Peplink SpeedFusion vs Steelhead comparison

Peplink and Riverbed are both solutions in the WAN Edge category. Peplink is ranked #9 with an average rating of 10.0, while Riverbed is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.4. Peplink holds a 5.6% mindshare in WE, compared to Riverbed’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Peplink users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Riverbed users who would recommend it.

Peplink SpeedFusion

Read 8 Peplink SpeedFusion reviews

2,429 Views
1,895 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Steelhead

Read 26 Steelhead reviews

1,037 Views
653 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Peplink SpeedFusion

Steelhead

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Steelhead and Peplink SpeedFusion offer WAN optimization and networking solutions. Peplink SpeedFusion appears superior due to advanced features, ease of deployment, and positive user feedback, despite Steelhead's affordability and support.

Features: User reviews highlight Steelhead's strength in data compression and optimization but less flexibility in configuration. Peplink SpeedFusion is praised for seamless failover capabilities, multi-WAN support, and high-speed performance, making it more attractive for diverse networking needs.

Room for Improvement: Steelhead users report challenges with scalability and integration with newer protocols, while Peplink SpeedFusion users desire better logging features and reduced complexity in advanced configurations. Steelhead needs to address technological adaptability, whereas Peplink SpeedFusion requires refinements in user control features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Users find Steelhead relatively straightforward to deploy but cite mixed experiences with customer support. Peplink SpeedFusion garners praise for an intuitive deployment process and responsive support team, making it preferable for companies prioritizing quick setup and reliable assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Steelhead is generally more affordable with lower setup costs but delivers a slower return on investment. In contrast, Peplink SpeedFusion, though initially more expensive, justifies its cost with robust performance and faster ROI, appealing to buyers with long-term investment potential.

To learn more, read our detailed Peplink SpeedFusion vs. Steelhead Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Peplink SpeedFusion vs. Steelhead

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:

ROI

Sentiment score

8.4

Peplink SpeedFusion improved network stability, reduced downtime, and increased productivity, while financial savings and technical support enhanced user satisfaction.

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 Peplink SpeedFusion 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

4.6

Peplink SpeedFusion customer service is praised for quick responses and efficient support, though hardware support delays unit replacements.

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 Peplink SpeedFusion 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

7.1

Peplink SpeedFusion is scalable, supports many users, simplifies adding sites/devices, and is praised for flexibility, reliability, and performance.

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 Peplink SpeedFusion 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

8.2

Peplink SpeedFusion is praised for stability, secure VPN, failover, WAN smoothing, and seamless connectivity, ideal for broadcasting and banking.

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 Peplink SpeedFusion 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

Peplink SpeedFusion needs better pricing, hardware support, advanced firewall, scalability, and security features for industrial and enterprise users.

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 Peplink SpeedFusion 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

Peplink SpeedFusion offers a balanced value with higher costs, appealing lifetime licensing, and flexible pricing structures for customer preferences.

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 Peplink SpeedFusion 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

Peplink SpeedFusion offers robust LTE, VPN, bonding, aggregation, and hot failover, ensuring network resilience and effective communication.

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 Peplink SpeedFusion 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

Peplink SpeedFusion

Ranking in WAN Edge

9th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (8th)

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 Peplink SpeedFusion is 5.6%, down from 6.8% 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 (%)
Peplink SpeedFusion	5.6%
Steelhead	1.6%
Other	92.8%

WAN Edge

Featured Reviews

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

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

Comms Service Provider

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

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	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
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 Peplink SpeedFusion?

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 munic...

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

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

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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

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...

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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

Cradlepoint NetCloud vs Peplink SpeedFusion

Compared 21% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Peplink SpeedFusion

Compared 19% 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

More Peplink SpeedFusion Competitors

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

More Steelhead Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Peplink SpeedFusion

January 2026

Download Peplink SpeedFusion product report

Buyer's Guide

Steelhead

January 2026

Download Steelhead product report

Also Known As

No data available

RIverbed Steelhead

Overview

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

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

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

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

Buyer's Guide

Peplink SpeedFusion vs. Steelhead

December 2025

Free Report: Peplink SpeedFusion vs. Steelhead

Find out what your peers are saying about Peplink SpeedFusion vs. Steelhead and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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