Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Meraki SD-WAN vs Prisma SD-WAN comparison

The compared Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN and Meraki SD-WAN solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is ranked #6 in NMA , with an average rating of 8.1. Meraki SD-WAN is ranked #1 in SDN , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 23.2% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Meraki SD-WAN users who would recommend it.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

Read 94 Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN reviews

129 Views
67 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Meraki SD-WAN

Read 77 Meraki SD-WAN reviews

1,592 Views
1,029 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Prisma SD-WAN

Read 22 Prisma SD-WAN reviews

2,541 Views
1,267 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

Meraki SD-WAN

Prisma SD-WAN

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, Meraki SD-WAN, and Prisma SD-WAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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Network Management Applications

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:

Featured Reviews

Igor Van Den Ouden

Engineer at Routz

Enables secure and flexible branch connectivity with application-aware routing

The valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN include its security policies and zone-based firewall that are applied to every site, as well as application-aware routing. Security is standard compliant, eliminating config drift that was prevalent before manual configurations. Application-aware routing offers flexibility in using different lines for traffic, depending on the policy implemented.

Read full review

Martyn Walker

Business development manager at Virgin Media

Enables productivity in terms of users and has ease of management

Scalability could be improved. Yes, you can add more than 300 or 400 sites onto it, but because it's not a true SD-WAN and, effectively, it's just a Multi-VRF, it's all hub and spoke at that point. That's the nature of the design, but that's what keeps it simple to administer. So, it's a trade off.

Read full review

Engineerinfosec67

Senior Information Security Engineer at Westcon-Comstor

Centralized management streamlines global network traffic control

Prisma SD-WAN requires a more seamless integration with other Palo Alto solutions, like Prisma Access. Although there has been improvement, further steps can be taken. Additionally, it would be beneficial if the solution integrated the SD-WAN features of Prisma SD-WAN with the security features of Palo Alto's next-generation firewalls, as they currently do not align.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution comes with comprehensive technical support."

"It is really easy to deploy and use. It is also easy to use for failovers and designing solutions. The rollout is really quick. It is easy to adjust and roll out."

"Load balancing is a feature that allows us to take the best of our links and distribute the load intelligently, always with an eye on the end-customer experience."

"The most valuable features, application awareness, and failover resilience, stand out as key considerations for users."

"There have been no issues with stability."

"Cisco SD-WAN is valued for its operational efficiency and ease of operation."

"The scalability is the most valuable feature."

"Cisco SD-WAN's collaborative features are unique and sustainable. I also like the protocols, which use two SD-WAN."

More Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN pros

"The seamless end-to-end setup is really what makes it beautiful; that's why Meraki is good."

"The dashboard is user-friendly. It's very simple to use."

"It's made managing our client's networks extremely easy, regardless of my location. Being able to hop on my cell phone to see what's happening on a client's network makes everything much more manageable."

"The most interesting feature is the amount of information you can get from overseeing the system from a centralized place."

"The solution's ability to prioritize traffic is its most valuable feature."

"Meraki SD-WAN is scalable."

"Meraki SD-WAN is user friendly."

"The solution has a great UI."

More Meraki SD-WAN pros

"The implementation of the solution is easy."

"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."

"It is flexible to use the internet connection via local breakouts without going to data centers."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the visibility of the logs."

"The solution allows our network to be self-healing in the event of a loss of connectivity between different locations."

"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."

"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."

More Prisma SD-WAN pros

Cons

"The user interface needs improvement. Users should be able to find various features faster without much tweaking."

"There should be more security features in the hybrid and on-premise deployments of Cisco SD-WAN. The cloud has most of the security features."

"Cisco's router and voice gateway has not been available since the launch of SD-WAN."

"Cisco needs to improve the technical support for this solution."

"In the next release, Cisco should focus on simplifying the configuration of SD-WAN. SD-WAN has a lot of room to grow."

