A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs NetScaler comparison

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A10 Networks Thunder ADC

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

A10 Networks Thunder ADC and Citrix NetScaler compete in the application delivery controller category. A10 Networks seems to have the upper hand in cost management and security features, while NetScaler leads in scalability and integration with Citrix products.

Features: A10 Networks Thunder ADC is notable for its all-inclusive licensing, advanced traffic management capabilities, and a broad security feature set, including DDoS mitigation. NetScaler stands out with its flexible deployment model, strong SSL offload capabilities, and comprehensive traffic and application reporting features. User reviews emphasize A10's security and simpler licensing, while NetScaler is recognized for its scalability.

Room for Improvement: A10 Networks Thunder ADC could enhance third-party integration, mobile web acceleration, and US support accessibility, while also addressing potential legal concerns. NetScaler users have noted complex and costly licensing processes, difficulties in maintaining backward compatibility during updates, and a need for more intuitive documentation and support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: A10 Networks Thunder ADC benefits from effective technical support and ease of on-premises setup but could improve support responsiveness in emergencies. NetScaler offers extensive deployment options, including cloud environments, but its customer service could be quicker in problem resolution and less complex, especially during its transition phase.

Pricing and ROI: A10 Networks Thunder ADC provides competitive pricing and high ROI through streamlined operations and reduced costs. Its all-inclusive licensing model boosts its value proposition. NetScaler demands higher prices due to a hefty licensing structure and separate feature costs, with ROI linked to its comprehensive features and Citrix integration capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. NetScaler Report (Updated: March 2025).

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. NetScaler

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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

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetScaler

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

107

Ranking in other categories

Network Management Applications (3rd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is 5.0%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 14.8%, down from 15.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

SatishBabu

Vice President at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Known for its load balancing capabilities, the WAF features need to be improved

The solution's initial setup process was easy. For the installation, it takes around five minutes. One person can do the maintenance since it is not required much. So, it's a one-time solution, and its maintenance is fine. The number of people required for maintenance depends on the clients as well. One or two engineers are fine to serve around a hundred clients. If you have a number of devices, more people are needed for their maintenance because of the patching it requires during regular operations. Only for the maintenance, one engineer's fine. However, for regular operations, we need multiple people.

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DEMİRHAN ÇAVUŞOĞLU

Cloud Consultant at Migros Ticaret A.Ş.

A tool for centralized management including inventory and sales tracking

Citrix ADM has the ability to implement policies to tighten security. For instance, you can restrict access to your network from outsiders or lack necessary security measures such as antivirus programs. Additionally, there's the Delivery Controller, which allows for comprehensive monitoring and management tasks such as remote restarts, maintenance, and registration. Another essential component is the Director, which provides detailed insights into sessions, including identifying session failures, connection issues, user lockouts, etc. It presents a list of problems to address, enabling you to click on them and resolve them efficiently.

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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

"It helps with the efficiency of application deployments and data security."

"The ADCs are pretty straightforward and easy to use. There is a GUI base where you can go in and see everything, but they also have a CLI base where you can use a command and get the information that you want, very fast."

"The ease of use is very good. It's very robust. It just sits and works."

"The most valuable features in A10 Networks Thunder ADC are the ease of configuration, user-friendliness, and simplicity to sell to customers."

"The solution is stable."

"We do have the option of creating virtual chassis, so that gives it a bit more security. If we find an application which is not going to play well in the main pool, we can easily create a virtual chassis and have that application in that virtual chassis. With the virtual chassis we can also create system partitions and have a test system for test applications, and have the others elsewhere."

"The solution is flexible."

"The DNS application firewall and load balancing are very valuable."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pros

"It is a complete solution for those looking for an all-in-one."

"It has helped us to increase the resiliency of the application and the performance."

"Enables a Web service that offers persistent client-server connections, IP restriction, URL rewrite (such as remove "/assets/" path from client-side URL path), and cache for CSS or JS files... You can easily use the GUI to set up all these requirements on the same network device within 20-30 minutes. (If you do the same steps on CLI, it might take less time.)"

"The web application firewall which protects our services on the internet, and then of course services like our ability to provide high availability for the services we are offering are the most valuable features."

