Akamai App and API Protector vs NetScaler comparison

Akamai and NetScaler are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Akamai is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.7, while NetScaler is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.2. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of NetScaler users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

NetScaler and Akamai App and API Protector are leading products in traffic management and application security. NetScaler stands out for its robust load balancing and traffic management features, while Akamai excels in CDN and DDoS protection. The choice depends on specific needs; however, Akamai appears superior in security, whereas NetScaler excels in deployment flexibility.

Features: NetScaler provides robust load balancing and comprehensive traffic management supported by its flexible TriScale architecture for scalability. It includes SSL offloading and integration with Citrix applications, ensuring efficient deployment and application delivery. Akamai App and API Protector specializes in CDN delivery and DDoS protection, offering advanced security for applications and APIs. Its scalability across cloud environments makes it ideal for diverse infrastructures.

Room for Improvement: NetScaler users suggest enhancements in feature innovation, specifically asymmetric web content optimization and scripting options like iRule. The complexity in deployment and potential bugs in updates are also noted. Akamai App and API Protector could bolster integration capabilities, improve user-friendliness, and enhance adaptive security to address evolving threats more effectively.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetScaler allows for diverse deployments in on-premises, private, and hybrid cloud environments, although this sometimes complicates setup. Customer service varies in quality and speed. Akamai's focus is on public and hybrid cloud infrastructures, offering smoother setups with more reliable and faster technical support.

Pricing and ROI: NetScaler is considered expensive due to complex licensing and additional feature costs, offering significant ROI through enhanced network capabilities. Akamai App and API Protector is also priced on the higher side, especially for smaller businesses. Despite the cost, its comprehensive security suite provides a solid ROI by effectively protecting applications and APIs.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai App and API Protector vs. NetScaler Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector vs. NetScaler

January 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 831,020 peers since 2012

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

Cloudflare

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

Read full review

Bharat Chandra

Head of DevOpps at Indian express

Exceptional support, protects our sites, and provides visibility into traffic

We did a PoC of Akamai and Cloudflare. One area where Akamai can improve is the captcha part. Cloudflare provides a captcha if there are a certain number of threats. For example, I can assign that if there are 10 requests within a second from a single IP, it should send a captcha to the user. The user should fill in the captcha, and only after that, the user should be able to access our website. This captcha feature should be built into Bot Manager. I love this captcha feature of Cloudflare. Other things are good in Akamai. That is why we are using Akamai. Only the captcha part should be implemented.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."

"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."

"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."

"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."

More Cloudflare pros

"The solution easily identifies, delays, or allows business traffic."

"It enables us to move faster with new products because we have this layer of protection set up in our infrastructure."

"The support that we got from their technical team has been fantastic. I have never experienced this level of support from other CDN providers."

"The product has a good user interface."

"Akamai Web Application Protector is a good solution that provides basic web application protection."

"The solution can scale extremely well."

"I like that the charges are all based on usage and labor costs. For the time that we spend onboarding almost 252020 FQDN, Akamai charges us only for the traffic usage, but it's only charging us for the labor costs for onboarding."

"The product has a good UI."

More Akamai App and API Protector pros

"The stability is good. If there is a problem, the load will be shifted to other sites automatically, which has been a good experience for us."

"We like the periodic upgrades and backups, also made via ADMs, and it makes our environment much more robust and reliable."

"From a security standpoint, It is a comprehensive solution in a single box."

"Provides resiliency for applications that reside on servers, as well as connectivity to remote applications."

"Most of the functions are user-friendly and great."

"The solution is very stable."

"What I like most about Citrix NetScaler is its stability, and I didn't see a lot of issues with it."

"Content Redirection and SSO integration with Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop. The GUI was wonderful."

More NetScaler pros

Cons

"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."

"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."

"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."

"Support response time could be improved."

"For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components."

"Latencies are always a problem."

"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."

"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."

More Cloudflare cons

"Customer support has room for improvement."

"Akamai App and API Protector is very new to me, so I do not have any insights on improvement areas for the product. However, when we ask for some help, it can take some time. We understand that the job is done by professionals, but if that time can be reduced, it would be great."

"In terms of precedence of Akamai rules, the last one is implemented. That is the one that is operational. If two rules contradict, the last one is implemented. We had a clash, but it was really tough to find that out. I would like to have a rulebook because, in their architecture documentation, it is not mentioned anywhere that if two rules clash, the last one works, and if it does not work, then what to do. This is something we were debating today with their tech support. With AWS, we get documents for the issues so that they do not occur in the future. Akamai's support and knowledge base needs to be improved."

"They are already very flexible, but room for improvement is there. Reports generation could be better and should be improved."

"The WAF features definitely have a lot of room for improvement. A lot of the WAF is really basic. For some products or some of our solutions, we need to run a second layer of more advanced WAF. If it had better layer seven protection then we would not need a second WAF."

"If we talk about application layer attacks, including WAF, CloudFlare is leading. Akamai can focus a bit more on the application layer attacks and how to protect them."

"The pricing could be reduced a bit."

"It would be better if there weren't any issues with latency. We had latency issues, but I think they are all solved now."

More Akamai App and API Protector cons

"The only thing customers told me that could be improved is that they would like to be able to purchase and receive the products in one box, rather than two boxes. This is something related to marketing, though."

"It was challenging explaining to customers that it's no longer NetScaler but ADC, and now it's not just ADC but also the rebranding from NetScaler."

"Reducing the overhead required for AppFlow data collection, specifically for HDX Insight, would be a huge improvement."

"The vendor provides frequent patches, however, the security of the website has room for improvement."

"The solution is a bit more expensive than some of the available solutions in this region. One solution in particular that I noticed was cheaper was Kemp."

"I think there is always room for improvement in this type of solutions. For example, I think the GUI should be easy to understand."

"I would like to see them make it easier to do some of the more complex things. For example, a web re-direct requires two pieces to it. You have two ports and when people want to go to a web page, they just type in the webpage that on the backend it will redirect them to a secure link. The initial setup of that is cumbersome because you have to do it twice. There are things that can be replicated. The IP address, for example, is the same. This change would go a long way. Don't make me do it twice and don't make me have to read tons of documentation to figure out how to do it. Ease of configuration for some of the more complex processes would be a good improvement."

"Citrix ADC can be really complex. It isn't very simple like some other appliances that I've worked with. You need a lot of skill and experience to manage it. I'm not talking about a year or two. You need at least four years to understand it very well. It is not that easy to learn. They should make it a lot simpler for users to understand the management of it. They can also provide some additional training. The material they have on the site is not sufficient enough for you to understand how to manage it. Their training is expensive, and not everyone has the funds and experience for it. Citrix isn't very popular around these parts of the world. So, it can use some more marketing, sales, enlightenment, and advertisement. These could bring more market for them. Basically, there are just a few companies that really go for Citrix. Most of the companies go for VMware because they marketed themselves more than Citrix. There isn't much difference between Citrix and VMware. VMware is a little more robust than Citrix. Citrix has focused more on desktops rather than server virtualization, and that's the advantage VMware has over Citrix. Citrix also needs to educate and inform users about the infrastructure that is supported with a version. Currently, if the customers don't look at the datasheet, they might miss this important information."

More NetScaler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."

"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."

"We are using the free version."

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"Based on the billing discussions in the DevOps team, Akamai's cost does not seem to be a major thing. However, LOE is an issue. When it comes to support, we know that even all the competitors do this. For a 30-minute issue, they give us a LOE of one or two hours. That is a basic practice, but that is something we worry about."

"Its price is at the medium level. It is not very high. It is also not very low. It serves the purpose."

"The price they are offering is quite reasonable for premium customers, but it's very expensive if you're a small and medium-sized enterprises."

"Akamai is very expensive."

"There is no license at all for Akamai. They are going to charge us only for the usage."

"The product is expensive, but it is worth the money."

