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Aryaka SmartConnect vs. Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Aryaka SmartConnect

    Score9.8 out of 10
    N/ASmartConnect is an on-demand, fully managed and end-to-end SD-WAN connectivity service for enterprises, offering global, regional, and local as well as cloud connectivity. The solution connects branches, remote locations, data centers and cloud service providers, using Aryaka's SD-WAN platform.N/A

    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

    Score9.6 out of 10
    N/ABarracuda CloudGen Firewalls provides a wide range of security and connectivity features, including web filtering, NAC and SSL VPN and other features for remote access, as well as protection as edge devices and IoT security.N/A

    Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/ACisco Catalyst SD-WAN is a software-defined wide area network solution designed to simplify and optimize enterprise network connectivity in complex digital landscapes. It enables organizations to connect any user to any application, whether on-premises, in data centers, or across multiple clouds, with integrated capabilities for multicloud support, security, predictive automation, and enhanced network visibility—all built on a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)-enabled…N/A
    Pricing
    Aryaka SmartConnectBarracuda CloudGen FirewallCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Aryaka SmartConnectBarracuda CloudGen FirewallCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    Free Trial
    NoYesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Barracuda offers prospective buyers a build and quote tool on their website.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Aryaka SmartConnectBarracuda CloudGen FirewallCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    Considered Multiple Products
    Aryaka Networks
    No answer on this topic
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    No answer on this topic
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    12 Answers
    96%
    Would buy again
    133 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    12 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    116 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    135 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    9 Answers
    91%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    93 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    109 Answers
    Features
    Aryaka SmartConnectBarracuda CloudGen FirewallCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Aryaka SmartConnect and Barracuda CloudGen Firewall and Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    Feature
    Aryaka SmartConnect
    -
    Ratings
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    9.5
    11 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    -
    Ratings
    Identification Technologies00 Ratings9.710 Ratings00 Ratings
    Visualization Tools00 Ratings8.510 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content Inspection00 Ratings9.49 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls00 Ratings9.810 Ratings00 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings9.611 Ratings00 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console00 Ratings9.611 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging00 Ratings9.411 Ratings00 Ratings
    VPN00 Ratings9.710 Ratings00 Ratings
    High Availability00 Ratings9.99 Ratings00 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection00 Ratings9.88 Ratings00 Ratings
    Proxy Server00 Ratings9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Aryaka SmartConnectBarracuda CloudGen FirewallCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.4 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Cisco Meraki SD-WAN
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Cisco Meraki SD-WAN
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    VMware SD-WAN
    Score7.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Aryaka SmartConnectBarracuda CloudGen FirewallCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    Likelihood to Recommend
    3.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.9
    (15 ratings)
    8.7
    (150 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.9
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.5
    (1 ratings)
    8.7
    (67 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.0
    (4 ratings)
    8.3
    (15 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Aryaka SmartConnectBarracuda CloudGen FirewallCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Aryaka Networks
    It integrates nicely with AWS (in regions other than China). The provisioning support is pretty good.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    I would say a small business with a basic firewall and security needs would be a perfect fit for the Barracuda CloudGen firewall. I know that they soon end up leaving the NG models and are moving forward with the F series firewall. I think the F series is a much more difficult to manage device and doesn’t offer simplistic configuration or use and lacks cloud control so I don’t understand the move on Barracuda’s part to nix a great easy to manage the firewall. I do think that the NG line is maybe too simple for bigger businesses and would lack some main features that they would require.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    It's great for connectivity. I think if you're looking at. There's a lot of players out there that do SD- WAN, you can do hosted solutions, you can do your own. If you're looking to do it yourself, I think this product works out well. I do know it's hosted elsewhere by some other companies, but for us, we want the control and we don't have a huge amount of sites, so being able to control that's important and the data that we can get out of the product, we can see just seeing the application experience through Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, really gives us good information.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Aryaka Networks
    • Relatively easily to implement
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    • The management software is excellent. It make it much easier to manage the firewalls than some of the other vendors.
    • Watching real-time traffic is easy to do when trying to troubleshoot a users issues getting to a particular service.
    • Support from Barracuda has been excellent. We rate their phone and online remote support as being the best in the business.
    • We like the QoS and Traffic shaping of the NG Firewalls. They help is manage our limited bandwidth, so that business critical resources are available over lesser critical resources.
    • Integration with Active Directory makes it easy to identify users activities in logs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • We are able to use a multiple different circuits to go into the cloud, so we are not relying on just one particular private wireless. We're relying on wine circuits, ethernet, ethernet out. So it provides us that flexibility where we didn't have that before. Provides security that is very robust and flexible and scalable and it provides us with, the biggest thing is redundancy, where we have backup. For example, we have a Starlink for nuclear power plants. If our main circuits go down, we have that. And without Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN it would be very hard to actually achieve, to accomplish true redundancy. So we're happy with Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN in that regard.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Aryaka Networks
    • Support is very inconsistent, no real trouble-ticketing system when you have issues
    • Very expensive for what you get
    • Not much advance notification for maintenance events
    • Unclear if Aryaka connectivity into China meets Chinese M.I.I.T. laws
