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Ivanti Virtual Web Application Firewall vs NetScaler comparison

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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

"It is configurable via API."
"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."
"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."
"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."
"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."
"For us, the key feature of Cloudflare is DDoS protection and IP hiding, especially since we are a crypto company."
"The impact of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's integration with existing web technologies on our site's performance and security measures is quite great, actually."
"Cloudflare has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple clients; I can easily go in and access their accounts, make changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is that it is simple to deploy."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is that it is simple to deploy. The deployment took us ten minutes."
"NetScaler is the underdog but it is very stable; I've seen it in hospital environments where lives matter, it has held its own, it does what it says it's going to do and it does it well, and it is certainly a top contender, if not an equal contender, with its counterpart F5."
"The solution is very stable."
"The solution improves security performance."
"Citrix Web App API Protection allows you to enable a blocking mode"
"Easy, user-friendly setup with content switching and integrated caching features."
"Content Redirection and SSO integration with Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop. The GUI was wonderful."
"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN."
"The solution was very easy to deploy."
 

Cons

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."
"The reporting could be improved if it were more granular."
"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."
"We don't even use Cloudflare Bot Management because it's too expensive; you need to pay per request, and it's much cheaper to get one or two additional machines."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."
"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."
"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"
"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."
"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 solution's pricing is a big concern and should be improved."
"Its scalability is not good enough. We can't scale the model that we have to the one that is used for multi-tenancy."
"The stability of Citrix ADC needs to be improved. The technical support could be improved, they do not respond or assist customers in a timely manner."
"Finding relevant documentation for learning NetScaler can be challenging, especially for beginners who prefer a web interface over command-line interfaces."
"We face challenges with the solution's firmware upgrades frequently."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"The interface could be improved, some customers struggle with that."
"The solution has too many bugs in the software and it's always difficult when you need to update."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The solution is expensive."
"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"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."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
Information not available
"Citrix ADM costs us approximately $5000 per month."
"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 pricing could be lower."
"After deployment, Citrix Netscaler shifted to a subscription-based license scheme for support, which is slightly more expensive."
"This product is more expensive than some of the competitors."
"F5 BIG-IP is much more expensive than Citrix ADC. For example, If we choose two platforms, Citrix ADC, 3000 version, and we choose F5, F4200 version. F5 BIG-IP has connections, timers, and throughput similar to Citrix ADC, but the price is very expensive."
"The solution's pricing is very high compared to its competitors."
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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
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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.
896,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.