"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."

"Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."

More Akamai App and API Protector pricing and cost advice

"It's not for startups or SOHO."

"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."

"The firewall license is included by default, with no additional costs."

"We have been evaluating F5, Citrix, and other ADC products. Citrix is the most expense of all of them."

"It is true that it is a bit pricey compared to newer technologies coming to the market. For example, A10 is a load balancer that does everything that Citrix can and it does a lot more than what NetScaler does when it comes to the security space, and their prices are so cheap. Every box comes with its own license and support built into it. When you compare that with NetScaler, you have to buy licenses separately, you have to buy a support agreement that is going to be separate. A small NetScaler, even if it is a VPX which is a virtual server, could cost you close to $150,000 to $200,000 dollars. So the pricing is really high."

"Its licensing cost is much higher than other products, but it is acceptable because it is a one-time investment, and we are getting our requirements fulfilled when we buy this product. So, there is no issue with the pricing."

"I do not have any experience with the pricing of the product."

"Our licensing fees including technical support are approximately $3,500 USD."

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Educational Organization

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

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?

Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?

Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cloudflare?

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

See all answers

What do you like most about Akamai Web Application Protector?

The product is user-friendly.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai Web Application Protector?

The price is higher than others. It could be about 80% to 70% more expensive than other tools. So, it’s not just a sl...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Akamai Web Application Protector?

It could have better analytics and reporting visibility in the OEM console.

See all answers

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 ente...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Citrix ADC?

Citrix NetScaler is a robust product, but mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexi...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 14% of the time

AWS WAF vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 12% of the time

Prolexic vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 8% of the time

F5 Shape Security vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 4% of the time

More Akamai App and API Protector Competitors

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NetScaler

Compared 14% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs NetScaler

Compared 13% of the time

HAProxy vs NetScaler

Compared 11% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs NetScaler

Compared 10% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs NetScaler

Compared 7% of the time

More NetScaler Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector

January 2025

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

Buyer's Guide

NetScaler

December 2024

Download NetScaler product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender

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

Learn More

Cloudflare

Akamai

NetScaler

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Akamai App and API Protector provides website security by preventing DDoS attacks, acting as an application firewall, managing content delivery, and monitoring APIs. It adapts to threat profiles and is used for fast media delivery and identifying malicious activities.

Akamai App and API Protector offers strong protection, adaptable security features, and efficient traffic management. Its WAF blocks IP addresses and country-specific threats while preventing SQL injections. Companies utilize it for scalable CDN services and comprehensive traffic analysis. Known for its cost-effectiveness and user-friendly dashboard, this protector stands out for its customizable rules and technical support. Users also highlight the ease of integration and detailed attack insights available through its advanced dashboard.

What are the key features of Akamai App and API Protector?

DDoS Protection: Strong defense against Distributed Denial of Service attacks.
Scalable CDN: Manages content delivery efficiently under high traffic loads.
WAF Capabilities: Blocks specific IPs and countries, prevents SQL injections.
Traffic Filtering: Analyzes and controls incoming requests to maintain security.
Adaptive Stream Delivery: Adjusts content delivery to meet bandwidth needs.

What benefits should users expect?

Cost-Effectiveness: Provides robust security tools at a competitive price.
Enhanced Security: Comprehensive protection against cyber threats.
Scalability: Easily handles increasing traffic and data loads.
Ease of Integration: Simple integration with existing systems.
Insightful Analytics: Offers data-driven insights into traffic and attack patterns.

In media, Akamai App and API Protector ensures smooth streaming by handling high bandwidth demands. E-commerce companies use it to guard against fraud and data breaches. Financial sectors rely on its ability to protect sensitive transactions. Implementations in healthcare focus on safeguarding patient data while maintaining compliance with regulations.

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

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet

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

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector vs. NetScaler

January 2025

Free Report: Akamai App and API Protector vs. NetScaler

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. NetScaler and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Akamai App and API Protector vs. NetScaler report.

See our list of best Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendors.

We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.