Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NetScaler comparison

Microsoft and NetScaler are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.2, while NetScaler is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2. Additionally, 78% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of NetScaler users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

NetScaler and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway compete in the application delivery controller (ADC) category. NetScaler has the upper hand due to its extensive feature set, particularly in areas where Azure is seen as less versatile.

Features: NetScaler provides a TriScale architecture allowing for pay-as-you-grow scaling, multitenancy, SSL offload, and comprehensive traffic management. It integrates well with Citrix products, providing high availability and load balancing options. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway offers seamless integration with Azure services and is praised for its ease of use and traffic management abilities.

Room for Improvement: NetScaler faces challenges in feature innovation and complex customization, lacking advanced scripting abilities and efficient documentation. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway needs better integration and customization features, improvements in scalability, and enhanced security offerings. Users also note setup complexity and limitations in protocol support and flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetScaler is typically deployed on-premises, offering extensive customer support, although there are inconsistencies in support quality. Azure Application Gateway is cloud-based, presenting flexibility in deployment but with varied feedback on support, noting both effective responses and areas needing improvement.

Pricing and ROI: NetScaler is costly, often requiring separate licenses and support fees, but offers substantial ROI through its capabilities. Azure Application Gateway, while expensive, is considered reasonable relative to traditional solutions, favoring a pay-as-you-go model, though costs can rise with high-traffic use. Both provide high ROI through data security and operation optimization, with enterprise cases affecting specifics.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler

February 2025

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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

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

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.

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Shehzad Ali

Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation

Offers time and cost savings with integration, but user interface needs improvement

We are using it for our internal application development. We are testing those features of application gateways. We are integrating it with our solutions, application, Azure Application Gateway Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well. It provides a range of services, so it…

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DEMİRHAN ÇAVUŞOĞLU

Cloud Consultant at Migros Ticaret A.Ş.

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool is user-friendly."

"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service."

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

"Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick."

"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."

"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"

"I get a lot of value from Cloudflare's API because it enables you to build a separate environment inside the solution. You can create a domain for performing test requests before you move to the production environment and connect various domains."

More Cloudflare pros

"The health probe is pretty good for your backend health. It tells you whether it's communicating and talking to the endpoint correctly. It is quite useful."

"The simplicity of the solution and its ability to integrate easily with others are its most valuable aspects."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the web application firewall (WAF)."

"The solution provides great automation and it is easy to upgrade service."

"Load balancing and web application firewall features are the most valuable."

"Azure Application Gateway's most valuable feature is ease of use. The configuration is straightforward. It isn't difficult to adjust the size of your instances in the settings. You can do that with a few clicks, and the configuration file is the same way. You can also set rules and policies with minimal time and effort."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is traffic management."

"The solution was very easy to configure. It wasn't hard at all to adjust it to our needs."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pros

"The most valuable feature of Citrix ADC is its ease of use."

"We appreciate that this solution facilitates our access to Citrix internet."

"Provides resiliency for applications that reside on servers, as well as connectivity to remote applications."

"The program is easy to install and to set up."

"We like the periodic upgrades and backups, also made via ADMs, and it makes our environment much more robust and reliable."

"The most valuable feature is load balancing."

"Just one solution can handle thousands of users... So, it is a very convenient tool to use."

"One of its most valuable features is fundamental load balancing, supporting both basic load balancing and database teams."

More NetScaler pros

Cons

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

"Technical support is lacking."

"The pricing could be improved."

"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."

"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."

"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."

"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."

More Cloudflare cons

"The solution could improve by increasing the performance when doing updates. For example, if I change the certificate it can take 30 minutes. Other vendors do not have this type of problem."

"Scalability can be an issue."

"The solution doesn’t support wildcard-based and regular expression-based rules."

"The product could be easier to use and implement."

"The pricing of the solution is a bit high. The solution should offer different pricing systems."

"The graphical interface needs improvement because it is not user friendly."

"The security of the product could be adjusted."

"Needs easier integration with the existing SIAM."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway cons

"ADC from Citrix has added functionalities from other products and the usability is very difficult for someone who is used to a simpler user interface, it's a little bit of a mess to use."

"The SLB could be better, and they should improve it."

"The WAF component needs to be simplified so that it is easier to use."

"The product could be improved by making it easier to use and easier to implement."

"Deployment is complicated."

"Mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexity."

"I would like to see them make it easier to do some of the more complex things. For example, a web re-direct requires two pieces to it. You have two ports and when people want to go to a web page, they just type in the webpage that on the backend it will redirect them to a secure link. The initial setup of that is cumbersome because you have to do it twice. There are things that can be replicated. The IP address, for example, is the same. This change would go a long way. Don't make me do it twice and don't make me have to read tons of documentation to figure out how to do it. Ease of configuration for some of the more complex processes would be a good improvement."

"The technical support could be better. Whenever I contacted support, I rarely got the solution that we needed. And most of the time, I finished fixing the problem by looking on the internet or by finding documents about the problem on Google."

More NetScaler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"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."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"It is not expensive."

"There is a need to pay a fixed price per month to use the product. There are no additional payments to be made to Microsoft apart from the charges paid towards the monthly licensing costs attached to the solution."

"I rate the pricing seven out of ten because some third-party solutions are even costlier than this."

"The solution is reasonably priced."

"The solution is paid monthly. The solution is highly expensive."

"We use the tool's basic subscription. Its licensing costs are monthly."

"The solution's pricing is not complex. It is not expensive from our point of view."

"I would rate the pricing a three out of ten, with ten being cheap and one being expensive."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pricing and cost advice

"The licensing costs for this solution vary depending on which model is being used."

"NetScaler does the same thing as an F5 and it's cheaper."

"The solution is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"I give the price of the solution a seven out of ten."

"The solution is undoubtedly very good, but it is expensive."

"The client pays for the Citrix NetScaler license annually."

"There isn't much of a difference between the cost of Citrix and that of other similar solutions."

"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

24%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?

We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides...

See all answers

How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Citrix ADC?

Citrix NetScaler is a robust product, but mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexi...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Radware DDoS Protection Service vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 12% of the time

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 12% of the time

AWS WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs NetScaler

Compared 11% of the time

HAProxy vs NetScaler

Compared 11% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs NetScaler

Compared 10% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs NetScaler

Compared 7% of the time

NGINX Plus vs NetScaler

Compared 6% of the time

More NetScaler Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

February 2025

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Download Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

NetScaler

February 2025

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Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway

Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Cloudflare

Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

One platform for a consistent application delivery and security experience because nobody has time to learn multiple systems to manage ADC deployments. NetScaler is built with a single code base using a software-based architecture, so no matter which ADC form factor you choose — hardware, virtual machine, bare metal, or container — the behavior will be the same.

NetScaler

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell

ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler

February 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.

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See our list of best Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) vendors and best Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendors.

We monitor all Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.