# Best WAN Optimization Software *By [Bijou Barry](https://research.g2.com/insights/author/bijou-barry)* WAN Optimization software provides features that allow users to improve the performance of their applications running on the wide area network (WAN). To qualify for inclusion in the category, a product must: - Helps businesses to improve performance of certain businesses applications. - Provide users with a complete view of network traffic. - Accelerate business applications to increase productivity. ## How Many WAN Optimization Software Products Does G2 Track? **Total Products under this Category:** 30 ### Category Stats (May 2026) - **Average Rating**: 4.41/5 - **New Reviews This Quarter**: 1 - **Buyer Segments**: Mid-Market 100% - **Top Trending Product**: Barracuda CloudGen Firewall (+0.01) *Last updated: May 18, 2026* ## How Does G2 Rank WAN Optimization Software Products? **Why You Can Trust G2's Software Rankings:** - 30 Analysts and Data Experts - 200+ Authentic Reviews - 30+ Products - Unbiased Rankings G2's software rankings are built on verified user reviews, rigorous moderation, and a consistent research methodology maintained by a team of analysts and data experts. Each product is measured using the same transparent criteria, with no paid placement or vendor influence. While reviews reflect real user experiences, which can be subjective, they offer valuable insight into how software performs in the hands of professionals. Together, these inputs power the G2 Score, a standardized way to compare tools within every category. ## Which WAN Optimization Software Is Best for Your Use Case? - **Leader:** [Barracuda CloudGen Firewall](https://www.g2.com/products/barracuda-cloudgen-firewall/reviews) - **Top Trending:** [Barracuda CloudGen Firewall](https://www.g2.com/products/barracuda-cloudgen-firewall/reviews) - **Best Free Software:** [LinkEye](https://www.g2.com/products/linkeye/reviews) ## What Are the Top-Rated WAN Optimization Software Products in 2026? ### 1. [Barracuda CloudGen Firewall](https://www.g2.com/products/barracuda-cloudgen-firewall/reviews) Barracuda's Cloud Generation Firewalls redefine the role of the Firewall from a perimeter security solution to a distributed network optimization solution that scales across any number of locations and applications, connects on-premises and cloud infrastructures, and helps organizations transform their business. **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 51 **Who Is the Company Behind Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?** - **Seller:** [Barracuda](https://www.g2.com/sellers/barracuda) - **Year Founded:** 2002 - **HQ Location:** Campbell, CA - **Twitter:** @Barracuda (15,231 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/barracuda-networks/ (2,229 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** Private **Who Uses This Product?** - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services - **Company Size:** 57% Mid-Market, 24% Enterprise #### What Are Barracuda CloudGen Firewall's Pros and Cons? **Pros:** - Centralized Management (2 reviews) - Features (2 reviews) - Network Connectivity (2 reviews) - Versatility (2 reviews) - Advanced Security (1 reviews) **Cons:** - Complex Configuration (2 reviews) - Compatibility Issues (1 reviews) - Complexity (1 reviews) - Dependency Issues (1 reviews) - Expensive (1 reviews) ### 2. [Akamai Ion](https://www.g2.com/products/akamai-ion/reviews) Automated acceleration to deliver the best website and mobile app experiences imaginable **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 19 **Who Is the Company Behind Akamai Ion?** - **Seller:** [Akamai Technologies](https://www.g2.com/sellers/akamai-technologies) - **Year Founded:** 1998 - **HQ Location:** Cambridge, MA - **Twitter:** @Akamai (115,390 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/3925/ (10,444 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NASDAQ:AKAM **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 58% Enterprise, 21% Mid-Market #### What Are Akamai Ion's Pros and Cons? **Pros:** - Reliability (5 reviews) - Speed (4 reviews) - Performance Optimization (3 reviews) - Real-time Analytics (3 reviews) - Ease of Use (2 reviews) **Cons:** - Complex Configuration (3 reviews) - Expensive (3 reviews) - Complexity (1 reviews) - Hidden Costs (1 reviews) - Poor Customer Support (1 reviews) ### 3. [WAN Optimization](https://www.g2.com/products/wan-optimization/reviews) Accelerate your applications and optimize quality of experience for your users. **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 10 **Who Is the Company Behind WAN Optimization?** - **Seller:** [Cisco](https://www.g2.com/sellers/cisco) - **Year Founded:** 1984 - **HQ Location:** San Jose, CA - **Twitter:** @Cisco (721,440 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/cisco/ (95,742 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NASDAQ:CSCO **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 75% Enterprise, 17% Mid-Market ### 4. [Riverbed SteelHead](https://www.g2.com/products/riverbed-steelhead/reviews) 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. In today’s hybrid world of cloud workloads, SaaS applications, Internet Broadband and MPLS, the SteelHead family of products and solutions is built upon 4 core principles required for any organization interested in making sure networks and apps perform reliably and securely while enhancing the user experience. **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 10 **Who Is the Company Behind Riverbed SteelHead?