"Some competitors are much faster in providing out-of-the-box solutions, more innovative solutions. In terms of innovation, in many cases, they're lagging behind."

"I would like to see a better, web-based interface to make changes to the configuration or to view statistics."

"Compresson deduplication should be added."

More Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN cons

"Meraki SD-WAN could be improved by including full feature routing functions similar to a normal Cisco router."

"The only area for improvement in Meraki SD-WAN is its licensing model, as well as its cost structure."

"Scalability could be improved. Yes, you can add more than 300 or 400 sites onto it, but because it's not a true SD-WAN and, effectively, it's just a Multi-VRF, it's all hub and spoke at that point. That's the nature of the design, but that's what keeps it simple to administer. So, it's a trade off."

"Overall, we are satisfied with the support, although I cannot state this unequivocally."

"Regarding the integration part, the VPN connection for third parties needs to be elaborate."

"In Meraki SD-WAN, we have some limitations with the traffic shaping capabilities."

"This vendor has issues with the supply chain that need to be improved."

"A run optimization feature is needed to reduce the bandwidth for any uploaded content."

More Meraki SD-WAN cons

"Prisma SD-WAN's technical support should be improved."

"Accessibility could be improved. Any new person attempting to access Prisma will have difficulty. It doesn't have CLI available."

"The product could be a bit cheaper for the services it provides."

"The pricing model could be improved to make it more affordable for smaller companies."

"Prisma SD-WAN can be built on top of a couple of hardware platforms, including the Palo Alto Next-Generation Firewall or the CloudGenix infrastructure."

"We initially had challenges with AIOps, which was overwhelming, and could benefit from simplification or improved training."

"There are two parallel things that we want Palo Alto to work on. First, customers want a unified appliance that does the work of all firewalls in addition to SD-WAN. Second, the cloud presence should be completely automated. If I purchase the SASE architecture, I shouldn't worry about deployments in Prisma Access or on Prisma SD-WAN. It should be deployed in one go."

"Prisma SD-WAN should provide more flexibility and scalability on the hardware."

More Prisma SD-WAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For 600 links, the license for Cisco SD-WAN costs us US$250k a year."

"The product is not too expensive."

"The product's license is expensive."

"The initial cost is quite significant, but the investment is worthwhile."

"This is not a cheap option but if you move from Capex to Opex, I expect you should have lower costs."

"Cisco is more expensive than FortiGate."

"Cisco is more expensive than some competing products."

"It is going to be on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."

More Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is fair, but if they can make it less it would be even more attractive."

"The pricing is reasonable and we can choose the software or the feature."

"I don't have information on the exact cost of Meraki SD-WAN, but I'd rate it a three out of five just because the licensing model is very much associated with the Meraki solution."

"The licensing fees are approximately $1,000 USD annually."

"The product is not expensive."

"Our clients pay Meraki an annual licensing fee and the pricing is not too bad when compared to other products in the Cisco portfolio."

"Regarding pricing, Meraki SD-WAN is quite competitive, especially compared to solutions like Fortinet. However, it's essential to consider that Meraki requires cloud orchestration, which adds to the overall cost. Overall, it's one of the most competitive solutions from Cisco for SD-WAN."

"The price can vary depending on the challenges that you need to address. When you look at the stability and reliability against the price, you absolutely get the value for the price."

More Meraki SD-WAN pricing and cost advice

"Prisma SD-WAN is a pretty expensive solution."

"If you're already invested in a Palo Alto product, it would be logical to use this solution. If not, there might be some other solutions that are more viable in terms of pricing."

"It is more expensive than Fortinet."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"This solution stood out because it cost considerably less than the other SD-WAN solutions out there from Cisco."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

43%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

21%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco SD-WAN?

The durability of the switches could be improved. In the past, Cisco devices had a longer lifespan. Now, they change ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

The price is a little bit higher than local vendors, for example, Huawei ZTE or H3C. However, some customers require ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Meraki SD-WAN?