"The best feature of Citrix is its track record of stability in its features."

"The solution improves security performance."

"The most valuable feature is load balancing."

"Citrix Netscaler makes it easy to provide services to end users, offering better visibility into user sessions compared to VMware. However, instability in network or machine can cause headaches as it's hard to pinpoint issues. SSL offload feature enhances security posture by providing secure connectivity between end users and backend systems. We use additional Azure remote security solutions for comprehensive protection."

More NetScaler pros

Cons

"A graphical dashboard for analyzing performance is needed."

"The tool's load-balancing feature should improve."

"The solution does logging, but the logging capacity is really small. Because we have a bunch of traffic here, we usually get a logging-side warning that "This many logs were lost because of the heavy traffic." If the logging was better, that would be very good."

"Currently, the solution's WAF features are fewer. They should consider increasing their WAF features."

"There is room for improvement in the GUI. I just migrated from the 2.7 software train to the 4.1, and there are still people on 2.7. The latter is a very old GUI if you compare it to F5. It's not as easy to use and a lot of things are missing. They've made a lot of improvements in the 4.1 step, but compared to the ease of use of F5, it's still quite difficult. For people who haven't got a lot of experience, the GUI can be quite challenging."

"We are starting to do a lot with containers and how the solution hooks into Kubernetes that we haven't explored. I'm hoping that they have a lot of hooks into Kubernetes. That would be the part for improvement: Marketing use cases with containers."

"There is room for improvement in the upgrading process. Sometimes we have to contact A10 for verification of some stuff."

"The interface and integrated custom applications can be a bit difficult."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC cons

"This is an expensive solution."

"The WAF component needs to be simplified so that it is easier to use."

"An area for improvement would be the difficulty in finding information about standard licensing costs over the internet. They should provide some reference prices on the net to be quickly referred to."

"Technical support sometimes takes a little longer because of the multilevel ticket priority."

"The product could be improved by making it easier to use and easier to implement."

"Native integration needs to be improved. You cannot build ISE codes natively. For DevOps, integration would be very helpful because it would be a lot simpler from an operational standpoint."

"There are certain features that are very useful and Citrix makes you pay a bit more for them."

"Finding relevant documentation for learning NetScaler can be challenging, especially for beginners who prefer a web interface over command-line interfaces."

More NetScaler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is good they are very comparative."

"For the hardware and license, we paid $35,000 per box, which was a one-time cost. Then, for the Gold Support on the two boxes, we pay $9400 annually."

"We just pay for support in addition to our licensing."

"We did try out the solution’s Harmony analytics and visibility controller for its one-year trial. Due to the cost, we chose not to keep it onsite."

"You get a lot more for your dollar with A10."

"The pricing is a third of the price of the F5 competition."

"The price of the maintenance support is too expensive."

"As for the initial investment in the hardware, F5 and A10 are quite similar now. For the current A10 solution, the initial cost was about $36,000. As for annual support, the F5 solution would be between $10,000 and $12,000, while the A10 is $2,200 a year for support."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pricing and cost advice

"I give the price of the solution a seven out of ten."

"The tool is cheap."

"The pricing for Citrix Web App and API Protection is unreasonable. I don't know the exact price, but I heard it's tens of thousands and it's a bit too much for the small country I live in."

"It all depends on the features that will be used and the number of accesses."

"For the specific use case that my customers primarily engage with, I would give the pricing a rating of seven out of ten."

"The solution is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"Citrix ADM costs us approximately $5000 per month."

"The licenses for this product are payable as a yearly subscription, and carry a high price-point. The subscription scheme is quite complicated, and costs will increase with each additional feature that is required, outside of the basic setup."

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

Government

Educational Organization

15%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

I would recommend A10 Networks due that it delivers high performance in a small form factor to reduce OPEX with significantly lower power usage, rack space, and cooling requirements compared to oth...

Do you recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC?

I do recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC. It's very user-friendly, easy to configure, and flexible. It is a very useful solution - especially now, when a lot of employees are working remotely. I hav...

What do you like most about A10 Networks Thunder ADC?

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution.

What do you like most about Citrix ADC?