** - **Seller:** [Riverbed Technology](https://www.g2.com/sellers/riverbed-technology) - **Year Founded:** 2002 - **HQ Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Twitter:** @RIVERBED (23,876 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/7796/ (1,590 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 69% Enterprise, 23% Mid-Market ### 5. [HorizonIQ Network](https://www.g2.com/products/horizoniq-network/reviews) HorizonIQ’s Connectivity services provide high-performance, enterprise-grade networking across data centers, cloud environments, and edge locations. Solutions include private transport, cloud on-ramps, IP transit, and direct internet access, all designed for low latency, high availability, and secure data transfer. Built on a redundant, nationwide backbone, our network infrastructure supports scalable and resilient connectivity for critical workloads. **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 11 **Who Is the Company Behind HorizonIQ Network?** - **Seller:** [HorizonIQ](https://www.g2.com/sellers/horizoniq) - **Year Founded:** 1996 - **HQ Location:** Norcross, GA - **Twitter:** @PoweredbyHIQ (4,298 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/inap/ (617 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Phone:** 1-877-843-7627 **Who Uses This Product?** - **Top Industries:** Telecommunications - **Company Size:** 55% Enterprise, 36% Small-Business ### 6. [Lumen SD-WAN](https://www.g2.com/products/lumen-sd-wan/reviews) CenturyLink® SD-WAN solutions integrate disparate connectivity types into a seamless hybrid software-defined WAN for complete visibility and enhanced performance of your entire network ecosystem through a centralized customer portal.​ CenturyLink was recently recognized with the Frost and Sullivan Innovation and Leadership Award for SD-WAN in North America to go along with our 2017 MEF Award as the Best SD-WAN Managed Service of the Year, Worldwide. CenturyLink® SD-WAN with hybrid connectivity is a complete WAN solution to support secure, scalable networks across a full range of connectivity types. Our SD-WAN solutions integrates disparate connectivity types into a seamless hybrid software-defined WAN. It utilizes aggregated and customer provided circuits including a mix of MPLS, Dedicated Internet, low cost Broadband Internet, LTE based on your site and application requirements.  SD-WAN gives you complete visibility of the entire WAN through a centralized customer portal.  Branches can get out to the internet/cloud directly without having to hairpin through a central HQ, for improved performance. CenturyLink SD-WAN can help improve application performance features like application-aware routing and QoS.​ CenturyLink was recently recognized with the Frost and Sullivan Innovation and Leadership Award for SD-WAN in North America to go along with the 2017 MEF Award as the Best SD-WAN Managed Service of the Year, Worldwide. We offer Complete Managed / Co- Managed Global Hybrid Network Solution​s including: • WAN design, deployment, initial configuration, site activation, 24/7 support​ • Multiple CPE options, including x86 with SD-WAN software provided ​ • Flexible transport options: MPLS, Broadband, LTE, Internet or BYON​ • Centralized administration control via CenturyLink portal​ Security​ • Authentication, key exchange and encryption​ • Advanced security options: Built-In next-generation firewall, Dashboards and analytics and Detailed event logs ​ Application Performance​ • Automatic, customer and pre-defined identification for 2,800+ applications for policy-based control​ • Application QOS: Prioritization, Policing and Shaping & Marking​ • Optimal Path Selection​ Analytics and Reporting Tools​ • Historical analytics and near real-time reporting​ • Appliance, circuit, policy, application and VRF utilization​ • SD-WAN availability, packet loss, jitter and latency performance​ • Near real-time visibility and troubleshooting tools **Average Rating:** 3.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 10 **Who Is the Company Behind Lumen SD-WAN?** - **Seller:** [Lumen Technologies](https://www.g2.com/sellers/lumen-technologies) - **Year Founded:** 1930 - **HQ Location:** Monroe, LA - **Twitter:** @lumentechco (9,169 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/lumentechnologies/ (50,002 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NYSE:LUMN **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 80% Mid-Market, 10% Enterprise ### 7. [Fatpipe WAN Optimization](https://www.g2.com/products/fatpipe-wan-optimization/reviews) FatPipe Networks WAN Optimization technology offers the highest performance level of WAN Optimization and optimization available using patented and patent pending technology. With FatPipe WAN Optimization, you can significantly boost your Wide Area Network performance. This is possible through acceleration of your applications, better utilization of your current WAN infrastructure that would ultimately result in saving you thousands of dollars a year on additional hardware, software and bandwidth costs. FatPipe WAN Optimization appreciably increases WAN utilization, providing effective use of WAN bandwidth by caching/compressing that sharply reduces redundant data on a WAN. FatPipe is the first to market and the only provider of WAN Optimization and optimization technology that can work across multiple WANs. Not only can you optimize your WAN traffic, you can achieve the highest level of WAN redundancy and reliability. Additionally, unlike other WAN optimization/acceleration products that provide WAN caching at the file level, FatPipe WAN caching works at the file as well as the byte level. Smaller granularity results in greater levels of detected redundancies, and more de-duplication and less retransmission, giving you the highest level of WAN optimization available. **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 6 **Who Is the Company Behind Fatpipe WAN Optimization?