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Citrix Gateway vs SonicWall Netextender comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 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

Citrix Gateway
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Universal Access Gateways (1st), SSL VPN (1st)
SonicWall Netextender
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
11th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of Citrix Gateway is 3.5%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Netextender is 2.9%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Citrix Gateway3.5%
SonicWall Netextender2.9%
Other93.6%
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

SK
Enterprise Architect at Wipro Limited
Strong security and versatile features drive positive experience, but support responsiveness can improve
The main purpose of Citrix Gateway is to enforce the appropriate level of access to the correct user on the proper device under the correct conditions. This is enabled through Citrix Gateway combined with endpoint analysis and optional Citrix analytics for security. Regarding improvements, implementing adaptive access policies on Citrix Gateway could be enhanced, particularly in security posture. Although it enforces real-time contextual access control based on device, user network risk, certain aspects can be improved. Other areas for improvement include BYOD access control and risk-based decision-making. Additionally, there is potential for reducing administrative overhead by applying policies dynamically based on context rather than static rules. Incident response speed is another area that could be enhanced.
Rich Darress - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Operating Officer at Darress Tech
Has provided secure remote access to multiple client networks with consistent performance
When buying the appliance itself, there is one downside that isn't exclusive to SonicWall. When you apply all the security settings, many people have one gig connections for internet ISP. If you're bringing in a one gig connection, you have to have a more robust SonicWall to handle that throughput with all your security settings turned on. It gets pretty pricey upfront if you're bringing in a one gig connection. If the customer starts with a two, three, four, or 500 meg connection and has a small unit, they have to replace the whole box when upgrading to a gig, so scalability there is atrocious. However, this issue exists with pretty much any appliance.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The session monitoring capability is good."
"We have users in a remote environment that might require to access the service."
"I didn't have any hiccups or issues with it."
"If you need to share resources across a corporation, I would recommend this solution."
"Citrix Gateway is stable once I am connected."
"The ROI is significant because the solutions are adequate to protect the servers."
"Aside the functionality and features, it's simple and very user-friendly to deploy and maintain."
"The solution is scalable and can go from a very small deployment to handling 10,000 transactions a second."
"Employees can have access to the network from home."
"The product is very cost-effective; for the price-sensitive market, this is a very good product for an SSL VPN solution."
"My company opted for this solution because it can individually perform. Basically, we don't require load balancers and all those additional feature sets or additional devices that might be required. The solution can handle the certificate, DNS queries, and all that stuff individually."
"It's a stable tool that does what it is supposed to do."
"When we started to change from IPsec-type clients that were predominantly built right into the firewalls to this approach or deployment style for SSL VPN, the amount of time that our techs spent helping people with VPN issues was probably cut by more than half."
"I found nothing of value in this solution."
"The SSL-VPN encryption has been fantastic for my organization's data confidentiality and integrity; we've done extensive testing with third-party cybersecurity testing while connected and it has passed with flying colors."
"It can support multifactor authentication. Also, it is a very basic application."
 

Cons

"The solution can be a bit pricey."
"I would like to see better configuration of repairs and downloading certification."
"The tool must provide better integration and connectivity."
"Areas that should be improved are the configuration of profiles and uploading and downloading of our certificates."
"I would like to see improved logging because it doesn't keep much information for the session monitoring or historical sessions."
"We are currently looking at automation. It would be good if there is some way to automate it in a fast way. It should be easy to automate. It also has some security issues."
"Citrix Gateway could improve the speed of the VPN. I sometimes have to wait for 10 to 15 minutes to get connected and other times when I am connected I have to abort, and reconnect."
"If the solution had a more advanced DNS, it would be an improvement."
"They need to rewrite the software to make it a usable product."
"The Netextender application itself doesn't really look pretty, however, we can still use it. We don't care what it looks like. That said, if they did a cosmetic update, that would be fine."
"The solution takes up a lot of bandwidth."
"If the customer starts with a two, three, four, or 500 meg connection and has a small unit, they have to replace the whole box when upgrading to a gig, so scalability there is atrocious."
"From my experience with using it, we do have problems sometimes with the credentialing-saving parts of it."
"Some companies provide a VPN client for free, but you have to pay for NetExtender."
"NetExtender did nothing to improve my organization - in fact, it was quite the opposite. Users constantly complained of lag and unbearable sluggishness (with a max speed of 10-30kbps) through the VPN, even though we have relatively high bandwidth for a small office (400mbps)."
"Right now, you have to load each license on to an appliance. You can't pool across multiple appliances. So, you end up having to do a lot of administrative work to recover if an internet provider goes down, and you cannot leverage it as easily into a DR solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is very high if you do a comparison with what is available in the market."
"Citrix is quite expensive."
"Usually with Citrix the issue is the pricing, especially for the African region. We believe it's really expensive."
"There is a need to make yearly payments for licensing purposes. Also, it is not an expensive one."
"There is a license to use Citrix Gateway and it is less expensive to use when compared to other solutions."
"It costs about 4,000 a year."
"I consider Citrix Gateway to be an expensive solution, generally ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 yearly, depending on the model."
"The price could be lower."
"After a certain number of users, you require extra licensing."
"Cost wise, it would be a few hundred dollars for the base appliance with the first five clients. Then from there, your cost per seat depends on how many you're getting. It's a one-time cost, and then you have a few hundred dollars a year for the maintenance contract once you get the one-time seat costs out of the way."
"The solution is cheap itself, not too costly."
"You have to pay for its license. There are some other companies that provide a VPN client for free. When you buy NetExtender, its license is available for one, three, or five years."
"The price of SonicWall Netextender is reasonable. Whether it's a small shop with only five users or a larger operation with 130 users, we have received no complaints or objections regarding cost from any of the clients we are looking to deploy it with."
"Compared to others, it is cheaper. When we compare it with Palo Alto, Check Point, or Fortinet, it is a little cheaper."
"The solution has a pretty good price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix Gateway?
The price is one aspect, but technically it is complete. Technically, it is really complete.
What needs improvement with Citrix Gateway?
I see room for improvement in several areas. The monitoring site could be much better because monitoring NetScaler and Citrix Gateway is too difficult with just SNMP traps available. Improving the ...
What is your primary use case for Citrix Gateway?
I am on the customer side using Citrix products, specifically Citrix CVAD for Virtual and Desktop virtualization. I am using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service. We are using Citrix Gateway an...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall Netextender?
The pricing for my experience with the setup cost and licensing of SonicWall Netextender is fair. The Netextender itself has no cost. It's the SSL licensing that is attached to the SonicWall. It us...
What needs improvement with SonicWall Netextender?
SonicWall Netextender has not helped with compliance, as it is not applicable for what I'm doing. I've put several feature requests in over the years and they've implemented them all, so it current...
What is your primary use case for SonicWall Netextender?
Getting to local resources on a customer's network is my main use case with SonicWall Netextender or SonicWall SSL-VPN. As a managed service provider, all my customers have SonicWalls and I get int...
 

Also Known As

Citrix NetScaler Unified Gateway
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aeronamic, Avianca, Bechtel Corporation, Betfair UK, Catholic University Leuven (K.U. Leuven), Centene Corporation, Cerner, Charityshare, City of High Point, Clark Builders
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix Gateway vs. SonicWall Netextender and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
890,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.