Peplink SpeedFusion vs SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN comparison

Peplink and Riverbed are both solutions in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category. Peplink is ranked #8 with an average rating of 10.0, while Riverbed is ranked #26. Peplink holds a 5.0% mindshare in SDW, compared to Riverbed’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Peplink users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of Riverbed users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Peplink SpeedFusion and SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

December 2025

Download the complete report

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:

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 13.9%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Peplink SpeedFusion is 5.0%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate	13.9%
Peplink SpeedFusion	5.0%
SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN	0.9%
Other	80.2%

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

Read full review

Samuel Romero

Field data engineer at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees

User-friendly, easy to install, and scalable

Peplink SpeedFusion needs a thin rail model for industrial solutions. The stability has room for improvement. Peplink SpeedFusion needs to have a heavy-duty heat sink on the case to perform better. Generally, what I found is that devices that have a heat sink on a case or, more weight on a case to absorb the heat, perform a little better. I get some areas where I'm right at the hundred and fifty degrees. So I've had a few failures not many, but I found more failures than a Cisco ISO eleven or a Moxa router. Those solutions have more mass to absorb the heat. Most failures have a lot to do with the case. That's why a lot of people have a hard time pushing Peplink SpeedFusion, and they want to move to Cradlepoint because they have a much more ruggedized case.

Read full review

Jason Best

Data center network architect at Cloudwire

Analytics feature is very granular and comprehensive, although complicated to use

It's like an SD-WAN project basically. You really need to make sure that the product matches the needs of what the customer's trying to achieve and their overall strategy to meet their core business requirements. I think a certain customer made a mistake in choosing this solution because a large part of their network was Cisco and they had firewalls that were from Fortinet. I think they would have been better off and it would have been better from a CAPEX, OPEX point of view. It would've been more advantageous for them to have maybe chosen a Cisco or Fortinet solution based on their existing environment. Make sure you understand your network correctly before you try to implement any SD-WAN solution. That was one of the good lessons I learned about SD-WANs with this specific product. I wouldn't say it was a fault of the product. I would say it's more a fault of the CTO who tries to do things quickly without taking into account the existing environment or give the internal faculties the time to provide real low-level design implementation. It was more of a management mistake than from their technical team. In the next release, I would like to see things like integrated security but with local internet breakout instead of using third party solutions like NetScaler or Palo Alto. I would also like to see the integration of things like a VPN so that if you have remote sites where you might have remote workers that need to access the site from home or something, there's a VPN solution. Those are two key features and hotspots in the sort of global crisis. I would rate Riverbed a seven out of ten. I could never give any solution a 10 cause they all have good and bad points. To get any solution to a ten is pretty much impossible. If I was to rate it against others like Fortinet, I would probably give Fortinet an eight or nine. Again, I think you have to be careful because it's very subjective. I think it really depends on the type of environment, the type of customer you're deploying the SD-WAN solution for, and from which perspective you're looking at like if you an operator, if you're a large enterprise, if you're looking for a plug and play type solution. If you're looking for more of a security solution, I would go for Fortinet. It's kind of tough to say. I'd probably put the clouds a little bit ahead of the game because it does what it's supposed to do and easily. It's a little more of a plug and play type solution. Fortinet, for example, is more complex. I put it in a close second place, it's better from a security perspective. It has integration with FortiGuard. After that, I would put Riverbed in third place.

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 SD-WAN is the most valuable feature."

"For the performance they provide, the price is acceptable."

"The solution has a user-friendly interface."

"With Fortinet FortiGate, we improved security significantly."

"The FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall is always updating. For example, if there is a big attack, they fix it in their firmware. They release new firmware with the necessary patches to address the vulnerabilities."

"Overall, I would rate Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten."

"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."

"With FortiClient, you can easily connect when you are home, check out what you want to do, and connect to your network when you are not at work. You can switch on servers and you can check what is wrong."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The SpeedFusion feature is good. It allowed us to move away from IPsec between the sites. It is also a really easy product to deploy."

"The valuable feature is that, after reading about its capabilities and using it for a while, Peplink SpeedFusion employs eight technologies within its SD-WAN profile, addressing issues like packet loss and latency. The solution is highly stable. I rate it a nine out of ten. The support team gives quick response and efficient local support."

"It is a very stable product."

"Our customers find it to be an interesting and tempting solution."

"The most valuable feature is the virtual VPN concentrator."

"In the Philippines, VPN usage may not be widely known, but we leverage VPN effectively within my organization. I've shared our in-house systems with other district offices, as I cover fifteen municipalities and cater to the entire province. This platform is a valuable tool for us, enabling collaborative work, and allowing us to update our services remotely."

"The SpeedFusion feature is the most valuable."

"The analytics is the most valuable feature because it was very granular and very comprehensive, although a little complicated to use. If you're really interested in knowing what's happening on your network, it's a very good solution. That was the .NET Profiler part of the solution."

Cons

"The dashboard is not user friendly so is a bit complicated."

"They have recently acquired a CNAP solution which should be integrated into FortiGate boxes natively for protection at any application layer. Since Fortinet FortiGate has Layer 7 protection, they should integrate that as soon as they can for threat detection and network detection."