** - **Seller:** [FatPipe Networks](https://www.g2.com/sellers/fatpipe-networks) - **Year Founded:** 1989 - **HQ Location:** Salt Lake City, Utah - **Twitter:** @fatpipe_inc (1,077 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/35943 (265 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 50% Mid-Market, 33% Small-Business ### 8. [Ipanema SD-WAN](https://www.g2.com/products/ipanema-sd-wan/reviews) Ipanema SD-WAN paves the way for unprecedented application performance on your network. Application intelligence that transforms your user experience. **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 5 **Who Is the Company Behind Ipanema SD-WAN?** - **Seller:** [Extreme Networks](https://www.g2.com/sellers/extreme-networks) - **Year Founded:** 1996 - **HQ Location:** Morrisville, US - **Twitter:** @ExtremeNetworks (29,475 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/4761/ (4,028 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NASDAQ: EXTR **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 60% Mid-Market, 40% Enterprise ### 9. [Multi-Cloud SD-WAN Solution](https://www.g2.com/products/multi-cloud-sd-wan-solution/reviews) Teridion is a superior cloud-based global connectivity platform. Teridion’s network delivers high-performance WAN as a service to enterprise customers worldwide. The company was founded 2013 by Internet routing and cloud veterans. Teridion is led by experienced leadership and backed by seasoned investors. The company prides itself on its patented technology (since 2015) that delivers superior performance and true innovation in the world of enterprise connectivity. **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 4 **Who Is the Company Behind Multi-Cloud SD-WAN Solution?** - **Seller:** [Teridion](https://www.g2.com/sellers/teridion) - **Year Founded:** 2014 - **HQ Location:** Raanana, IL - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/teridion/ (54 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 50% Mid-Market, 50% Small-Business ### 10. [WAN Optimization](https://www.g2.com/products/wanos-wan-optimization/reviews) Reduce bandwidth cost and Accelerate application speeds with WAN Optimization. Wan Optimization reduce network costs and accelerate network speeds through TCP Acceleration, Compression, Byte-Caching, Packet Loss Recovery, Caching and related techniques. **Average Rating:** 3.9/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 4 **Who Is the Company Behind WAN Optimization?** - **Seller:** [Wanos](https://www.g2.com/sellers/wanos) - **Year Founded:** 2011 - **HQ Location:** Cape Town, ZA - **Twitter:** @WanosNetworks (118 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** http://www.linkedin.com/company/wanos/ (2 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 75% Small-Business, 25% Mid-Market ### 11. [Windstream OfficeSuite UC](https://www.g2.com/products/windstream-officesuite-uc/reviews) 100% cloud-based phone, mobility and unified communications system to give your businesses a collaborative edge. **Average Rating:** 4.1/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 27 **Who Is the Company Behind Windstream OfficeSuite UC?** - **Seller:** [Windstream Enterprise](https://www.g2.com/sellers/windstream-enterprise-265c93a8-4df1-40f4-8ece-367fef6faa72) - **Year Founded:** 2006 - **HQ Location:** Little Rock, AR - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/windstream-enterprise/ (8,551 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 60% Mid-Market, 57% Small-Business #### What Are Windstream OfficeSuite UC's Pros and Cons? **Pros:** - Ease of Use (2 reviews) - Calling Features (1 reviews) - Reliability (1 reviews) **Cons:** - Access Issues (1 reviews) - Contact Management (1 reviews) - Performance Issues (1 reviews) ### 12. [Aryaka WAN Optimization as-a-Service](https://www.g2.com/products/aryaka-wan-optimization-as-a-service/reviews) Aryaka's WAN Optimization as-a-Service is a cloud-based solution designed to enhance network efficiency and application performance for globally distributed enterprises. By integrating WAN optimization technology with a global private network, Aryaka delivers accelerated access to both on-premises and cloud-based applications, ensuring seamless connectivity and improved user experience. Key Features and Functionality: - Global Private Network: Utilizes a private, low-latency backbone to bypass congested public internet routes, providing reliable and high-performance connectivity. - Multi-Segment TCP Optimization: Employs patented techniques to minimize latency and congestion, enhancing the performance of TCP and UDP traffic. - Application Proxies: Implements advanced proxies for protocols like SSL, CIFS, and SMB, reducing latency and improving responsiveness for WAN-intolerant applications. - Data Deduplication and Compression: Reduces file sizes before transmission, optimizing bandwidth usage and accelerating data transfer. - Intelligent Path Selection and Load Balancing: Dynamically selects optimal paths and balances traffic across multiple links to ensure consistent performance. - Packet Loss Recovery: Utilizes proprietary error correction algorithms to recover lost packets, maintaining data integrity and connection stability. Primary Value and User Solutions: Aryaka's WAN Optimization as-a-Service addresses common challenges faced by enterprises relying on traditional WANs, such as high latency, packet loss, and inconsistent application performance. By providing a cloud-native, fully managed solution, Aryaka enables businesses to: - Enhance Application Performance: Accelerate access to critical applications, including SaaS platforms and cloud services, leading to increased productivity and user satisfaction. - Achieve Cost Efficiency: Eliminate the need for expensive hardware appliances and reduce reliance on costly MPLS circuits, resulting in lower total cost of ownership. - Ensure Scalability and Agility: Rapidly deploy and scale network services to meet evolving business needs without the complexities associated with traditional WAN solutions. - Improve Network Visibility and Control: Gain comprehensive insights into network performance and application usage, facilitating proactive management and optimization. By leveraging Aryaka's WAN Optimization as-a-Service, enterprises can overcome the limitations of legacy WAN infrastructures, ensuring secure, high-performance connectivity that supports modern cloud-first environments. **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 3 **Who Is the Company Behind Aryaka WAN Optimization as-a-Service?