Juniper Contrail SD-WAN vs Steelhead comparison

Juniper and Riverbed are both solutions in the WAN Edge category. Juniper is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.7, while Riverbed is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.4. Juniper holds a 1.7% mindshare in WE, compared to Riverbed’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Juniper users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Riverbed users who would recommend it.

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN

Read 7 Juniper Contrail SD-WAN reviews

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568 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Steelhead

Read 26 Steelhead reviews

1,037 Views
653 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN

Steelhead

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Steelhead and Juniper Contrail SD-WAN are both SD-WAN solutions. Juniper Contrail SD-WAN seems to have the upper hand due to its robust features.

Features:Users highlight Steelhead's WAN optimization, ease of use, and strong pricing. Juniper Contrail SD-WAN stands out with advanced routing capabilities, cloud integration, and a comprehensive feature set.

Room for Improvement:Users suggest Steelhead could improve reporting capabilities, third-party tool integration, and configuration complexity. Juniper Contrail SD-WAN users seek enhancements in configuration simplicity, a more intuitive dashboard, and streamlined processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Steelhead is praised for straightforward deployment and excellent customer service. Juniper Contrail SD-WAN's deployment can be complex, but users commend its customer support. Steelhead is easier to deploy.

Pricing and ROI:Steelhead is noted for competitive pricing and satisfactory ROI. Juniper Contrail SD-WAN, despite higher costs, is seen as delivering good ROI due to its extensive capabilities and performance.

To learn more, read our detailed Juniper Contrail SD-WAN vs. Steelhead Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN vs. Steelhead

December 2025

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Helped 881,082 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

4.9

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN offers enhanced performance, faster deployments, cost efficiencies, robust security, and improved visibility, simplifying management and reducing errors.

Sentiment score

4.8

Steelhead optimized WAN usage, saving £50,000 in costs, improving bandwidth efficiency, and enhancing user experience without extra investments.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Juniper Contrail SD-WAN report

Without Steelhead, we would have spent much more on bandwidth costs.

Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

For more quotes and insights, download the Steelhead report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

1.0

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN support is rated highly, with responsive service and effective assistance from Juniper and local partners.

Sentiment score

7.0

Steelhead's customer service is efficient and knowledgeable, but local support and handling complex issues need improvement.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Juniper Contrail SD-WAN report

I have no issues with technical support from Riverbed.

Chaudhary Muhammad Moez Manzar

Senior manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

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.

Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

Riverbed's customer service and technical support would be rated an eight.

JaimeVasquez

Commercial Manager at IT-Experience

For more quotes and insights, download the Steelhead report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

6.8

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN excels in scalability for large enterprises, despite security challenges and evolving competition from companies like Fortinet.

Sentiment score

6.9

Feedback on Steelhead scaling varies, with easy deployment praised, but licensing and bandwidth limitations noted by some users.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Juniper Contrail SD-WAN report

If a customer has 1 GB traffic, they will only be able to utilize 600 MB of traffic with Steelhead.

Chaudhary Muhammad Moez Manzar

Senior manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

It allows us to maximize use from our MPLS providers by handling traffic efficiently across phased deployments.

Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

For more quotes and insights, download the Steelhead report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

6.5

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN is praised for stability and reliability, with users favoring it over Cisco and reporting no performance issues.

Sentiment score

8.6

Steelhead offers reliable network optimization with stability, smooth upgrades, and effective technical support for seamless traffic flow and high availability.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Juniper Contrail SD-WAN report

If the power is unplugged from Riverbed, it goes into fail-to-wire mode.

Chaudhary Muhammad Moez Manzar

Senior manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

It's quite stable and provides all necessary alerts if something is wrong.

Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

Steelhead helps significantly with large data transfers.

JaimeVasquez

Commercial Manager at IT-Experience

For more quotes and insights, download the Steelhead report

Room For Improvement

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN needs better training, user-friendly demo, improved support, integration, marketing, and optimized cost and UI/UX design.

Steelhead users desire improved traffic handling, integration, scalability, security features, intuitive setup, and comprehensive monitoring amid cost concerns.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Juniper Contrail SD-WAN report

Steelhead is very expensive, and the vendor should work on handling Oracle type of traffic better.

Chaudhary Muhammad Moez Manzar

Senior manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

It would help if Riverbed could prevent such drastic impacts during updates.

Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

It could still be useful in places with satellite communications, such as the south of Chile, or in the mining industry.

JaimeVasquez

Commercial Manager at IT-Experience

For more quotes and insights, download the Steelhead report

Setup Cost

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN offers cost-effective, flexible licensing with competitive pricing, ensuring excellent ROI for large enterprises.

Steelhead is costly but valued for performance and support, with complex licensing and varied pricing by usage.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Juniper Contrail SD-WAN report

Buying the hardware initially is costly, but yearly maintenance and licenses are not as expensive.

Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

Steelhead is considered an expensive solution in our country.

JaimeVasquez

Commercial Manager at IT-Experience

For more quotes and insights, download the Steelhead report

Valuable Features

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN boosts security, visibility, and performance, excels in cloud integration, and simplifies operations through automation and acquisitions.

Steelhead enhances WAN efficiency with data compression, TCP optimization, and caching, benefiting performance, bandwidth, and cloud migration cost savings.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Juniper Contrail SD-WAN report

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.

Chaudhary Muhammad Moez Manzar

Senior manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Functions like acting as an NTP server, DNS, DHCP, and auto-optimization mode enhance efficiency.

Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

Steelhead's most valuable feature is its ability to hash and send only the important parts of the information, avoiding the resending of data.

JaimeVasquez

Commercial Manager at IT-Experience

For more quotes and insights, download the Steelhead report

Categories and Ranking

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN

Ranking in WAN Edge

11th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (18th)

Steelhead

Ranking in WAN Edge

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

WAN Optimization (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the WAN Edge category, the mindshare of Juniper Contrail SD-WAN is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Steelhead is 1.6%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

WAN Edge Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Steelhead	1.6%
Juniper Contrail SD-WAN	1.7%
Other	96.7%

WAN Edge

Featured Reviews

Ivan Sandano

Solution Architect at Posteo

Has automation features but provisioning new branches or making changes to the existing ones is difficult

I've worked with several SD-WAN solutions over the past few years, and the product felt more like an automated provisioning tool. Unlike solutions from Palo Alto or other SD-WANs orchestrated by a SaaS solution, Juniper Contrail SD-WAN already had the files and built their SaaS to orchestrate the configuration. Initially, you didn't do much, but then it started adding some routing capabilities. The automation features do help with network operations. Manually configuring SD-WAN is complicated, so the automation simplifies that. However, the initial SD-WAN solution had many limitations, particularly regarding its features. At some point, the tool began looking for other solutions and bought the 128T, which led to implementing a different SD-WAN approach. It also acquired another company for its session smart router, and then it began to develop the exact SD-WAN solution on the Mist Cloud.

Read full review

Chaudhary Muhammad Moez Manzar

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.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Manufacturing Company

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Large Enterprise	1

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Juniper Contrail SD-WAN?

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Juniper Contrail SD-WAN?

My advice regarding setup costs, pricing, and licensing for Juniper Contrail SD-WAN would be to carefully evaluate and position the solution in line with competitive offerings, especially consideri...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Juniper Contrail SD-WAN?

There might be additional features that would be beneficial to have in the Juniper Contrail SD-WAN solution, including potential design improvements and UI/UX issues that have been observed.

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?

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 34% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Juniper Contrail SD-WAN

Compared 13% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Juniper Contrail SD-WAN

Compared 9% of the time

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WAAS vs Steelhead

Compared 10% of the time

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Steelhead

Compared 10% of the time

Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform vs Steelhead

Compared 8% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Steelhead

Compared 8% of the time

Vcinity UltimateX RadicalX vs Steelhead

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN

January 2026

Download Juniper Contrail SD-WAN product report

Buyer's Guide

Steelhead

January 2026

Download Steelhead product report

Also Known As

Contrail SD-WAN

RIverbed Steelhead

Overview

Contrail SD-WAN delivers a simple, automated multicloud SD-WAN. It enables you to create an evolvable architecture to simplify growth, from secure routers to SD-WAN, SD-Branch, and beyond. It automates the WAN edge across Juniper virtual cloud endpoints and on-premises next-generation firewall or universal CPE platforms. And it provisions and enforces multilevel security policy at scale, across multiple clouds and enterprise sites with diverse topologies.

Juniper

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

Allied Pinnacle

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

Buyer's Guide

Juniper Contrail SD-WAN vs. Steelhead

December 2025

Free Report: Juniper Contrail SD-WAN vs. Steelhead

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