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Ipanema IpIengine vs Steelhead comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 10, 2024

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

Ipanema IpIengine
Ranking in WAN Optimization
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Steelhead
Ranking in WAN Optimization
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
WAN Edge (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the WAN Optimization category, the mindshare of Ipanema IpIengine is 3.3%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Steelhead is 15.5%, up from 14.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
WAN Optimization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Steelhead15.5%
Ipanema IpIengine3.3%
Other81.2%
WAN Optimization
 

Featured Reviews

it_user143973 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Systems Admin at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
We tried KPN for 1 year, but ROI is not practical. Huge differences with IPANEMA.
WAN Acceleration Unlike other firewall and internet accelerator network device, it has its own IPS/IDS built in. Well improved performance. Acceleration and ACL (Access control list), IPS/IDS. Since January 2014 None There was an issue in regards to Heartbleed case and Orange Business service…
Chaudhary Muhammad Moez Manzar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Reduces operational costs through bandwidth optimization but struggles with high traffic licensing and complex deployments
The logs in Steelhead are fantastic. There is a deep level of logs such as top 10 docker and top 50 docker. I can check from the top 50 docker which type of application is optimizing well and which type of traffic is not optimized. Steelhead provides logs and percentage levels, which is good. I can see any type of log report, report security, different types of report availability, but it is not customizable. Overall, this is a good feature. Steelhead provides real-time optimization with graphs and tables on real-time optimization, informing us packet by packet including port, source IP, destination IP, and destination port number. This reporting and real-time monitoring is fantastic, although I faced a problem in Oracle. Steelhead mainly saves the money that needs to be paid to ISPs. 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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Application visibility is without doubt the strongest point of this product and the most valuable to me as a user."
"Making use of two connections per site we were able to minimize expensive MPLS connections and replace them with cheap internet lines with IPsec tunnels."
"In terms of ROI and features aside from other expensive IDS and IPS hardware, this product I recommend."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"It is very good at optimizing WAN traffic and it has so many more features on top of that which help global enterprises monitor, identify and police traffic by application type, IP subnet, source, and/or destination."
"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."
"Steelhead mainly saves the money that needs to be paid to ISPs; my actual traffic is around 2 GB, but I purchased a link from the ISP for only around 700 to 800 MB, and 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."
"Riverbed has excellent technical support."
"We've been very pleased with the solution and its capabilities over the years."
"I find the most valuable to be the compression and exchange replication."
"Through this product, we can easily find the bottlenecks and where the traffic occurs or is generated in the network."
 

Cons

"I suppose being able to set performance targets or QoS Profiles individually per location would be nice."
"Acceleration and ACL (Access control list), IPS/IDS."
"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."
"Currently what we have in the system can not support the software-defined networks, so I won't say it's scalable."
"The solution needs to have alert notifications."
"Steelhead is considered an expensive solution in our country. On a scale of one to ten for expense, it would be rated an eight."
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
"We had some stability problems with a few devices."
"Need to handle more traffic simultaneously."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Across our 12 data centers, we spend around $150k annually."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Outsourcing Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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...
What is your primary use case for Riverbed Steelhead?
I am currently working with Riverbed for replication between PR to DR for synchronization purposes, and for WAN optimization between replication from one data center to another data center. The mai...
What advice do you have for others considering Riverbed Steelhead?
Application performance may improve with Steelhead, but it varies application to application. Some applications, such as Oracle traffic, are not working well, but other traffic performs fine. The t...
 

Also Known As

IpIengine
RIverbed Steelhead
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Valeo, KBC, Henkel, Bouygues Telecom, Gemalto, VDABês, Globus, EADS, faurecia, Fiat, Renault Nissan, Safran, Valeo, Volvo, Aviva, Visa, L'Oreal, Hasbro, Moet & Chandon Champagne
ElAraby, SFK Leblanc, Bobst Group, Northwest Pipe Company, Halkbank, Tradebridge, EFG Hermes
Find out what your peers are saying about Ipanema IpIengine vs. Steelhead and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.