** - **Seller:** [Aryaka Networks](https://www.g2.com/sellers/aryaka-networks) - **Year Founded:** 2009 - **HQ Location:** Santa Clara - **Twitter:** @AryakaNetworks (12,091 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/304863/ (568 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 67% Enterprise, 33% Mid-Market ### 13. [Exinda Network Orchestrator](https://www.g2.com/products/exinda-network-orchestrator/reviews) Exinda Network Orchestrator is built for network managers and administrators who want one solution to handle the way users, traffic, devices, and applications behave on the network. With Exinda Network Orchestrator, you will be able to: • Ensure reliable performance for critical applications • Identify and control bandwidth hogs • Monitor and understand network activity Exinda Network Orchestrator empowers IT to ensure reliable performance for network dependent applications, reduce the impact of non-strategic internet traffic, and diagnose and resolve network problems quickly. Manage network performance by focusing on the user experience of key applications. **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 3 **Who Is the Company Behind Exinda Network Orchestrator?** - **Seller:** [Aurea SMB Solutions](https://www.g2.com/sellers/aurea-smb-solutions) - **Year Founded:** 1992 - **HQ Location:** Austin, US - **Twitter:** @GFISoftware (29,664 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/gfi-software (194 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 33% Mid-Market, 33% Enterprise ### 14. [Riverbed Network Observability](https://www.g2.com/products/riverbed-network-observability/reviews) Alluvio Network Performance Management makes it easy to monitor, troubleshoot, and analyze what’s happening across your hybrid network environment. With end-to-end visibility and actionable insights, you can quickly and proactively resolve any network-based performance issues. Alluvio unified NPM collects all packets, all flows, all device metrics, all the time, across all environments -cloud, virtual, and on-prem, providing enterprise-wide, business-centric monitoring of critical business initiatives. **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 14 **Who Is the Company Behind Riverbed Network Observability?** - **Seller:** [Riverbed Technology](https://www.g2.com/sellers/riverbed-technology) - **Year Founded:** 2002 - **HQ Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Twitter:** @RIVERBED (23,876 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/7796/ (1,590 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 50% Enterprise, 43% Mid-Market #### What Are Riverbed Network Observability's Pros and Cons? **Pros:** - Analytics (1 reviews) - Detailed Analysis (1 reviews) - Monitoring (1 reviews) - System Monitoring (1 reviews) **Cons:** - Device Limitations (1 reviews) - Expensive (1 reviews) - Lack of Features (1 reviews) - Pricing Issues (1 reviews) - Resource Limitations (1 reviews) ### 15. [Sangfor WANO](https://www.g2.com/products/sangfor-wano/reviews) Sangfor WANO (WAN Optimization) can be deployed in the WAN gateway of data centres and branch offices. Through traffic reduction, stream compression, stream cache, protocol acceleration and other leading technologies, Sangfor WANO can cut up to 70% of redundant traffic, reduce packet loss rate to below 1%, save 50 % of link costs and improve application speed by 3-10 times to achieve huge improvement for application performance & WAN speed. **Average Rating:** 4.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 3 **Who Is the Company Behind Sangfor WANO?** - **Seller:** [Sangfor Technologies](https://www.g2.com/sellers/sangfor-technologies) - **Year Founded:** 2000 - **HQ Location:** Shenzhen, China - **Twitter:** @SANGFOR (13,252 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/sangfor-technologies/ (2,285 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 67% Mid-Market, 33% Enterprise ### 16. [Verizon Enterprise Orchestration](https://www.g2.com/products/verizon-enterprise-orchestration/reviews) Verizon Enterprise Orchestration simplifies how you manage networking resources, helping you deploy virtualized networks through self-service tools and centralized management. This type of network orchestration gets new services to customers quickly and securely, while making your business more efficient and adaptable to changing conditions. **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 3 **Who Is the Company Behind Verizon Enterprise Orchestration?