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    • Very complex and steep learning curve to get up to speed.
    • Multiple ways to configure for the same service or feature. Takes time to determine "your" customized build.
    • Interface can sometimes be clunky when trying to determine how it's organized or arranged. Again, steep learning curve.
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • I will say the way we use it now, and I think what happened was the way it was deployed, it was fine, but unfortunately over the course of the years we've gotten a little out of hand with our device templates and feature templates. I think if there's any form of feedback that I would give to Cisco is how do we find ways to improve the environment as it stands so we get to a certain point with the environment and then we don't know how to undo it or fix it or optimize the environment. Because right now we're in a position where we're playing a lot of catch up and clean up and if there was a way or some tool or feature that we can take advantage of that would allow us to optimize that environment where we will kind of corner ourselves into a lot of problems in the future. There's some feature or something that we could take advantage of that will allow us to optimize that environment and not let it get out of control pretty easily. That would be my suggestion.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Aryaka Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    I would rate SD-WAN highly because it has significantly improved network performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency for my organization. Its ability to optimize traffic dynamically, enhance security, and simplify management across multiple locations has been invaluable. With SD-WAN, we’ve reduced dependency on costly MPLS, improved cloud application performance, and gained greater control over our network infrastructure.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Aryaka Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    Easy enough to use and configure using the management UI. Reporting from the web filter is a little clunky, and not very user friendly. To be perfectly honest, once it's set up and running, there isn't a lot to do from the day-to-day side of things, which is not a bad thing.
    Read full review
    Cisco
    The niche configurations are given equal focus as the standard use cases, which can make onboarding difficult in the beginning (ie why am I not using an entire tab of the portal), but aside from that part, the dashboard is relatively easy to navigate and apply the configuration. The metrics and analytics available are also nice to have in a single pane.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Aryaka Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    I think if we could afford, we could have HA inplace but we planned out outage and workaround to avoid any outages.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Aryaka Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    It does slow down over the period but it's same with other product. you need to clear/reboot services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Aryaka Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    I could go on and on about how good Barracuda's support really is. I have yet to have a problem they didn't help me fix and I always learn something when talking with them. The story that best describes my overall experience with Barracuda's support is this: When I first put in the xSeries they had a problem with a policy route. There was a bug in the code and in the one situation I was it, it just would not work. I went up the levels of support and they couldn't fix it. Well, next thing I know I am on the phone with 2 of the guys that programmed the thing and they work out the solution in no time and get me going. That is support. That is what I have come to expect from Barracuda. If the tech on the phone doesn't know the answer, they do not stop until they find it. Grant it, I also have to admit I do not call support with every problem, I try to work it out on my own first as that is how I learn best, so when I do call support it is going to be complicated.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    Al ser soluciones integradas del portafolio de soluciones de Cisco, el soporte es transversal a cada uno de los componentes implementados, teniendo el cliente la capacidad de resolver sus inconvenientes bajo una misma infraestructura que está totalmente homologada, satisfacciendo de esta manera, las necesidades del cliente asi como permitiendo, que este se concentre en su negocio. Since the Cisco SD-WAN tools are a part of Cisco’s broader portfolio of solutions, support cross-cuts to each of our deployed components, with our company as the customer having the ability to solve our problems through the same, approved infrastructure. Their support team easily satisfies the customer’s needs so that they continue to focus on business functions.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Aryaka Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    I was late to participate but my team was very happy with the outcome.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Aryaka Networks
    We didn't really evaluate many other SDWAN providers as very few operate inside of China. Our alternative was to build VPN connectivity ourselves.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    Our Cisco firewall was always difficult to make any changes against. It had no user-friendly GUI interface. We were calling technical support most of the time whenever we needed to make any changes. The Barracuda CloudGen Firewall has a GUI interface which we are looking forward to getting better acquainted with as we move off of our old Cisco. Of course, Barracuda's technical support is always there and is top notch!
    Read full review
    Cisco
    We've used the old Cisco SD-WAN, which no longer exists. It was a lot more complex to configure what is now called Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. So they've definitely come a long way in that it is a lot less complicated to set up and template based.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Aryaka Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    I didn't take part of this decision but it always multiyear contract get best discount.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Aryaka Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    Really strength in scalability. Only thigs it's depends on some prototype Cisco product which you can't work with other Cisco products.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Aryaka Networks
    • Enabled us to deploy infrastructure into new regions quickly
    • Cost of Aryaka connections (especially in China) is excessive
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Barracuda Networks Inc.
    • We saved multiple thousands of dollars the first year out with the firewall in maintenance fees. We paid for the firewall and 3 years of service and still saved money.
    • The ease of management allows me to do my job more efficiently. I save a lot of time when doing my day to day job because I can get to my firewall virtually anywhere.
    • I feel a lot safer and my business more secure knowing that I have configured things the way they need to be and it was simple and not overly complicated.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • Our branch offices can connect to our enterprise network and the internet quickly and securely, which has helped to increase productivity and reduce downtime.
    • We have been able to reduce our dependence on expensive MPLS connections, and instead utilize a combination of broadband and LTE connections, which are more cost-effective
    • The centralized location improves network visibility and troubleshooting process
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot