Steelhead and Cradlepoint NetCloud are two prominent products in network optimization and management. Cradlepoint NetCloud is often regarded as superior due to its robust features.
Features: Steelhead is highly valued for its WAN optimization, improving application performance, and data transfer efficiency. Cradlepoint NetCloud stands out with comprehensive cloud management capabilities and LTE connectivity. Users find that Cradlepoint's features are more versatile, catering to a broader range of networking needs.
Room for Improvement: Steelhead users seek enhancements in user interface intuitiveness and integration with newer technologies. Cradlepoint NetCloud users desire better performance consistency and more detailed documentation. Steelhead may need to modernize its interface, while Cradlepoint can improve reliability and support materials.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Steelhead deployment is generally straightforward, with users highlighting effective customer service. Cradlepoint NetCloud also has an easy deployment process but is often praised for superior customer support and in-depth training sessions. Both products are user-friendly, but Cradlepoint is better in support services offered.
Pricing and ROI: Steelhead's setup costs are seen as reasonable, with a strong return on investment attributed to its optimization capabilities. Cradlepoint NetCloud tends to have higher setup costs but justifies this with significant ROI due to its comprehensive feature set and cloud management benefits. Users find Cradlepoint's higher price worth the investment for its advanced functionalities.
Without Steelhead, we would have spent much more on bandwidth costs.
I have worked very closely with Cradlepoint for several years and would rate their customer service as being among the best.
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.
Cradlepoint products support scalability very well in medium to large enterprise environments.
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.
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.
The company realizes that there's a need for affordable connectivity products, especially for lower-end medium enterprises or larger small enterprises.
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.
Cradlepoint's pricing is viewed as market competitive, offering good value for the money invested.
Buying the hardware initially is costly, but yearly maintenance and licenses are not as expensive.
Steelhead is considered an expensive solution in our country.
Cradlepoint supports the option for wireless to be a primary means of connectivity, rather than just a backup.
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 | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Steelhead | 1.6% |
| Cradlepoint NetCloud | 3.3% |
| Other | 95.1% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 5 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 7 |
| Large Enterprise | 14 |
Cradlepoint’s NetCloud is an integrated platform that connects modern enterprises from the Edge to the cloud to ensure pervasive connectivity and greater availability. It combines advanced Enterprise Software-Defined Network (SDN) and Software-Defined Perimeter (SD-P) technologies that enable dynamic connectivity and network management of fixed branch locations, vehicles, and M2M/IoT deployments within one pane of glass platform.
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.
We monitor all WAN Edge reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