** - **Seller:** [Verizon Enterprise](https://www.g2.com/sellers/verizon-enterprise) - **Year Founded:** 1988 - **HQ Location:** Basking Ridge, NJ - **Twitter:** @VerizonEnterpr (7 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1094/ (15,424 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 67% Mid-Market, 33% Enterprise ### 17. [Allot NetEnforcer](https://www.g2.com/products/allot-netenforcer/reviews) Allot NetEnforcer AC-500 is designed to manage Internet traffic on multiple Ethernet links at speeds of up to 400 Mbps. These flexible devices bring carrier-class functionality and reliability to enterprise networks by providing real-time analytics, policy enforcement, and security services. **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 2 **Who Is the Company Behind Allot NetEnforcer?** - **Seller:** [BlueAlly](https://www.g2.com/sellers/blueally) - **Year Founded:** 1999 - **HQ Location:** Atlanta, Georgia, United States - **Twitter:** @BlueAlly_IT (17,835 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/blueally (497 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 100% Mid-Market ### 18. [Internet and WAN Virtualization](https://www.g2.com/products/internet-and-wan-virtualization/reviews) Align cloud application performance with your business needs and those of your customers. Guarantee fast and reliable application performance scalable to millions of IP flows. Control QoS per application, user, endpoint and location. Ensure that heavy transaction loads do not impact customer experience. **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 2 **Who Is the Company Behind Internet and WAN Virtualization?** - **Seller:** [Allot](https://www.g2.com/sellers/allot) - **HQ Location:** N/A - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 33% Mid-Market, 33% Enterprise ### 19. [LinkEye](https://www.g2.com/products/linkeye/reviews) LinkEye is a modern network observability platform designed to provide a comprehensive view of campus networks, encompassing everything from ISP circuits to LAN, Wi-Fi, and user application experiences. This platform stands apart from traditional monitoring tools by offering advanced automated troubleshooting capabilities for ISP and Wi-Fi performance issues through its robust API integrations. By streamlining these processes, LinkEye significantly reduces Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and enhances overall user experience. Targeted primarily at IT teams and network engineers, LinkEye addresses the challenges associated with managing complex network environments. Its vendor-agnostic nature, supporting over 100 different vendors, allows users to visualize, troubleshoot, and manage their networks from a single interface. This capability is particularly beneficial for organizations with diverse network infrastructures, as it simplifies the monitoring and management processes, ensuring that teams can respond swiftly to any issues that arise. One of the standout features of LinkEye is its Digital Experience module, which empowers IT teams to proactively identify application-related issues. This module helps diagnose whether application problems stem from issues within the service provider's network, thereby facilitating quicker resolutions. Additionally, LinkEye offers a suite of out-of-the-box automations, including automated configuration backups, diff checks, CVE audits, and tracking of End of Service (EOS) and End of Life (EOL) products. These features not only enhance operational efficiency but also contribute to maintaining network security and compliance. The platform's ability to automate routine tasks and provide detailed insights into network performance makes it a valuable tool for organizations seeking to optimize their IT operations. By reducing manual intervention and streamlining troubleshooting processes, LinkEye allows IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than getting bogged down by day-to-day network management challenges. Overall, LinkEye stands out in the network observability category by combining comprehensive monitoring capabilities with powerful automation features, making it an essential solution for modern network environments. **Average Rating:** 5.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 2 **Who Is the Company Behind LinkEye?** - **Seller:** [Filoffee Software Inc](https://www.g2.com/sellers/filoffee-software-inc) - **Year Founded:** 2022 - **HQ Location:** San Jose, US - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/linkeye-network-solutions/ (6 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 50% Mid-Market, 50% Enterprise #### What Are LinkEye's Pros and Cons? **Pros:** - Artificial Intelligence (1 reviews) - Ease of Use (1 reviews) - Easy Integration (1 reviews) - Easy Monitoring (1 reviews) - Time-Saving (1 reviews) **Cons:** - Dashboard Issues (1 reviews) ### 20. [Verizon VNS - WAN Optimization](https://www.g2.com/products/verizon-vns-wan-optimization/reviews) VNS - WAN Optimization helps dynamically accelerate app delivery and performance across your WAN with network functions virtualization (NFV). It lets you deploy multiple functions on a single, universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) appliance, virtual CPE (vCPE) from Verizon Cloud, or a mix of the two. **Average Rating:** 4.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 2 **Who Is the Company Behind Verizon VNS - WAN Optimization?** - **Seller:** [Verizon Enterprise](https://www.g2.com/sellers/verizon-enterprise) - **Year Founded:** 1988 - **HQ Location:** Basking Ridge, NJ - **Twitter:** @VerizonEnterpr (7 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1094/ (15,424 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 50% Small-Business, 50% Enterprise ### 21. [Ericom Blaze](https://www.g2.com/products/ericom-blaze/reviews) Ericom Blaze RDP compression and acceleration software delivers a great local PC-like experience for users inside and outside the organization, while reducing bandwidth consumption and optimizing RDP network traffic across WAN / LAN. Use it to speed up slow remote desktop connections, PDF displays, and audio / video performance on terminal services (RDS) - especially in high latency / low bandwidth scenarios. **Total Reviews:** 1 **Who Is the Company Behind Ericom Blaze?