Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Meraki SD-WAN vs Peplink SpeedFusion comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Organizations achieve up to 80% WAN cost reduction with Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, enhancing scalability, flexibility, and connectivity efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.1
Meraki SD-WAN boosts ROI by reducing costs through easy management, remote capabilities, and features like VoIP integration.
Sentiment score
8.4
Peplink SpeedFusion improved network stability, reduced downtime, and increased productivity, while financial savings and technical support enhanced user satisfaction.
They are now back to do that with the remainder of their company, so they've realized the value in 12 months and are willing to invest in the remainder of their organization.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN's customer service is praised for its responsiveness, expertise, and superior support compared to competitors.
Sentiment score
6.9
Meraki SD-WAN's support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though integration clarity in complex cases can improve.
Sentiment score
4.6
Peplink SpeedFusion customer service is praised for quick responses and efficient support, though hardware support delays unit replacements.
I would rate Cisco's support, their customer service, and technical support as excellent.
I would consider Cisco support a 10 out of 10.
The principal third-level support is very good.
We raised it in TAC, and they were very approachable and supportive.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is scalable, integrates with Cisco products, offers flexible licensing, and is ideal for complex networks.
Sentiment score
7.6
Meraki SD-WAN scales well for SMBs, but faces challenges in large complex deployments despite improved enterprise traffic management.
Sentiment score
7.1
Peplink SpeedFusion is scalable, supports many users, simplifies adding sites/devices, and is praised for flexibility, reliability, and performance.
The ease of configuration and features like zero-touch provisioning enhance the scalability of Cisco SD-WAN, especially in disaster recovery situations.
Cisco SD-WAN is highly scalable and can be expanded to more than 10,000 sites.
Scalability depends on the model number of each switch, but generally, it is scalable according to need.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is stable and reliable, with improvements, though some challenges arise in complex setups and transitions.
Sentiment score
8.2
Meraki SD-WAN is highly stable, providing reliable performance, excellent remote access, and user-friendly management, despite minor cloud integration issues.
Sentiment score
8.2
Peplink SpeedFusion is praised for stability, secure VPN, failover, WAN smoothing, and seamless connectivity, ideal for broadcasting and banking.
While some software-related issues and bugs were encountered, they did not cause the whole environment to crash.
Sometimes it is not working in Azure or GCP as it has interoperability only with some clouds, so that part needs work.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is expensive with complex licensing, needs better security, management, documentation, UI, and improved support.
Meraki SD-WAN needs security, AI integration, reporting, scalability, customization, and pricing enhancements, plus better WAN optimization and support.
Peplink SpeedFusion needs better pricing, hardware support, advanced firewall, scalability, and security features for industrial and enterprise users.
Now, they change frequently, making it difficult to obtain long-term support.
The negative, or the downside of Cisco is the knowledge base; you need to be a little bit more tech-savvy and network-savvy to work with Cisco, while Juniper is a lot more user-friendly from what I can see, especially in terms of configuration and any kind of roll back.
Cisco can improve Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN by simplifying licensing and platform integration with other Cisco products such as Catalyst Center or solutions with Meraki.
VeloCloud provides much more detail and many more tabs for troubleshooting everything, such as ARP, IPv4, IPv6, TCP dumps, routing, and switching.
I work with Fortinet where with a single command you can deploy the entire SD-WAN along with FortiGuard within minutes.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is costly due to complex licensing and high pricing, favored by large enterprises for its features.
Meraki SD-WAN provides flexible subscription models and advanced features, offering competitive value despite higher costs than some competitors.
Peplink SpeedFusion offers a balanced value with higher costs, appealing lifetime licensing, and flexible pricing structures for customer preferences.
The pricing of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is rated between eight and nine out of ten, where ten is the most expensive.
Its pricing is justifiable due to the comprehensive solution it offers.
It is also relatively cost-effective for smaller businesses when using the Meraki version.
If the license expires in FortiGate, the basic functionality will work, but in Meraki SD-WAN, the entire system will shut down.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN offers centralized management, robust security, scalability, and seamless integration, enhancing performance and security for enterprises.
Meraki SD-WAN offers ease of use, real-time analytics, scalability, and cost-effective, flexible remote management for optimized performance.
Peplink SpeedFusion offers robust LTE, VPN, bonding, aggregation, and hot failover, ensuring network resilience and effective communication.
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN has integrated security features which include base firewall, URL filtering, IPS, and secure segmentation.
It also provides robust security features, including port security, analysis, mirroring, and multiple other security solutions.
Integration capabilities provide comprehensive security.
The architecture allows us to see whether the physical cable is connected or disconnected.
The real-time visibility and analytics capabilities of Meraki SD-WAN are very good for troubleshooting ports, especially when viewing traffic running on these ports in real time.
 

