

Steelhead and Fortinet FortiGate compete in network solutions, with Steelhead excelling in WAN optimization and Fortinet FortiGate in network security. Steelhead holds the upper hand in optimization due to its advanced data management capabilities. Meanwhile, Fortinet FortiGate excels in comprehensive security features.
Features:Steelhead provides tools such as data reduction, TCP optimization, and application streamlining to enhance data transfer speeds and manage WAN connections effectively. Additionally, it boasts real-time graphs for monitoring WAN connection performance. Fortinet FortiGate offers robust capabilities in network security, including antivirus, VPN, and intrusion prevention system (IPS). It is notably adaptable across various platforms and deployment scenarios, using its unified threat management (UTM) applications to suit diverse environments.
Room for Improvement: Steelhead could enhance its handling of high-availability scenarios to avoid session restarts and also improve scalability and integration with SDN environments. Users desire better technical support from the company. Fortinet FortiGate faces pricing competition challenges and users call for improvements in integration with other products. There is also room to simplify its user interface and improve support quality, logging, and reporting tools.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Steelhead primarily operates in on-premises settings with well-received technical support. However, deploying the device in complex scenarios can present challenges and rely heavily on local teams. In contrast, Fortinet FortiGate provides versatile deployment options across on-premises, public, and hybrid clouds, appreciated for this flexibility but has room for improvement in the speed and efficiency of its support services.
Pricing and ROI: Steelhead's high pricing encompasses expenses for licensing and service contracts, justified by significant bandwidth savings through its optimization capabilities. While Fortinet FortiGate's costs also come under scrutiny, it generally is seen as more cost-effective than other high-end solutions, offering a transparent pricing structure. Despite its expensive licensing, Fortinet FortiGate balances these costs with extensive security features, delivering notable value to its users.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
The automation part is giving us a cost benefit and speed; we can react faster.
It's a very useful tool to mitigate and protect your enterprise.
Without Steelhead, we would have spent much more on bandwidth costs.
The quick resolution of issues with Fortinet FortiGate is due to the support of the company and the fact that the equipment is easy to work with.
I would rate the technical support for Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
As a solution provider, when I encounter problems, I connect directly with Fortinet support, and they provide solutions within a very short time.
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.
They scale up really well from smaller models like the FortiGate 40 and 50 to bigger sites with the FortiGate 100 for more throughput - up to enterprise datacenters.
The variation comes in terms of the interfaces and throughputs, but from a security perspective, you get the same benefit, irrespective of whether you have an entry-level unit or an enterprise.
We determine sizing based on multiple factors: number of users, available links, traffic types, server count, services in use, and whether services will be published.
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.
We're experiencing 99.999% availability consistently.
I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
Currently, we are experiencing a general outage of one of the main internet service providers of the Dominican Republic, and we have not been impacted in our operations because with SD-WAN, we have another internet service provider and we are working with the second WAN connection without any disruption.
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.
These sessions should be around five to ten minutes long, allowing users and partners to quickly grasp the information without disrupting their daily tasks.
The solution should be able to implement machine learning and analytics of all the logs for threat detection and protection.
It would be better for customers to get immediate replacements even with a standard subscription.
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.
Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us.
It offers cost savings as it is generally cheaper than the competition.
It is about 20% cheaper.
Buying the hardware initially is costly, but yearly maintenance and licenses are not as expensive.
Steelhead is considered an expensive solution in our country.
We got a firewall and gave an SSL VPN to my client to connect to their servers, after which, such kind of activities involving ransomware attacks stopped.
They put in a thing called the FortiCookbook, which is very easy to read with real-life scenarios that make networking tasks like joining networks very straightforward.
The firewall and VPN features are the most valuable in protecting our customers' networks.
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 (%) |
|---|---|
| Fortinet FortiGate | 14.5% |
| Steelhead | 1.9% |
| Other | 83.6% |


| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 361 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 135 |
| Large Enterprise | 190 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 5 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 7 |
| Large Enterprise | 14 |
Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.
Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.
What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.
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.
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