** - **Seller:** [Ericom Software](https://www.g2.com/sellers/ericom-software) - **Year Founded:** 1993 - **HQ Location:** Boise, US - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/ericom-software/ (70 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 100% Small-Business, 100% Mid-Market ### 22. [Muniu Technology](https://www.g2.com/products/muniu-technology/reviews) Muniu Technology, established in 2015 and headquartered in Beijing, China, specializes in the development of advanced millimeter-wave radar technologies. With subsidiaries in Qingdao, Shanghai, Kansas, and Boston, the company is dedicated to providing cutting-edge radar solutions for various industries, including automotive, drones, public security, and the Internet of Things . Their product portfolio encompasses millimeter-wave radar altimeters, obstacle avoidance systems, automotive radar, security surveillance radars, and customized radar solutions, all designed to enhance intelligent systems with precise measurement capabilities. Key Features and Functionality: - Millimeter-Wave Radar Altimeters: Provide accurate altitude measurements for drones and aircraft, ensuring safe and reliable flight operations. - Obstacle Avoidance Systems: Enhance the safety of autonomous vehicles and drones by detecting and avoiding potential obstacles in real-time. - Automotive Radar Solutions: Support advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous driving technologies with high-resolution radar sensors. - Security Surveillance Radars: Offer robust monitoring capabilities for public security applications, detecting and tracking objects with precision. - Customized Radar Solutions: Tailor-made radar systems designed to meet specific industry requirements, ensuring optimal performance across various applications. Primary Value and User Solutions: Muniu Technology addresses the growing demand for precise and reliable sensing solutions in intelligent systems. By integrating their advanced millimeter-wave radar technologies, industries can achieve enhanced safety, efficiency, and automation. For instance, in the automotive sector, their radar solutions enable vehicles to detect obstacles and navigate complex environments, thereby reducing the risk of accidents. In the drone industry, their altimeters and obstacle avoidance systems ensure stable flight and collision prevention, facilitating the safe operation of unmanned aerial vehicles. Overall, Muniu Technology's innovations empower various sectors to implement intelligent, data-driven solutions that improve operational performance and safety. **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 1 **Who Is the Company Behind Muniu Technology?** - **Seller:** [Muniu Technology](https://www.g2.com/sellers/muniu-technology) - **HQ Location:** N/A - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 100% Mid-Market ### 23. [NI-RFmx WLAN](https://www.g2.com/products/ni-rfmx-wlan/reviews) RFmx WLAN is application software that simplifies access to the most common WLAN PHY measurements and provides advanced optimization techniques like multi-measurement parallelism. The result is fast, high-quality measurements that abstract the complexities of lower-level wireless standards and RF instrumentation. RFmx WLAN supports various OFDM physical layers in single transmit-chain configurations. It also supports making modulation accuracy, transmit power, and spectral emission mask measurements on OFDM and DSSS physical layer signals. RFmx WLAN is completely interoperable with all RFmx APIs. **Average Rating:** 4.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 1 **Who Is the Company Behind NI-RFmx WLAN?** - **Seller:** [NI](https://www.g2.com/sellers/ni) - **Year Founded:** 1976 - **HQ Location:** Austin, TX - **Twitter:** @NIglobal (26,252 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/3433 (7,996 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NASDAQ: NATI **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 100% Small-Business ### 24. [The Governor](https://www.g2.com/products/the-governor/reviews) Optimizing bandwidth on WAN **Average Rating:** 5.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 1 **Who Is the Company Behind The Governor?** - **Seller:** [CirrusWorks](https://www.g2.com/sellers/cirrusworks) - **Year Founded:** 2011 - **HQ Location:** N/A - **Twitter:** @CirrusWorksInc (371 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/cirrusworks/ (1 employees on LinkedIn®) **Who Uses This Product?** - **Company Size:** 100% Mid-Market ### 25. [Akamai IP Accelerator](https://www.g2.com/products/akamai-ip-accelerator/reviews) Akamai's IP Application Accelerator is a managed service designed to enhance the performance, security, and availability of non-cacheable, IP-based applications. By leveraging Akamai's global edge network, it ensures that applications are delivered swiftly and reliably to users worldwide, regardless of their location or device. This solution is particularly beneficial for enterprises aiming to optimize application delivery without the substantial capital expenditures associated with private WAN infrastructures. Key Features and Functionality: - Dynamic Mapping: Utilizes real-time monitoring of internet conditions and server loads to direct user requests to the optimal edge server, ensuring consistent high availability. - Transport Protocol Optimization: Segments TCP transmissions and applies proprietary techniques to reduce latency and improve data transfer efficiency. - Packet Replication: Mitigates packet loss by replicating packets and