Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NetScaler comparison

Microsoft and NetScaler are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.2, while NetScaler is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. Additionally, 78% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of NetScaler users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

NetScaler and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway compete in the application delivery controller (ADC) category. NetScaler has the upper hand due to its extensive feature set, particularly in areas where Azure is seen as less versatile.

Features: NetScaler provides a TriScale architecture allowing for pay-as-you-grow scaling, multitenancy, SSL offload, and comprehensive traffic management. It integrates well with Citrix products, providing high availability and load balancing options. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway offers seamless integration with Azure services and is praised for its ease of use and traffic management abilities.

Room for Improvement: NetScaler faces challenges in feature innovation and complex customization, lacking advanced scripting abilities and efficient documentation. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway needs better integration and customization features, improvements in scalability, and enhanced security offerings. Users also note setup complexity and limitations in protocol support and flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetScaler is typically deployed on-premises, offering extensive customer support, although there are inconsistencies in support quality. Azure Application Gateway is cloud-based, presenting flexibility in deployment but with varied feedback on support, noting both effective responses and areas needing improvement.

Pricing and ROI: NetScaler is costly, often requiring separate licenses and support fees, but offers substantial ROI through its capabilities. Azure Application Gateway, while expensive, is considered reasonable relative to traditional solutions, favoring a pay-as-you-go model, though costs can rise with high-traffic use. Both provide high ROI through data security and operation optimization, with enterprise cases affecting specifics.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler

February 2025

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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

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.

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Shehzad Ali

Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation

Offers time and cost savings with integration, but user interface needs improvement

We are using it for our internal application development. We are testing those features of application gateways. We are integrating it with our solutions, application, Azure Application Gateway Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well. It provides a range of services, so it…

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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

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

"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."

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

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

"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."

"It's very user-friendly."

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."

More Cloudflare pros

"Good customization; able to report and take action on alerts."

"The tool is easy to use and quite flexible. It has policy management features as well. The solution screens all traffic to our web applications before passing it to the application. We recently tested it on one of our poorly developed applications, and the upgrade gave us a 100% result based on our tests. It's very effective as a security measure, and people can detect threats even through the web application."

"Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well."

"It does an excellent job of load balancing."

"The solution has built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure."

"I find Application Gateway’s WAF module valuable because it helps prevent layer 7 attacks."

"The solution integrates different applications and APIs securely, enhancing overall security and network optimization."

"I rate Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's scalability a ten out of ten. My company has more than 1000 users who use it daily."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pros

"It is the best product out there."

"Helped us a lot with load balancing."

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

"The solution is very stable. We don't have any downtime or issues of that nature."

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

"The solution can scale."

"If you need PCI-compliance and have high security requirements, WAF is the most valuable feature. If you need to monitor your load-balancing services with complex types of monitoring, make sure everything is alright, and load balancing is important, Content Switching and Monitoring features are the keys to your needs. If you want to provide a lot of static images or data, the Caching feature works best for you."

"The maintenance of the solution is not complex."

More NetScaler pros

Cons

"It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market."

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

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

"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."

"Technical support is lacking."

"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."

"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."

"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."

More Cloudflare cons

"It does not have the flexibility for using public IPs in version 2."

"The graphical interface needs improvement because it is not user friendly."

"The product could be easier to use and implement."

"The solution needs improvements in integrating different services and creating a better application balance."

"The product's performance should be better."

"The increased security that we are considering is because of some of the things that the security team has brought to our attention. They have pointed out that we would most likely require a better web application firewall than Azure Application Gateway."

"The solution could improve by increasing the performance when doing updates. For example, if I change the certificate it can take 30 minutes. Other vendors do not have this type of problem."

"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's first deployment is complex. It needs to improve its pricing."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway cons

"The reporting is not so good. They don't have an application to connect the logs."

"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."

"I feel that Citrix NetScaler's customer support needs to improve."

"The setup for Citrix NetScaler has room for improvement. It could be easier."

"Maybe creating policies with simple regular expressions."

"Citrix should offer a demo or free-trial version of NetScaler. Several other vendors do, but Citrix does not. Pricing should also be more readily available."

"Citrix Web App and API Protection could improve in the area of licensing"

"The tool needs to add a feature where we can access the network policy access manager."

More NetScaler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable."

"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 minimal compared to other products."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"I rate the pricing seven out of ten because some third-party solutions are even costlier than this."

"Regarding pricing for Azure Application Gateway, I would rate it at seven."

"The solution is reasonably priced compared to other solutions."

"The solution is fairly priced."

"We use the tool's basic subscription. Its licensing costs are monthly."

"It is not expensive."

"There is some additional cost, such as extended support."

"The solution is paid monthly. The solution is highly expensive."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pricing and cost advice

"It is very pricey, but we get it. If you need the best, money shouldn't be a problem."

"I rate the pricing an eight out of ten since it is expensive."

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

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight or nine out of ten."

"The solution's pricing is very high compared to its competitors."

"There isn't much of a difference between the cost of Citrix and that of other similar solutions."

"The solution is undoubtedly very good, but it is expensive."

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

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

23%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

16%

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?

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's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?

We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides...

See all answers

How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the...

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 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Radware DDoS Protection Service vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

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F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 12% of the time

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 12% of the time

AWS WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors

HAProxy vs NetScaler

Compared 11% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs NetScaler

Compared 9% of the time

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

Compared 9% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs NetScaler

Compared 8% of the time

NGINX Plus vs NetScaler

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

February 2025

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Download Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

NetScaler

February 2025

Download NetScaler product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway

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

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

Cloudflare

Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

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.

NetScaler

Sample Customers

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

Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler

February 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.

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See our list of best Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) vendors and best Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendors.

We monitor all Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) 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.