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HAProxy 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

HAProxy
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Service Mesh (3rd)
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 HAProxy is 12.5%, down from 13.0% 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

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for for small and quick load-balancing tasks
What I like best about the product is its simplicity and speed. When you need to set up a load balancer quickly, HAProxy offers options like sticky sessions and round-robin. It's also fast to configure, including adding SSL for security. While it may have fewer options than other solutions like F5, HAProxy gets the job done for basic load-balancing tasks. The reliability features of HAProxy were particularly useful in a scenario where I needed to test load balancing between two Tomcats. Since these domains were inaccessible, I set up a third Docker with HAProxy, which had access to the Tomcat domains. I then configured HAProxy to handle the load balancing. This setup allowed the client to interact with HAProxy. The solution's integration with other elements is easy.
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 solution is effective in managing our traffic."
"It reduced the load on our main load balancers."
"HAProxy potentially has a good return on investment"
"Stability is number one."
"Advanced traffic rules, including stick tables and ACLs, which allow me to shape traffic while it's load balanced."
"We use the solution for load balancing."
"The VRRP redundancy is also a mission-critical feature that works seamlessly. I can bring down a server live with minimal downtime because of this."
"Load balancing is valuable, and we are also using the WAF feature."
"Helped us a lot with load balancing."
"We use the solution's IP Reputation and bot protection features."
"I like app flows and custom flows. They integrate with multiple flows."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is its load balancing."
"The most valuable feature of Citrix ADC is its ease of use."
"It is a stable solution. It crashed only once, four years ago...There is a return on investment using the solution."
"The most valuable features of Citrix ADC are load balancing and application firewall."
"Citrix NetScaler offers robust security features, including SmartAccess and customizable policies, making it a reliable choice for safeguarding user data."
 

Cons

"We need to handle new connections by dropping, or queuing them while the HAProxy restarts, and because HAProxy does not handle split config files."
"We've changed solutions as it doesn't fit with our current needs."
"The product does not have any new technologies."
"The configuration should be more friendly, perhaps with a Web interface. For example, I work with the ClusterControl product for Severalnines, and we have a Web interface to deploy the HAProxy load-balancer."
"There is no standardized document available. So, any individual has to work from scratch to work it out. If some standard deployment details are available, it would be helpful for people while deploying it. There should be more documentation on the standard deployment."
"I would like to see better search handling, and a user interface, with a complete functional graphical unit"
"HAProxy is very weak in the logging and monitoring part and requires improvement."
"Pricing, monitoring, and reports can be improved."
"The user interface could be more friendly. Some wizards and other documentation for administrators, as well as some use cases, helps us to understand the solution."
"In every release - and it doesn't matter if it's a minor release or a major release - they keep moving things around and they keep changing the mechanism. So certain things can work in one version one way, and everything works really well, then when you upgrade it to the next version, it breaks everything because they have a new way of doing it."
"The interface could be improved, some customers struggle with that."
"An area for improvement would be the difficulty in finding information about standard licensing costs over the internet. They should provide some reference prices on the net to be quickly referred to."
"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."
"There is room for improvement regarding the pricing policy for Citrix offices."
"They need to make the solution a little more familiar with easy study guides, learning videos, etc."
"An area for improvement in Citrix Web App and API Protection is for it to give real-time notifications and alerts. It would be practical if the solution warns you if there's an attack or if the load or traffic volume increases or decreases. An additional feature I'd like to see in Citrix Web App and API Protection is a prediction or artificial intelligence on what is happening, for example, attacks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."
"It is free of cost."
"The price is well worth it. HAProxy Enterprise Edition paid for itself within months, simply due to the resiliency it brings. It was a bit more expensive than we were originally interested in paying, but we are thankful we chose to go with HAProxy."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"The tool is open-source."
"HAProxy is an open-source solution."
"HAProxy is free open-source software."
"Test/lab virtual machines can be installed without a licence. They can't be used for performance testing but otherwise behave like production nodes."
"The licenses for this product are payable as a yearly subscription, and carry a high price-point. The subscription scheme is quite complicated, and costs will increase with each additional feature that is required, outside of the basic setup."
"Its price is comparable to others and affordable."
"Citrix NetScaler's pricing is slightly above average but not overly expensive. I would consider F5 BIG IP to be the most expensive, Citrix NetScaler to be the second most expensive, and then Kemp Load Balancer to be the third."
"The tool is cheap."
"Our licensing fees including technical support are approximately $3,500 USD."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We are quite happy with price. It's not too high."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Do you recommend HAProxy?
I do recommend HAProxy for more simple applications or for companies with a low budget, since HAProxy is a free, open-source product. HAProxy is also a good choice for someone looking for a stable ...
What do you like most about HAProxy?
The solution is effective in managing our traffic.
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

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk
Find out what your peers are saying about HAProxy vs. NetScaler and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.