transmitting them along multiple network paths, enhancing application reliability. - Route Optimization: Employs Akamai's SureRoute technology to identify and utilize the fastest, least congested paths across the internet, bypassing traditional routing limitations. - Security Enhancements: Features such as Fast IP Blocking (FIPB allow for the filtering of traffic from specified sources, protecting origin servers from potential attacks. - Support for IPv6: Ensures compatibility with modern internet protocols, allowing seamless access for users on IPv6 networks. Primary Value and Problem Solved: The IP Application Accelerator addresses the challenges of delivering high-performance, secure, and reliable IP-based applications over the public internet. Traditional internet routing can introduce latency, packet loss, and security vulnerabilities, especially for applications that cannot be cached. By optimizing data transmission paths, reducing latency, and enhancing security measures, Akamai's solution ensures that enterprises can provide a superior user experience without the need for costly private network infrastructures. This is particularly advantageous for businesses with globally distributed users, as it guarantees consistent application performance and availability across diverse geographic regions. **Who Is the Company Behind Akamai IP Accelerator?** - **Seller:** [Akamai Technologies](https://www.g2.com/sellers/akamai-technologies) - **Year Founded:** 1998 - **HQ Location:** Cambridge, MA - **Twitter:** @Akamai (115,390 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/3925/ (10,444 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NASDAQ:AKAM ## What Is WAN Optimization Software? [IT Infrastructure Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/it-infrastructure) --- ## How Do You Choose the Right WAN Optimization Software? ### What You Should Know About WAN Optimization Software ### What is WAN Optimization Software? Wide area network (WAN) optimization software improves network congestion and latency by implementing bandwidth optimization techniques such as compression, caching, data deduplication, and network prioritization. Businesses and customers do not want to wait for their web page to load. WAN optimization, also known as WAN acceleration, can help by reducing the time it takes for information to travel from a company’s data center to its remote locations. Instead of buying new bandwidth, businesses can use WAN optimization software to provide fast internet applications despite increased traffic demand. This helps to ensure that customers do not get frustrated with delays.  Companies may determine which WAN optimization methods they want to use depending on connectivity, hardware locations, legacy application environment, and integration with other network types such as a local area network (LAN). Other times businesses may choose software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) which is a virtual WAN architecture. Regardless of the methods, it should address common issues such as latency, duplication, packet loss, and congestion in certain areas of the network. The end goal is to get faster data retrieval and web application performance for end users by improving network performance in real time. ### What are the Common Features of WAN Optimization Software? The following are some core features within WAN optimization software that can help users to manage their network latency and congestion: **Bandwidth optimization:** WAN optimization software tackles bandwidth latency and congestion by caching (save frequently used contents on local server), data deduplication (send hashes data instead of actual data), protocol optimization (reduce chatty protocol), path optimization (transfer data through a less congested connection such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) or SD-WAN), location optimization (based on branch offices), and so on. Other more advanced optimization techniques may require buying hardware or advanced features from vendors.  **Flexible deployment:** WAN optimization solutions need to be easily deployed on major network virtual ware and hardware such as routers, servers, hypervisors, firewalls, and computers with high throughput (gigabytes level). Some solutions are also cloud ready or cloud natives. That means that they can be deployed in infrastructure as a service or platform as a service environment quickly. It should also be deployed in an SD-WAN environment.  **IT control and visibility:** A complete WAN solution should also monitor infrastructure resources since it needs to know resource availability to determine how to optimize the network. With full visibility, IT teams can set up service policies with the WAN optimizer to automatically manage their network based on availability. ### What are the Benefits of WAN Optimization Software? **Application acceleration:** WAN optimization software uses traffic shaping to indirectly accelerate application performance and reduce bandwidth consumption. By revamping existing network connections, the software can increase performance several times for on-premises and cloud applications in hybrid environments. Based on the applications, the WAN optimizer can distinguish which network traffic is critical to the applications and select an optimal routing path for the data transfer. In the end, clients will experience a rapid and secure user experience with WAN optimization appliances. **Cost saving:** This type of software could reduce bandwidth utilization significantly and defers costly network bandwidth upgrades. The percentage of savings varies based on the infrastructure. **Ease of management:** IT staff can designate custom policies and alerts to better manage their network performance. IT projects that heavily rely on WAN and data centers can be managed in a centralized platform. Problems will be resolved faster with high visibility into the application network and centralized dashboard. ### Challenges with WAN Optimization Software Software solutions can come with their own set of challenges.  **Network integration:** Although many WAN optimization vendors will mention that their software will be compatible with major brand software and hardware, there is no guarantee that it will run smoothly in the client’s environments. Modern network structure can be very complicated especially in hybrid environments with legacy systems, which is quite common nowadays. Even if it does run smoothly, there is also the potential problem with scalability for critical applications. Can the software perform load balancing on high throughput requirements to achieve WAN acceleration? Companies need to test the software in their own on-premise and virtualization environment before commitment. **Data regulation:** Companies need to ensure that the WAN performance policies won’t transfer sensitive data into unsecured or unauthorized channels. Selecting a less congested path or protocols may be more efficient and save money, but that doesn’t mean that it is safe. Some WAN optimization software can automatically avoid this situation, but IT teams still need to establish network security rules to make sure that won’t happen or adopt SD-WAN for further customization. **IT team alignment:** Companies should not automatically expect that their current IT team already has the necessary talent to manage WAN. The modern-day network is complicated and many IT personnel are specialized in specific layers of IT stacks. WAN optimization needs both lower layer (network and physical) and higher layer (application and transport) talents. Either different talents from different layers work together or companies need to hire new IT professionals who specialize in multiple layers (TCP acceleration). Otherwise, there will be a conflict of management as to who manages which part of the network from separate teams. This will slow down the time to solve important network issues. ### How to Buy WAN Optimization Software #### Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for WAN Optimization Software The company’s needs when searching for WAN optimization solutions often relate to specific network performance issues. For example, the user may be most interested in improving performance for latency. Buyers should make a ranked list of the WAN optimization features that most directly address the problems they’re trying to solve, then reference G2 reviews to find the right fit. Prioritizing the desired feature set can help narrow down the potential pool of WAN optimizers, allowing teams to then apply further considerations for budget, ease of integration with other systems, security requirements, and more. This holistic approach empowers buyers to move forward with a focused checklist, which can be used in conjunction with G2 scoring to select the best WAN optimization product for the business. #### Compare WAN Optimization Software Products **Create a long list** Buyers should start with a large pool of WAN optimization software vendors. Keeping the desired must-have features in mind, buyers must perform consistent inquiries during demos so they can effectively compare the pros and cons of each software. **Create a short list** It helps to cross-reference the results of initial vendor evaluations with G2 reviews from other buyers, the combination of which will help narrow it down to three to five products. From there, buyers can compare pricing and features to determine the best fit. **Conduct demos** Companies should make sure to demo all of the products that end up on their short list. The basic step of the demo is to start with a basic optimization setup. It’s important to know if the product identifies network latency, specific congested areas, and performance metrics like packet and bandwidth data. It’s also helpful to test the policy configuration and reporting function. It is important that the selected product fully reflects the entire enterprise network ecosystem and topology. #### Selection of WAN Optimization Software **Choose a selection team** Regardless of a company’s size, it’s important to involve the most relevant personnel when beginning the WAN optimization software selection process. Larger companies may include individual team members to fill roles such as system owners, IT professionals, and developers who will be working with the software closely. Smaller companies with fewer employees might overlap roles.  **Negotiation** Many companies offer full network-related platforms that go beyond WAN optimization to include application performance monitoring, cloud infrastructure monitoring, and more. While some companies will not budge on the configurations of their packages, buyers looking to trim costs should try to negotiate down to the specific functions that matter to them to get the best price. For example, a vendor’s pricing page where WAN optimization functionality is only included with a robust all-in-one monitoring package, whereas a sales conversation may prove otherwise.  **Final decision** After this stage, it is important to perform a trial run with a small selection of IT professionals or developers. This will help ensure that the software of choice integrates well with the company’s data centers, an IT administrator’s systems setup, or a developer’s day-to-day work. If the tool is well liked and well utilized, the buyer can take that as a sign that their selection is the right one. If not, reevaluation of the options may be necessary.