We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate and Steelhead based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two WAN Edge solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"A strong point of FortiGate is the graphical interface is complete and easy to use."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls."
"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"The connectivity to speed is the valuable feature."
"TCP optimization... caches a particular TCP connection and the next time a user uses that connection he will reach the destination easily."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"Scalable data referencing is a great feature."
"SteelHead works from the application. I use it to optimize traffic from Amazon. It is mainly used for customers who need to increase the traffic to 33K. For other users, it has been more of an operation."
"I find the most valuable to be the compression and exchange replication."
"I would like to see improvements in the support from Fortinet. Here in the Philippines, whenever we have problems with a Fortinet product, we mostly ask for support from distributors and resellers and not directly from Fortinet."
"Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."
"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"The solution needs to have alert notifications."
"The application response time of the solution can be improved."
"If we load a primary firewall, the secondary firewall usually handles all the active connections, but in Riverbed, this isn't the case. We lose all the active connections at the moment of failure."
"They should include a network switch in a future release."
"I would like to see improvement in the solution’s configuration and protocol aspects. We have got some configurations that are not set. I would also like to simplify the call detection of some protocols."
"The product should offer more integration capabilities."
"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"
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 1st in WAN Edge with 306 reviews while Steelhead is ranked 15th in WAN Edge with 22 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Steelhead is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Steelhead writes "Exceptionally stable and reliable but costly". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Check Point NGFW, whereas Steelhead is most compared with Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform, WAAS, Citrix SD-WAN, Noction IRP and Cisco SD-WAN. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Steelhead report.
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