Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs Riverbed SteelHead

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Defense & Space Company, 201-500 employees

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Riverbed Steelhead is very stable and integrates into applications easily, especially Microsoft and Azure or AWS.If there is a new Windows version available, the Riverbed version is not far away. The remote locations can work like they are located near the data center. For this reason, you can reduce your global data centers to a minimum. Some customers have just one!

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Ralf Richter

Senior Solution Architect

Freudenberg IT GmbH & Co. KGComputer & Network Security, 1001-5000 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

Riverbed SteelHead

Identification Technologies

Visualization Tools

Content Inspection

Policy-based Controls

Active Directory and LDAP

Firewall Management Console

Reporting and Logging

VPN

High Availability

Stateful Inspection

Proxy Server

Pros

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.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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File and Folder Optimisation
Microsoft Exchange Optimisation
Data Bandwidth Reporting

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Airlines/Aviation Company, 501-1000 employees

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Cons

Not come across any yet! A nice-to-have could be a mobile app which allows you to monitor it on your phone or mobile device.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Education Management Company, 1001-5000 employees

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It would be great if Riverbed extended these capabilities to cellphones and tablets.

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Tim Slater

Manager, Corporate Services and Information Systems

Forest Practices BoardGovernment Administration, 51-200 employees

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Usability

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall 5.5

Based on 1 answer

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.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Education Management Company, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall 8.4

Based on 6 answers

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.

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Paul Metzger

Senior Network Engineer

Pine Belt Mental HealthHospital & Health Care, 501-1000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

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!

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Jay Glatt

Vice President of IT

GiumarraFood & Beverages, 201-500 employees

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Riverbed Steelhead offers simplicity and fantastic customer support. The performance is a cut above the others as well.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Chemicals Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Return on Investment

Positive: highly customizable and can control the entire network from one location.
Positive: all services and processes work very well and are reliable.
Positive: MSPs looking to deploy and control numerous firewalls with ease, this is hands down the best product.
Negative: very high learning curve, definitely not a one-and-done firewall. Requires a lot of dedicated time to get the machine running the way you want.

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Derek Schroeder

Service Manager

Accellis Technology GroupInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

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We've been able to increase the amount of data we are replicating and thus increasing our recover ability in the case of DR.

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Kyle Depue

Network Services Manager

Great American InsuranceInsurance, 1001-5000 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Rating Summary

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

Riverbed SteelHead

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

Riverbed SteelHead

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

Riverbed SteelHead

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs Riverbed SteelHead