They have to ask us many questions about configurations. It could be improved with some automation to trigger, for ex...

See all answers

What do you like most about Prisma SD-WAN?

The product's initial setup phase is straightforward.

See all answers

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

The product could be a bit cheaper for the services it provides.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Prisma SD-WAN?

I think the product could be a bit cheaper, but otherwise, I am satisfied with it.

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiGate vs Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

Compared 15% of the time

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

Compared 12% of the time

Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform vs Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

Compared 8% of the time

Peplink SpeedFusion vs Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

Compared 7% of the time

Juniper Session Smart Router vs Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

Compared 4% of the time

More Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Competitors

Omada Cloud SDN vs Meraki SD-WAN

Compared 21% of the time

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Meraki SD-WAN

Compared 16% of the time

Cradlepoint NetCloud vs Meraki SD-WAN

Compared 7% of the time

Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform vs Meraki SD-WAN

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco ACI vs Meraki SD-WAN

Compared 5% of the time

More Meraki SD-WAN Competitors

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Prisma SD-WAN

Compared 22% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Prisma SD-WAN

Compared 17% of the time

Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform vs Prisma SD-WAN

Compared 10% of the time

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Prisma SD-WAN

Compared 8% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Prisma SD-WAN

Compared 5% of the time

More Prisma SD-WAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

April 2025

Download Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN product report

Buyer's Guide

Meraki SD-WAN

April 2025

Download Meraki SD-WAN product report

Buyer's Guide

Prisma SD-WAN

April 2025

Download Prisma SD-WAN product report

Also Known As

Cisco SD-WAN

No data available

CloudGenix

Overview

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN serves to connect remote offices, reduce MPLS costs, and facilitate cloud and internet access while providing secure connectivity and centralized management for hybrid networks.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is leveraged for secure connectivity, load balancing, VPN, centralized network management, and migrating from traditional networks to SD-WAN. It supports hybrid networks, enabling centralized management across branches and data centers, improving security, and optimizing bandwidth usage. Industries such as banking and retail benefit from its capabilities for secure and efficient network management.

What are the main features of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN?

Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations and administration.
Application-Level Routing: Enhances performance for critical applications.
Segmentation: Provides robust network segmentation for security.
Policy Configuration: Customizable policies for traffic management.
Real-Time Traffic Visibility: Enables monitoring for better insights.
Load Balancing: Distributes network traffic efficiently.
Hybrid Cloud Connectivity: Seamless integration with cloud services.
Deep Packet Inspection: Detailed traffic analysis for security.
High Security: Offers strong security protocols to protect the network.
Ease of Deployment: Features like zero-touch provisioning simplify setup.

What benefits should be considered in reviews?

Cost Savings: Reduces operational expenses through efficient network management.
Reliability: Proven performance and uptime for critical operations.
Scalability: Grows with the organization's needs.
Integrated Health Monitoring: Proactively identifies and resolves issues.
Industry Trust: Cisco's reputation for quality and support.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN's implementation in banking enhances secure transaction communication between branches and data centers. Retailers utilize it to ensure steady connectivity for point-of-sale systems and inventory management. Organizations benefit from centralized management, making it easier to handle networks across multiple locations.

Cisco

Software-defined WAN is a new approach to network connectivity that lowers operational costs and improves resource usage for multi-site deployments, allowing network administrators to use bandwidth more efficiently and ensure the highest possible level of performance for critical applications without sacrificing security or data privacy. For more information on deploying and configuring SD-WAN on the Meraki MX Security Appliance, see the Meraki SD-WAN Deployment Guide.

Cisco

Simplify management, enable app-defined SD-WAN policies and deliver a secure, cloud-delivered branch today with the Industry’s first next-generation SD-WAN.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

Doyle Research, Ashton Metzler & Associates

École Jeannine Manuel

Open Networking User Group, Columbia Sportswear Company, Coca Cola

Buyer's Guide

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April 2025

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