up the performance of applications anywhere in the organization while delivering the best end-user experience even under sub optimal network conditions. Reduce bandwidth utilization by up to 95%, deferring costly network bandwidth upgrades. Increase performance by up to 100x for on-premises applications.

Riverbed

Sample Customers

Global Technology and Material Manufacturer

ElAraby, SFK Leblanc, Bobst Group, Northwest Pipe Company, Halkbank, Tradebridge, EFG Hermes

Find out what your peers are saying about Cato Networks, Riverbed, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in WAN Optimization. Updated: January 2026.

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