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Cloudflare vs NetScaler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (11th)
NetScaler
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
106
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (1st), Network Management Applications (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Cloudflare is designed for Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection and holds a mindshare of 20.0%, down 20.4% compared to last year.
NetScaler, on the other hand, focuses on Application Delivery Controllers (ADC), holds 16.0% mindshare, up 13.1% since last year.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 1, 2022
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.
DEMİRHAN ÇAVUŞOĞLU - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 7, 2024
A tool for centralized management including inventory and sales tracking
Citrix ADM provides centralized management for various internal programs, including inventory and sales tracking, communication tools, and office programs such as Teams and Azure We wouldn't have comprehensive insights into our system without Citrix ADM. It provides us with essential information.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The UI is good."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"
"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."
"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"
"We use the product for load balancing and as a reverse proxy solution."
"Content Switching provides flexibility for routing traffic as desired to designated real servers. It also provides good geo capabilities through its GSLB feature."
"Load Balancing and SSL offloading are key features."
"Content filtering, security layer, and application customization features are the most valuable."
"This solution allows the user to easily scale out application delivery, and provides secure remote access."
"The solution was very easy to deploy."
"The most valuable feature is the content switching."
"The NetScaler appliance has provided a lot of customers with greater high availability for their enterprise applications within a single site and across multiple locations."
 

Cons

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"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."
"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."
"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"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."
"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."
"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."
"The licensing model and technical support of the solution could be improved."
"We face challenges with the solution's firmware upgrades frequently."
"The technical support could be improved. They do not respond or assist customers in a timely manner."
"Does not include security. A web application firewall would be a nice addition."
"Maybe creating policies with simple regular expressions."
"There are certain features that are very useful and Citrix makes you pay a bit more for them."
"The vendor provides frequent patches, however, the security of the website has room for improvement."
"Technical support could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"For partners, NetScaler is not as expensive price-wise versus F5."
"Citrix ADC could improve the price and make it less expensive, other competitors have a better prices. This would allow Citrix ADC to keep dominating the market."
"It is very pricey, but we get it. If you need the best, money shouldn't be a problem."
"Citrix Web App and API Protection are in the middle when we talk about pricing and licensing"
"The client pays for the Citrix NetScaler license annually."
"Ninety day free trial makes it easy to try out this solution."
"The tool is cheap."
"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."
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Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
 

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 GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds ...
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 that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...
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 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 ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
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.
ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, NETSCOUT, Akamai and others in Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection. Updated: October 2024.
813,161 professionals have used our research since 2012.