

Steelhead and Check Point Cloud Firewall vie in the network security arena, each with unique strengths. Check Point has a competitive edge with its adaptable security management across hybrid clouds, while Steelhead leads in WAN optimization.
Features: Steelhead excels with WAN optimization, offering data compression, adaptive transfer schemes like "warm transfer," and real-time optimization graphics. Check Point Cloud Firewall shines with advanced threat detection, centralized security management, and auto-scaling across cloud platforms, providing comprehensive security.
Room for Improvement: Steelhead needs better handling of encrypted traffic, interface-specific traffic monitoring, simplified configuration, and enhanced integration capabilities. Check Point Cloud Firewall could benefit from improved third-party tool integration, simpler deployment for new users, and enhanced documentation and policy configuration.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Steelhead offers an efficient on-premises deployment with strong technical support but can struggle with complex issues. Check Point Cloud Firewall offers adaptability across hybrid cloud environments but initial setup may require assistance, although its support and technical assistance are professional.
Pricing and ROI: Steelhead offers substantial ROI through reduced bandwidth costs but comes with higher initial expenses. Check Point Cloud Firewall offers flexible, competitive pricing tailored to different enterprise sizes, but some perceive its costs as high compared to competitors like Fortinet.
The value lies in maintaining operational integrity with zero downtime or incidents, facilitating secure, ongoing business operations.
The compliance has improved as our overall compliance score against CIS benchmark has improved from around 72 to 92% within the first three months of adoption.
This helped my team cut manual review time by roughly twenty to twenty-five percent, allowing me to reallocate effort to proactive cloud security improvements.
Without Steelhead, we would have spent much more on bandwidth costs.
They usually respond quite fast, and they are very knowledgeable about what they do.
We had an endless loop of emails trying to fix this, and the suggestion was to reinstall the gateway and do it from scratch, which was not an option at that point because it would leave that specific location without access.
Available twenty-four by seven.
Steelhead's support is generally good for typical issues yet can be time-consuming during complex problem-solving across teams, particularly for Active Directory integration.
I have no issues with technical support from Riverbed.
Riverbed's customer service and technical support would be rated an eight.
Visibility scales without performance issues as my environment expands.
It is capable of managing the increased load and performs well as our needs expand.
I can deploy it everywhere I need it.
If a customer has 1 GB traffic, they will only be able to utilize 600 MB of traffic with Steelhead.
It allows us to maximize use from our MPLS providers by handling traffic efficiently across phased deployments.
If there are errors, it is sometimes challenging to elaborate or troubleshoot since it is not transparent enough to understand what to search for.
I have not observed any downtime.
For instance, when we are working on a release and do an upgrade, we start experiencing unexpected issues.
It's quite stable and provides all necessary alerts if something is wrong.
For instance, even if there is a power failure, Riverbed still works.
Steelhead helps significantly with large data transfers.
Scalability could be improved as well; needing to purchase a new license each time I want to add a new interface is not ideal.
Better documentation would be welcome.
The user interface could be more intuitive, and the initial setup and configuration can be complex, requiring a technical team.
Steelhead is very expensive, and the vendor should work on handling Oracle type of traffic better.
It would help if Riverbed could prevent such drastic impacts during updates.
It could still be useful in places with satellite communications, such as the south of Chile, or in the mining industry.
The pricing and licensing are expensive, costing between seven thousand to eight thousand dollars.
Check Point is expensive, however, with the features and capabilities, I can justify the cost.
It is the highest in the market.
Buying the hardware initially is costly, but yearly maintenance and licenses are not as expensive.
Steelhead is considered an expensive solution in our country.
One of the most valuable features is the automated threat prevention, which helps us detect and block potential cyberattacks in real-time, minimizing data breaches.
Centralized management is the feature I like best, resulting in reduced workload and more continuous policy.
Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid and cloud as well as on-prem.
Functions like acting as an NTP server, DNS, DHCP, and auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency.
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.
Steelhead's most valuable feature is its ability to hash and send only the important parts of the information, avoiding the resending of data.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) | 4.1% |
| Steelhead | 2.3% |
| Other | 93.6% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 132 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 55 |
| Large Enterprise | 138 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 5 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 7 |
| Large Enterprise | 14 |
Check Point Cloud Firewall, previously known as CloudGuard Network Security, provides advanced threat prevention, centralized management, and VPN capabilities, enabling robust cloud security across various platforms including Azure and AWS.
Check Point Cloud Firewall delivers seamless cloud integration with advanced automated threat prevention and centralized management to enhance security posture. It offers auto-scaling for dynamic environments and a comprehensive policy enforcement framework in hybrid settings. The unified interface streamlines administration across cloud infrastructures, ensuring consistent protection and reducing risk.
What important features does it offer?In manufacturing and conglomerate sectors, Check Point Cloud Firewall is utilized for protecting cloud environments and implementing network segmentation. It supports secure cloud migration on AWS, Azure, and GCP, ensuring compliance, perimeter defense, and traffic inspection, facilitating sophisticated threat prevention strategies.
Steelhead is designed to optimize WAN performance by reducing data load and enhancing network efficiency. It utilizes advanced data compression and caching techniques to improve speeds and manage bandwidth, crucial for cost reduction.
Steelhead offers enhancements in data throughput and network optimization with its ability to improve TCP and WAN efficiency. Organizations benefit from scalable data referencing and adaptive transfer schemes that simulate LAN-like speeds over WAN. Its monitoring features provide insights into network dynamics, although potential improvements are noted in areas like QoS configuration and handling encrypted traffic. Users also recognize challenges in upgrading, GUI design, and monitoring tools.
What are Steelhead's key features?Steelhead is widely used in industries like banking and distribution for optimizing traffic between data centers and ensuring efficient branch connectivity. It addresses latency problems, boosts application performance, and helps reduce data traffic. In environments with limited bandwidth, its features ensure critical data is prioritized, creating significant cost savings.
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