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Amazon Elastic Load Balancing vs NetScaler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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

Amazon Elastic Load Balancing
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
21
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 Amazon Elastic Load Balancing is 1.5%, down from 2.1% 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

Mohd Farhan - PeerSpot reviewer
Manage complex traffic routing with ease and ensure system availability
The ELB would benefit from allowing deployment in a single availability zone for test servers to avoid unnecessary costs. Additionally, the ability to directly block specific IP addresses without additional service integration would be beneficial. Furthermore, sometimes ALB has a delay in recognizing the need to scale the system based on CloudWatch metrics, which could use improvement.
DEMİRHAN ÇAVUŞOĞLU - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Elastic Load Balancer facilitates the distribution of incoming application traffic, which directs requests to various servers, preventing overload on a single instance."
"The best part about ALB is its ability to connect with different services including EC2, ECS, API Gateway, or Lambda functions, offering a lot of benefits like attaching a WAF."
"The network load balancer is really fast."
"The solution offers good load balancing."
"Amazon Elastic Load Balancing has improved our application availability by routing client requests only to healthy EC2 instances."
"Security and monitoring for high-performance applications are some of the top features."
"The most valuable feature is the Lambda function due to its utility with serverless technology."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon Elastic Load Balancing is scaling."
"The advantage of Citrix Web App and API Protection is just its graphic user interface for beginners. The solution is nothing special, but we have to use it for the corporation. Another advantage of Citrix Web App and API Protection is that we have our copy to test things and get the know-how of it."
"It has helped us to increase the resiliency of the application and the performance."
"The most valuable feature for us is the application firewalling in Citrix NetScaler, ensuring only valid traffic enters our environment."
"I found that the GUI was very easy to to navigate. If you were looking for something, it was fairly easy to find. There's a lot of third-party documentation and information available online as well."
"Very stable."
"I like the ease of use. It's easy to manage. I also like it's ease of use with virtualization technologies with applications."
"The most valuable feature is load balancing."
"The work balancing applications are the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to guarantee stability because multiple loads behind a load balancer can cause service unavailability."
"One issue that we faced with ALB was that leaf-level certificate validation was not happening. It is not that user-friendly in that aspect."
"The tool could enhance the internal load balancer with better health monitoring. The external load balancer needs more security parameters to protect it from the internet, as it currently lacks protection. It's okay for basic load balancing and those looking for basic functionality in an application load balancer. However, if someone is going to onboard a critical application, like in the banking sector, I wouldn't suggest Amazon Elastic Load Balancer because of security issues. There are no firewall restrictions."
"They should improve the solution's pricing."
"They could improve provisioning speed."
"The product's stability is an area with a slight shortcoming, which can be improved."
"It would be good if we had a product that integrates well with third-party vendors. Some of our customers want a multi-cloud solution. They don't want to be tied up to or be in just one cloud."
"Clients sometimes face issues with Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, and it can take a long time to detect these issues."
"The interface could be improved, some customers struggle with that."
"There is room for improvement regarding the pricing policy for Citrix offices."
"Citrix ADC is a complex product, and it takes time to understand these things. But the documentation is poor, and the deployment is difficult. Integration could also be better because what I find is that you cannot easily integrate the panel in the second sector. What I have found is that in the last index, there is a limitation when getting validated. Technical support could also be better."
"Development team's response time could be better."
"Technical support could be improved."
"Mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexity."
"The reporting is not so good. They don't have an application to connect the logs."
"There are some drawbacks, such as using EUG for specific configurations. It could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is low and I rate it a nine out of ten."
"The solution's pricing is $30 per month."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product is not cheap."
"There is a yearly license."
"The cost for using the application load balancer is approximately $18 to $21 per month."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of connections one uses. It is a free tool for a certain amount of connections, which runs into thousands, and after that, there is a certain amount to be paid to Amazon."
"I have no issues with the tool's pricing."
"The solution is undoubtedly very good, but it is expensive."
"Citrix Web App and API Protection are in the middle when we talk about pricing and licensing"
"The solution's pricing is very high compared to its competitors."
"This product is more expensive than some of the competitors."
"The solution is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"For partners, NetScaler is not as expensive price-wise versus F5."
"When compared to other solutions, the cost is high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Educational Organization
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Elastic Load Balancing?
Amazon Elastic Load Balancing transfers the data securely from servers to users and splits the traffic based on peak times.
What needs improvement with Amazon Elastic Load Balancing?
Sometimes the target group takes too much time to configure or to be seen on the internet, especially when configuring through ISV tools.
What is your primary use case for Amazon Elastic Load Balancing?
Elastic Load Balancer is used to maintain requests and distribute traffic on target groups. The target could be any type of instances, IPs, or Lambda functions. Most of the time, the target group i...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Elastic Load Balancing vs. NetScaler and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.