No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Ivanti Virtual Web Application Firewall vs NetScaler comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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 Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Ivanti Virtual Web Applicat...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
43rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (16th)
NetScaler
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (3rd), Network Management Applications (14th)
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user712188 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a tech company
Jun 30, 2018
 

Featured Reviews

DB
CTO at PlayNirvana
Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.
MD
Consultant at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Good feature set and is simple to deploy
In terms of what needs improvement, the price could be lowered. We've tried to deploy more of them but our purchasing department has said that they're way too expensive and they would prefer to use something else. We sort of stopped deploying them because of that. There are additional costs to the standard licensing. There are bandwidth prices. The feature set is quite good. We've been told to stop using them because of the price. If they can do something to address that I believe it would be better. On the latest version they've got a community edition, which is quite a good bandwidth, but in essence, it's to address the entry-level price. When you get to 10 gig bandwidth, it's way too expensive.
AR
IT Security Specialist at a educational organization with 201-500 employees
Allows students and lecturers access to necessary software for their courses cost-effectively
I am a consultant and do not recommend specific products. I work with customers, and they decide what they want to buy. I'm a CISO as a service, dealing with security. I'm from an integrator company, and they usually sell a few products. One customer uses NetScaler for a VDI system with Citrix…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has improved our security posture by blocking bad actors."
"Very glad the WAF rulesets works out of box, and requires very little tuning or maintenance."
"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."
"The most valuable part of the solution for us overall is exactly that it is a Software-as-a-Service product."
"It protects web applications efficiently."
"It is configurable via API."
"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."
"It is a SaaS solution unlike much of the competition."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is that it is simple to deploy. The deployment took us ten minutes."
"SSL Offload"
"Its customer support service is good."
"Just one solution can handle thousands of users... So, it is a very convenient tool to use."
"It is the best product out there."
"My message to customers here is to try it and they'll never be disappointed with this magic box."
"Easy, user-friendly setup with content switching and integrated caching features."
"The solution is extremely stable."
"The work balancing applications are the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Support can be challenging at times."
"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well."
"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"The ModSecurity core rules need to be updated."
"The reporting could be improved if it were more granular."
"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."
"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."
"There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the price could be lowered. We've tried to deploy more of them but our purchasing department has said that they're way too expensive and they would prefer to use something else."
"The main areas for improvement would be around documentation and support. If a feature can be used in two or three ways, show that feature being used in all of those ways. Documentation seems to only cover the primary use case and leaves you to either run through trial and error or consult the user community. In terms of support, I have never actually had them solve any of my issues. I have always solved them myself and then provided the resolution to support."
"I would like to see support for scripting, like "iRule", which gives you the option to implement any configuration which is not available out of the box."
"The web management console uses a Java plugin. Some improvements are needed on the web management console."
"I think the documentation should be improved - there should be more documentation."
"When it comes to all Citrix products, price is an issue, because all their products are complete solutions."
"We have found this solution to be difficult to scale out due to the complexity of the licensing model."
"Citrix ADC can be really complex. It isn't very simple like some other appliances that I've worked with. You need a lot of skill and experience to manage it. I'm not talking about a year or two. You need at least four years to understand it very well. It is not that easy to learn. They should make it a lot simpler for users to understand the management of it. They can also provide some additional training. The material they have on the site is not sufficient enough for you to understand how to manage it. Their training is expensive, and not everyone has the funds and experience for it. Citrix isn't very popular around these parts of the world. So, it can use some more marketing, sales, enlightenment, and advertisement. These could bring more market for them. Basically, there are just a few companies that really go for Citrix. Most of the companies go for VMware because they marketed themselves more than Citrix. There isn't much difference between Citrix and VMware. VMware is a little more robust than Citrix. Citrix has focused more on desktops rather than server virtualization, and that's the advantage VMware has over Citrix. Citrix also needs to educate and inform users about the infrastructure that is supported with a version. Currently, if the customers don't look at the datasheet, they might miss this important information."
"It is not perfect because at times I was faced with an issue where the application was getting a lot more traffic than is desirable, and I can see Citrix having issues with this."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"It is not too pricey."
Information not available
"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."
"You can do CapEx and then a yearly monthly fee, or you can do a subscription model, whether that's one month, month-to-month, or three-year subscription model."
"The solution is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It's not for startups or SOHO."
"It's an expensive product but it works well."
"We have all the features and functions of Citrix because we have a premium license."
"Citrix ADM costs us approximately $5000 per month."
"This product is more expensive than some of the competitors."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.
900,277 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

it_user712188 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a tech company
Jun 30, 2018
Jun 30, 2018
Zeus was a great company - Its a shame Riverbed screwed up the acquisition and destroyed it. The product has been in a state of limbo for several years, I wouldn't trust Pulse to make anything out of it. Go with F5 or Citrix if you have the money. If money is an issue then go with Kemp or Loadbalancer.org which are #1 and #2 at the value end of the market. Radware is pretty cool as well - but ...
2 out of 5 answers
MS
network specialist at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jun 19, 2018
As far as I know, Netscaler has special hardware solution SDX where you can run virtual appliance (VPX) so much as you need and license determines the total system performance. It's not a problem for scaling virtual appliance by each application. You can ask Citrix managers for details. I hope it will be helpful.
GB
unemployed
Jun 19, 2018
My thought would be Barracuda Cloud WAF. This will work in 15 min. With lb and default templates. Go to demo.Barracuda.com Select WAF for hardware or select cloud. Additional info ask if needed
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What advice do you have for others considering Citrix NetScaler?
Each product has its advantages, and combining certain features of F5 and NetScaler could be beneficial. I'd rate the...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix ADM?
Regarding pricing, educational institutes often receive better prices. In the context of virtualization, prices are i...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Pulse vWAF, Pulse Virtual Traffic Manager
Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall, NetScaler VPX - Customer Licensed
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Gilt Groupe
ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk
Find out what your peers are saying about F5, HAProxy, NetScaler and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC). Updated: May 2026.
900,277 professionals have used our research since 2012.