Mindshare comparison

Network Management Applications Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN2.6%
Cisco DNA Center23.5%
Cisco Catalyst Center8.9%
Other65.0%
Network Management Applications
Software Defined Networking (SDN) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Meraki SD-WAN21.6%
Cisco ACI13.8%
Omada Cloud SDN11.2%
Other53.39999999999999%
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Peplink SpeedFusion6.7%
Fortinet FortiGate19.9%
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN14.3%
Other59.1%
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
 

Featured Reviews

Henry Rosenstiehl - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive support and ease of implementation enhance operational efficiency
With Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, I have centralized orchestration and management. The transport independence of MPLS or connectivity and internet connectivity is another excellent feature. End-to-end segmentation is also provided. I use the application-aware routing feature. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN supports dynamic police-based routing decisions based on application type or different performance metrics such as jitter or latency. The benefit of that feature is that it improves user experience. The principal benefit of application-aware routing is that critical applications are prioritized or routed over the best performing paths to reduce outages and service degradation. There is full visibility of applications. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN has integrated security features which include base firewall, URL filtering, IPS, and secure segmentation, and it supports integration with other Cisco products such as Umbrella or Snort. This feature is beneficial for the client because the information is secure. It is important that Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN supports cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments for my organization because it allows for scalability and faster deployment in the cloud. It reduces operational needs because I don't need to manage physical controller hardware, and updates and maintenance can be centralized and automated. The zero-touch provisioning feature is very important for the speed of deploying new branch locations. I can deliver the device to the branch, and it is important because simplified deployment makes the implementation start more easily since devices are auto-configured and authenticate without manual intervention.
Mageshwaran S - PeerSpot reviewer
Experienced streamlined network management with enhanced usability and room for improved security features
On the security features, when compared to Fortinet, they have more patterns and AI-generated ones. Meraki SD-WAN is slowly implementing AI, but it is not yet full-fledged. If AI comes into the picture, it will be helpful. I work with Fortinet where with a single command you can deploy the entire SD-WAN along with FortiGuard within minutes. For AI, it can discover and connect, but currently, we are doing it manually. In Meraki SD-WAN, some features require additional licenses and subscriptions. If these were bundled together, such as 10 or 20 licenses, it would be very helpful for a mini branch or small campus area coverage.
Samuel Romero - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly, easy to install, and scalable
Peplink SpeedFusion needs a thin rail model for industrial solutions. The stability has room for improvement. Peplink SpeedFusion needs to have a heavy-duty heat sink on the case to perform better. Generally, what I found is that devices that have a heat sink on a case or, more weight on a case to absorb the heat, perform a little better. I get some areas where I'm right at the hundred and fifty degrees. So I've had a few failures not many, but I found more failures than a Cisco ISO eleven or a Moxa router. Those solutions have more mass to absorb the heat. Most failures have a lot to do with the case. That's why a lot of people have a hard time pushing Peplink SpeedFusion, and they want to move to Cradlepoint because they have a much more ruggedized case.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Management Applications solutions are best for your needs.
865,985 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise42
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise31
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco SD-WAN?
When considering the most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN, the decoupling of self-monitoring stands out significant...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco SD-WAN?
The pricing of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is rated between eight and nine out of ten, where ten is the most expensive.
What needs improvement with Cisco SD-WAN?
Cisco can improve Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN by simplifying licensing and platform integration with other Cisco products s...
What do you like most about Meraki SD-WAN?
The auto VPN feature is important because it automates many tasks, making things simpler and faster. It helps with se...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki SD-WAN?
When compared for the long run, it is reasonable, but for the short term, such as one year, it is costlier, especiall...
What needs improvement with Meraki SD-WAN?
On the security features, when compared to Fortinet, they have more patterns and AI-generated ones. Meraki SD-WAN is ...
What do you like most about Peplink SpeedFusion?
In the Philippines, VPN usage may not be widely known, but we leverage VPN effectively within my organization. I've s...
What needs improvement with Peplink SpeedFusion?
The product needs to aggregate the bandwidth of different ISPs. It needs to improve scalability as well.
 

Also Known As

Cisco SD-WAN
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Doyle Research, Ashton Metzler & Associates
École Jeannine Manuel
MIT Robotics Team, Intel, Apple, Google, Hootsuite, Northrop Gruman, Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola, Avocent, GE, VW, Marriott, Renaissance, WSI, Union /Pacific
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: July 2025.
865,985 professionals have used our research since 2012.