SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN vs Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform comparison

Riverbed and Versa Networks are both solutions in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category. Riverbed is ranked #29, while Versa Networks is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.5. Riverbed holds a 0.2% mindshare in SDW, compared to Versa Networks’s 4.5% mindshare. Additionally, 50% of Riverbed users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Versa Networks users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN and Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

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

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

April 2025

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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 May 2025, in the Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 20.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN is 0.2%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform is 4.5%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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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.

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PriyankDubey

Product manager at Ernst & Young

A flexible, stable and scalable solution

I don't have issues with the hardware, as the requisite capacity is visible in the data sheets. All the details in the data sheets are accounted for. But, I find myself confused when it comes to combining this with the software. I have not come across documentation on the Versa website which would provide information about the parameters for selecting the appropriate license. For this we are assisted by the solution's design engineer and the Versa team. I do what I can as a project manager and make the best suggestions I am capable of concerning the competition. Future releases should contain AI for the voice feature. SSL VPN is lacking in the solution. I wish to see this in the near future.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortinet FortiGate has SD-WAN, FortiView, antivirus, sandbox, and IPS, which are generally well-known features."

"There is a tool called FSSO, which is a single sign-on user ID agent that works perfectly."

"Good performance, stability, and virtual domain ability."

"Fortinet FortiGate has impacted our cost savings and security efficiency positively."

"The most valuable feature of the solution revolves around SSL VPN."

"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."

"It is very flexible to use."

"Fortinet FortiGate has a threat detection capacity compared to other vendors."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"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."

"The granularity when it comes to configuration and security features are valuable."

"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the next-generation firewall features and geo-blocking capabilities."

"Overall, it's nice and very user friendly. That's what makes it so successful. They give you complicated features but with a very simple user interface, and that's been a big success for them."

"The flexibility is a great feature."

"This integration between SASE and SD-WAN is beneficial, as we have tested it with various customers."

"There are great security and ops features without the need for having a different box for security."

"I like all the features. We utilize different LAN, bandwidth transferring, bandwidth balancing, and mappings. We use it as a centralized solution, and use the same product at all our locations."

"The most valuable features are the main steering and the firewall. The security features and SD-WAN features are also quite good."

More Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform pros

Cons

"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."

"We would like to see a better training platform implemented."

"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."

"Improvements for Fortinet FortiGate could be made by making it easier to implement on networks and simpler to add users and accounts that utilize this solution. That's basically the only challenge that I see."

"The firmware updates are sometimes not stable. The stability issues can vary, sometimes happening once a month or quarterly. New firmware updates can occasionally introduce bugs, causing some policies to fail. We then have to raise a ticket, and Fortinet usually provides a fix within a few days."

"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."

"FortiOS is not simple."

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"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."

"The support needs to be improved."

"The UTM features can be improved. It should offer better functionality."

"The interface could be simpler."

"There are limitations when you connect from multiple locations. It does not work as expected. If you have more than 400 users, then it will choke. It will not perform as expected."

"The solution lacks a mobile version where small, manageable platforms can be developed."

"We are thinking about how to make customers consolidate the loads to an SD-WAN network so that the customers can have bigger chunk from the SD-WAN side so that customers can have critical data be transferred with NPS VPN and non-critical data or some labeled traffic can be transferred by the SD-WAN network. I think it's a very important direction for digital transformation."

"The stability of FlexVNF's controller and devices could be improved."

"The solution's current customer support is not that good. So, they need to improve that. Also, the solution's UI is quite complex, so they need to simplify it."

More Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet is competitive price-wise."

"It's a very full-featured and it's priced well solution."

"We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW."

"Licensing is usually on a three-year period."

"The license of Fortinet FortiGate should be reduced."

"The price could be lower."

"The price is okay."

"Setup costs and pricing depends on many variables, but it's mostly affordable."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"Price wise, it's more expensive than is the competition. I would give pricing a rating of three out of five."

"We provide subscriptions for our customers on a yearly, not monthly, basis."

"The price is expensive but it makes sense for the market."

"While I cannot provide too much commentary on the price, I feel it to be fair for the moment."

"It is neither cheap nor expensive. I rate the pricing a five out of ten on a scale where one is cheap and ten is expensive."

"I find Versa a little more expensive than VMware in terms of remote access and secure web gateway elements."

"It is not very expensive because of the white box support. Its hardware is much cheaper than other products. With the support for x86 and white box, it is one of the most cost-effective platforms that are currently available."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Versa FlexVNF?

Versa is a good centralized solution, where you're setting up your infrastructure in a data center type thing.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Versa FlexVNF?

Both Versa and VMware are cheap in terms of the router. I find Versa a little more expensive than VMware in terms of ...

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What needs improvement with Versa FlexVNF?

We've had the odd occasional stability issue with software upgrades, etcetera. They don't support certain other third...

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

No data available

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform

Compared 12% of the time

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Meraki SD-WAN vs Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform vs Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform

Compared 6% of the time

More Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

April 2025

SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN report

Download SteelConnect EX Enterprise SD-WAN product report

Buyer's Guide

Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform

April 2025

Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform report

Download Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

SteelConnect, Riverbed SteelConnect

Versa FlexVNF, FlexVNF, Versa Titan

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

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

The Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform is a comprehensive solution that provides secure access to cloud applications and services. It combines networking and security functions into a single platform, making it easier for organizations to manage their network infrastructure. The platform includes features such as SD-WAN, VPN, firewall, web filtering, and more. It also offers advanced security capabilities such as intrusion prevention, malware protection, and threat intelligence. With the Versa SASE Platform, organizations can ensure secure access to their cloud applications and services from any location, while also reducing costs and simplifying network management.

Versa Networks

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

Roxtec, Software Solutions Company, Rignet

CenturyLink, RCN Business, Colt Technology Services

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions

April 2025

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