The most valuable feature for us is the application firewalling in Citrix NetScaler, ensuring only valid traffic enters our environment.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix ADC?

After deployment, Citrix Netscaler shifted to a subscription-based license scheme for support, which is slightly more expensive.

What needs improvement with Citrix ADC?

Citrix NetScaler is a robust product, but mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexity. While it could be easier to manage, it is like transitioning from driving a ...

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Product Reports

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

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Also Known As

Thunder ADC, AX Series

Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall

Overview

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a dynamic application delivery controller and advanced load balancer. Thunder ADC is a value-added solution provided by A10 Networks specializing in robust, trusted, scalable application services for cloud, hybrid, edge cloud, and on-premise environments focused on improving business processes and keeping infrastructures safe. The solution consistently provides server availability, improves content delivery, and protects at-risk applications. A10 Networks Thunder ADC easily controls hybrid and multi-cloud deployments using a Polynimbus strategy to minimize difficulties and costs for IT processes, facilitating overall improved business results.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is effective for small to medium businesses (SMBs) to large enterprises. Service providers and cloud operators are all using A10 Network ADC to manage their large and fast-growing group of business-critical applications.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC supplies L4-7 load balancing with numerous layers of security using DNS and web app firewalls, comprehensive support for advanced encryption, single sign-on (SSO) authentication, and high-performance Perfect Forward Secrecy and Error Correction Code (PFS/ECC). Thunder ADC is designed upon A10 Networks Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS®) platform to provide consistent, efficient application performance and trusted security for any environment.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC Benefits

Consistently accessible: A10 Networks Thunder ADC employs numerous load balancing protocols to evenly distribute workloads to all servers and works to ensure constant application functionality. User requests are monitored to ensure loads are directed to the appropriate server so that there is always a proper response delivery to content. This process ensures the applications are consistently available.
Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB): To ensure business processes are fully optimized at all times, A10 Networks Thunder ADC employs a dynamic Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) process to augment server load balancing capabilities throughout global data centers for high availability and improved user experience and application tolerance.
Fast content delivery: A10 Networks Thunder ADC conquers the general WAN latencies, chatty policies, and redundant software programs to ensure quick and responsive service. Employees receive a fast, excellent end-user experience while the organization's business leaders get exceeded SLA mandates and increased productivity with teams working remotely and a step up on the competition.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC Features

Detailed Analytics: When deployed with A10 Networks Harmony Controller, Thunder ADC delivers a large selection of detailed aggregate and per-request reports in real time. The reports include popular URLs, error and health indicators, latencies, and end-to-end response times. The data is further dissected to deliver per-app reporting, availability alerts, and performance.
API Coverage: Thunder ADC utilizes A10 Networks REST-based aXAPIs to structure all features with 100 percent API coverage. The resulting interface is then used to seamlessly integrate custom or third-party management solutions, such as VMware or other SDN platforms, OpenStack, Microsoft SCVMM, or other cloud orchestration systems. There are also software plug-ins available for private clouds utilizing VMware’s vRealize Orchestrator.
Comprehensive Management Controls: Thunder ADC is fully supported by A10 Networks Harmony Controller and can be deployed in software or as a software-as-a-service (SaaS). This controller functions as a native management platform that organizes and distributes application-centric service protocols and configuration data to numerous Thunder appliances and device cluster infrastructures throughout numerous multi-cloud environments. Users can instantly identify, audit and track every appliance using critical operational metrics, such as CPU, disk usage, device partitions, and end users. The A10 Networks Harmony Controller will also complete configuration backups and restore operations, and will schedule regular software upgrades.

A10 Networks

One platform for a consistent application delivery and security experience because nobody has time to learn multiple systems to manage ADC deployments. NetScaler is built with a single code base using a software-based architecture, so no matter which ADC form factor you choose — hardware, virtual machine, bare metal, or container — the behavior will be the same.

Sample Customers

123inkt.nl, Bentley University, Box, Brainshark, Buienradar, Capgemini, CGN/LSN & NAT64, Chengdu Telecom, Club One, Code Ready, CRC Health Group, Cyso, Deutsche Telekom, Earth Class Mail, Excite, FFF Enterprises, Florence County, Framingham State University, From30

ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. NetScaler