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Prisma SD-WAN vs SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Prisma SD-WAN
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
3rd
Ranking in WAN Edge
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th)
SteelConnect EX Enterprise ...
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
24th
Ranking in WAN Edge
21st
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category, the mindshare of Prisma SD-WAN is 5.8%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Prisma SD-WAN5.8%
SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN1.2%
Other93.0%
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
 

Featured Reviews

SS
Senior IT Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Centralized management has simplified branch connectivity while cost and pricing could be optimized
When speaking about features, I think the most effective features of Prisma SD-WAN are the centralized management; I don't see any complications here. Centralized management improves network visibility because if I want to configure multiple branches and firewalls, it could be quite complicated. When I have the centralized system, it's easier for users to access branches and manage all the firewalls in the branches. We have the opportunity to use SD-WAN application-aware traffic management. With multiple branches and ISP connections, we track applications and divert traffic depending on ISP connections and speed.
Jason Best - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Prisma's analytics provide a lot of valuable data. I like the internet health chart that shows latency, dropped packets, MOS for data quality, etc. It also runs a continuous speed test in the background. I've used it multiple times to troubleshoot internet connections when the service provider has attempted to claim nothing is wrong with the circuit. It gives me data to send them showing we're not getting the speed we should, or there is constant packet loss."
"The most valuable feature is the single pane of glass, especially since we have Palo Alto firewalls."
"Centralized management improves network visibility because if I want to configure multiple branches and firewalls, it could be quite complicated, but when I have the centralized system, it's easier for users to access branches and manage all the firewalls in the branches."
"Prisma SD-WAN provides security when remote users want to access an application or internal server."
"The dynamic routing in Prisma SD-WAN is high-speed and valuable because it quickly adjusts, so users do not realize the link is down."
"I like that the integration with Palo Alto is easy."
"The implementation of the solution is easy."
"Some of the best features with the Prisma SD-WAN are intelligent routing, dynamic path selection, best path selection, and forward error correction."
"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

"In some areas, compared to other SD-WANs, Prisma SD-WAN has fewer features."
"We are incorporating their zone-based firewalls. Prisma SD-WAN has limited documentation on how it manipulates traffic, e.g., how it is interacting with TCP and UDP. We recently had some traffic that was black holing. We literally had to do packet captures to see that the new zone-based firewall, which runs on top of Prisma SD-WAN, was causing issues."
"The documentation tends to be outdated, often directing us to resources that are no longer accurate or available, and this is one of the reasons we are potentially looking at alternatives."
"The solution’s technical support is good. The technical support team's response time should be improved."
"We initially had challenges with AIOps, which was overwhelming, and could benefit from simplification or improved training."
"If Palo Alto could open the platform to manage other SD-WANs, it would be beneficial."
"Customer support is our biggest pain point. The quality of support has gone down a little since we initially deployed this product. I don't know if this is due to turnover at Palo Alto or a lack of training. It is now taking one or two days to get an initial response that says, "Hey, we've looked into this, can you pull this data for us?" In the past, we'd immediately get a response."
"The only con is the pricing because it's more premium."
"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

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"It is more expensive than Fortinet."
"Prisma SD-WAN is a pretty expensive solution."
"If you're already invested in a Palo Alto product, it would be logical to use this solution. If not, there might be some other solutions that are more viable in terms of pricing."
"This solution stood out because it cost considerably less than the other SD-WAN solutions out there from Cisco."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Legal Firm
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prisma SD-WAN?
Regarding whether Prisma SD-WAN is an expensive solution, I would say the price is competitively high. Everything depends on what security features customers need and what budget they have, so we w...
What needs improvement with Prisma SD-WAN?
I am still working on what should be improved in Prisma SD-WAN to make this product better, and I cannot give any update on that part as of now. The costing part might need improvement, but regardi...
What is your primary use case for Prisma SD-WAN?
Our customers' main use cases for Prisma SD-WAN are to connect multiple branches since they have numerous locations that need to be interconnected. My customers are in multiple industries, includin...
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Also Known As

CloudGenix
SteelConnect, Riverbed SteelConnect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Open Networking User Group, Columbia Sportswear Company, Coca Cola
Roxtec, Software Solutions Company, Rignet
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, Palo Alto Networks and others in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions. Updated: May 2026.
899,917 professionals have used our research since 2012.