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Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs NetScaler comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Cloudflare Web Application ...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (7th)
NetScaler
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (1st), Network Management Applications (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
SachidDoshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a huge signature repository and is superiorly effective in mitigating DDoS attacks
The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced, which presently stands at two or three months. The product has a custom rule set that users can modify and manifest as needed. The vendor can probably shorten the learning curve using cutting-edge technologies like AI. The solution provider can also work around the web applications and identify the toolset that needs to be implemented to deploy the solution in less time. The vendor has launched a SASE product that can function with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall, but many improvements are needed in terms of features, such as the web filtering feature, and CASB has not yet been added.
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

"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"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."
"The solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."
"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"Centralized, full-featured DNS."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"It is a SaaS solution unlike much of the competition."
"The initial setup process is simple."
"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."
"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."
"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."
"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."
"The setup process is very simple for me."
"Does a good job preventing web application attacks."
"The solution is very stable."
"When our primary link goes down I can still get to my Cisco devices and the NetScaler devices on-prem because of the SDN solution. If the internet connection at one of the branches goes down, we can still route them, they still get internet based on the SDN solution through one of the other sites. They can carry on working."
"It allows students to access required software for their studies."
"The load balancing is one of the most valuable features."
"It's very easy to configure."
"It is a very stable solution."
"High availability, performance, and security are the main pillars. It enhances the security for accessing the applications."
"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.)"
 

Cons

"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."
"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."
"Support response time could be improved."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."
"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 solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"
"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."
"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."
"Its stability could be better."
"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."
"There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules."
"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."
"The solution could be more secure."
"They need to make the solution a little more familiar with easy study guides, learning videos, etc."
"Mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexity."
"When a new version comes out, sometimes, my existing configuration gets wiped out. They should work on this so that my existing configuration doesn't get impacted with an upgrade to a newer version. There could also reduce frequent firmware upgrade activities and have a stable version so that once we upgrade it, we don't have to upgrade it for two to three years."
"The setup for Citrix NetScaler has room for improvement. It could be easier."
"The technical support could be improved. They do not respond or assist customers in a timely manner."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say the user interface because sometimes it can be complicated."
"The WAF component needs to be simplified so that it is easier to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"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."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."
"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"In Turkey, everything is good, but it seems expensive for us due to the currency exchange. I don't have a specific rating scale, but if I had to rate the price, I would say it's around a six out of ten."
"It is an enterprise solution. Thus, its costs are reasonable."
"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's an expensive product but it works well."
"Our licensing fees including technical support are approximately $3,500 USD."
"I give the price of the solution a seven out of ten."
"Citrix Web App and API Protection are in the middle when we talk about pricing and licensing"
"NetScaler does the same thing as an F5 and it's cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
 

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...
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...
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.
What do you like most about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
The product has a valuable security control functionality.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before.
What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available. This improvement wo...
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...
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...
What needs improvement with Citrix ADC?
Citrix NetScaler is a robust product, but mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexi...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Cloudflare WAF
Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. NetScaler and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.