"Its performance can be better. We have had performance issues in the past, but we sometimes tend to find that it is more related to what we do in our network than anything else. It is quite a good product, and there isn't much to improve."

"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."

"Backup can be improved."

"The visibility of the network can be better. The GUI can be improved for better visibility of the network flow. Other solutions have better GUI in terms of network visibility."

"The solution could be more evenly structured."

"More SD-WAN features can be integrated into the FortiGate Next Generation Firewall"

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"Their hardware support isn't the greatest. We've had one unit go down, and it took a while for them to replace it. It was in the Caribbeans, so it might be a location-related issue."

"The product needs to aggregate the bandwidth of different ISPs. It needs to improve scalability as well."

"There is room for improvement in enhancing security features, such as incorporating intrusion detection blocking capabilities and integrating artificial intelligence to bolster security aspects on the device."

"They don't have next generation firewall, UTM, like the other competitors."

"The stability has room for improvement."

"I believe there could be some enhancements in the enterprise segment, offering greater options or something similar."

"Its pricing is the main issue. The pricing could be improved. I would like to see an outbound policy based on the application. It is a very good feature, and most of the customers are looking for that. They can also include stronger firewall features. This would help the customers in choosing this product as the only device for the SD network."

"The routing scalability needs improvement. We have run into a lot of limitations and also primarily from a routine perspective, things like RSPs line support. It was supportive but not really supportive."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheaper and more competitive compared to other options. For example, when comparing Palo Alto products to others, Palo Alto tends to be more expensive. If you compare Cisco's platform, including Cisco Meraki, with Fortinet products, you'll notice that Cisco's offerings are generally higher priced than Fortinet's firewall solutions."

"The solution is cheap."

"FortiGate's pricing falls within the mid-range when compared to other leading firewall solutions."

"Pricing for this product is comparatively lower than other products. It's an affordable solution, but when expanding the number of users, they'll ask you to replace the model, so that's an added cost."

"If you compare the price of Fortinet FortiGate IPS to other firewalls, Check Point is priced very high followed by Palo Alto and Sophos. Fortinet FortiGate IPS price is more reasonable."

"If you purchase a one-year subscription with the hardware and then you want to renew for the second year, it is very costly."

"We purchased a five-year bundle package, which worked out cheaper than competing solutions."

"For our organization, the licensing costs are approximately $7,000 per year."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"Perpetual licensing, which is good for customers that don't want any annual or subscription based license."

"I rate Peplink SpeedFusion's pricing an eight out of ten."

"It's not cheap, but it is highly competitive."

"Its licensing fee is on a yearly basis. For the price, it is actually pretty good value."

"The cost is in the middle, a five out of ten."

"It has lifetime licensing. Its pricing is high for most of the markets."

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	357
Midsize Enterprise	133
Large Enterprise	188

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	1

No data available

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

See all answers

What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

See all answers

What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Peplink SpeedFusion?

In the Philippines, VPN usage may not be widely known, but we leverage VPN effectively within my organization. I've s...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Peplink SpeedFusion?

I rate Peplink SpeedFusion's pricing an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Peplink SpeedFusion?

The product needs to aggregate the bandwidth of different ISPs. It needs to improve scalability as well.

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 6% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Cradlepoint NetCloud vs Peplink SpeedFusion

Compared 21% of the time

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Peplink SpeedFusion

Compared 13% of the time

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Peplink SpeedFusion

Compared 9% of the time

Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform vs Peplink SpeedFusion

Compared 6% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Peplink SpeedFusion

Compared 5% of the time

More Peplink SpeedFusion Competitors

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN

Compared 32% of the time

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN

Compared 31% of the time

Steelhead vs SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN

Compared 20% of the time

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN

Compared 17% of the time

More SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Peplink SpeedFusion

January 2026

Download Peplink SpeedFusion product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

December 2025

SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN report

Download SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

No data available

SteelConnect, Riverbed SteelConnect

Overview

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?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

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.

Fortinet

Peplink’s patent-pending SpeedFusion technology powers enterprise VPNs that tap into the bandwidth of up to 13 low-cost cable, DSL, 3G/4G/LTE, and other links connected anywhere on your corporate or institutional WAN. Whether you’re transferring a few documents or driving realtime POS data, video feeds, and VoIP conversations, SpeedFusion pumps all your data down a single fat datapipe that’s budget-friendly, ultra-fast, and easily configurable to suit any networking environment.

Peplink

Accelerate business velocity with enterprise-class SD-WAN. As enterprises and organizations adopt more cloud and SaaS applications to support an increasingly distributed workforce, the hybrid networks connecting it all have been more complex, less predictable and less secure.

Riverbed SteelConnect EX is a powerful enterprise SD-WAN solution that integrates best-in-class routing, application acceleration, network visibility, and security services – a flexible and complete WAN Edge platform that gives you what you need to modernize your network and propel your business in the digital age.

Riverbed

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

MIT Robotics Team, Intel, Apple, Google, Hootsuite, Northrop Gruman, Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola, Avocent, GE, VW, Marriott, Renaissance, WSI, Union /Pacific

Roxtec, Software Solutions Company, Rignet

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

December 2025

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions vendors and best WAN Edge vendors.

We monitor all Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.