Huawei Enterprise Routers vs Steelhead comparison

Huawei and Riverbed are both solutions in the WAN Edge category. Huawei is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0, while Riverbed is ranked #13 with an average rating of 9.0. Huawei holds a 2.4% mindshare in WE, compared to Riverbed’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 77% of Huawei users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Riverbed users who would recommend it.

Huawei Enterprise Routers

Read 25 Huawei Enterprise Routers reviews

1,096 Views
788 Comparison Views

77% willing to recommend

Steelhead

Read 25 Steelhead reviews

729 Views
377 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Huawei Enterprise Routers

Steelhead

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Steelhead and Huawei Enterprise Routers are prominent products in the networking market. Based on features and overall performance, Huawei Enterprise Routers have the upper hand, while Steelhead is noted for its deployment and customer service.

Features: Steelhead users value its WAN optimization, bandwidth efficiency, and reliability. Huawei Enterprise Routers are praised for robust security, extensive connectivity options, and high scalability.

Room for Improvement: Steelhead needs enhancements in integration capabilities, flexibility, and more detailed reporting. Huawei Enterprise Routers require improvements in documentation, technical support, and user interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Steelhead is recognized for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Huawei offers detailed configuration options and is seen as more complex to deploy with mixed reviews on customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Steelhead generally has lower initial setup costs and a decent ROI. Huawei Enterprise Routers have higher setup costs but users find the investment justified by advanced features and long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed Huawei Enterprise Routers vs. Steelhead Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Huawei Enterprise Routers vs. Steelhead

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:

Categories and Ranking

Huawei Enterprise Routers

Ranking in WAN Edge

8th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Routers (4th)

Steelhead

Ranking in WAN Edge

13th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

WAN Optimization (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the WAN Edge category, the mindshare of Huawei Enterprise Routers is 2.4%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Steelhead is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

WAN Edge

Featured Reviews

Udochi Ododo

Manager, Technical Planning and Solutions Design at Galaxy Backbone Ltd

Easy to configure and troubleshoot, but they need more visibility in the licensing model

Huawei needs to be a bit more open with their licensing model. What I find is that when you buy equipment, you expect that you have a particular feature. By the time you want to use that feature, you realize that you need to acquire a license for it. That is the one thing that I think they need to improve on. Essentially, they need to open their licensing model such that when a customer buys a device, they have a full view of all of the available licenses for it. It's not at the time of use that the customer will now be informed that they need to purchase an additional license.

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Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

Auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency & bandwidth saving, best layer 7 QoS shaping policy can be achieved with ease

There are several features specific to branches, like keeping data hot and active on Steelhead devices. These features prevent unnecessary data travel across the international MPLS. Additionally, functions like acting as an NTP server, DNS, DHCP for branches and auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency along with really good QoS for bandwidth shaping.

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

"The product is easy to improve and deploy in terms of configuration for engineers and technical executives."

"When we started, the connection was amazing for the 100G between the switches and the co-switch. What the students typically use for school is a maximum is 40 so they now have faster technology."

"The initial setup is easy."

"We use the solution for point-to-point connectivity, aggregation, and radio connectivity on mTLS."

"Overall we have found the solution to be satisfactory."

"The solution provides support for 5G connectivity."

"I use the product to connect to various access points to extend my network."

"The configuration syntax makes it easy for us to configure the device and perform troubleshooting when needed."

More Huawei Enterprise Routers pros

"Steelhead is stable, and it can even help you avoid service interruption in the event of a power outage. If your hardware fails, technical support will replace your device quickly."

"Scalable data referencing is a great feature."

"Steelhead has drastically improved user experience."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."

"There are several features specific to branches, like keeping data hot and active on Steelhead devices. These features prevent unnecessary data travel across the international LAN."

"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."

More Steelhead pros

Cons

"We have found we have to restart the routers or reconfigured them a lot of the time, this issue should improve. The quality of the hardware needs to be more durable."

"We'd like the product to be more flexible so that we could more easily manipulate some of the features."

"It would be better if local storage management was more flexible, so that unused data could be easily removed."

"The internet service for enterprise bundle should be improved."

"The documentation is somewhat lacking and not easy to navigate."

"Essentially, they need to open their licensing model such that when a customer buys a device, they have a full view of all of the available licenses for it."

"There is not much of a technical team for Huawei available in Pakistan as compared to Cisco with respect to very complex networks."

"The configuration is complex and should be simplified."

More Huawei Enterprise Routers cons

"There was a significant challenge when moving from an older version to a newer one due to changed quality of service policies."

"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."

"Application response time and network performance could be improved."

"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"

"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."

"The product should offer more integration capabilities."

"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."

More Steelhead cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable compared to Cisco's."

"Huawei offers a cheaper enterprise router solution than Cisco."

"The price of the solution is fair."

"The tool's licensing is yearly."

"There is no licence for this solution, but the solution could be cheaper."

"These routers are not too expensive."

"The product is inexpensive, but there is an extra cost for replacement of the device."

"There are additional licensing costs. I am aware of additional licenses and which services are added to the router."

More Huawei Enterprise Routers pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive and the service contacts are costly too. The cost of the device makes the value proposition borderline acceptable for us. The service contract fees we pay is approximately $30,000 annually."

"Across our 12 data centers, we spend around $150k annually."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

University

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Huawei Enterprise Routers?

The solution provides support for 5G connectivity.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei Enterprise Routers?

The product is very cheap and offers a huge discount as they are trying to enter the market. However, you have to pay extra for some services and support.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Huawei Enterprise Routers?

The documentation is somewhat lacking and not easy to navigate. There are some errors and misleading information. The general appearance of the company site is also not user-friendly for downloadin...

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

We just did an assessment for our 47 datacenters around North America. The top two enterprise-level network monitoring solutions were ExtraHop first, Riverbed SteelCenter second. Their negotiated c...

See all answers

What do you like most about Riverbed Steelhead?

One of our most valuable features is Steelhead's cloud migration optimization. Moving to the cloud helped optimize our workflow, improving performance for end-users.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Riverbed Steelhead?

In the past, we have sold a lot of Steelhead ( /products/steelhead-reviews ) for retail companies, insurance companies, some finance companies, and some engineering companies. Steelhead ( /products...

See all answers

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WAAS vs Steelhead

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Huawei Enterprise Routers

April 2025

Download Huawei Enterprise Routers product report

Buyer's Guide

Steelhead

April 2025

Download Steelhead product report

Also Known As

No data available

RIverbed Steelhead

Overview

Huawei Enterprise Routers AR G3 Series Routers, the AR G3 all-in-one router series integrates multiple services including; routing, switching, 3G, WLAN, voice, and security functions in one device.

Huawei

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.

Riverbed

Sample Customers

Bus Online, VisionChina Media Inc. (VisionChina), China Network Television (CNTV), Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, ABC, BovenIJ hospital

ElAraby, SFK Leblanc, Bobst Group, Northwest Pipe Company, Halkbank, Tradebridge, EFG Hermes

Buyer's Guide

Huawei Enterprise Routers vs. Steelhead

April 2025

Free Report: Huawei Enterprise Routers vs. Steelhead

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