NGINX Plus vs NetScaler comparison

NetScaler and F5 are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. NetScaler is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3, while F5 is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3. NetScaler holds a 15.6% mindshare in ADC, compared to F5’s 8.6% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of NetScaler users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of F5 users who would recommend it.

NetScaler

Read 107 NetScaler reviews

8,480 Views
6,124 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Read 29 NGINX Plus reviews

4,650 Views
3,775 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

NetScaler

NGINX Plus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

NetScaler and NGINX Plus compete in the load balancing market. Based on available features, NetScaler seems to have the upper hand with its advanced enterprise capabilities.

Features: NetScaler provides features like SSL offloading, web application firewall, and integration with Citrix products, ideal for virtual desktops and enterprise application delivery. NGINX Plus is favored for its ease of configuration, high-efficiency routing, and modular setup, with capabilities such as caching and authentication.

Room for Improvement: NetScaler users highlight the need for better alert management, a more intuitive GUI, and enhanced customization options. Improvements in support and flexible licensing are also requested. NGINX Plus could benefit from a refined GUI, real-time alert integration, and simpler pricing and licensing.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetScaler is primarily deployed on-premises with a strong hybrid cloud presence, offering robust technical support. NGINX Plus supports diverse deployment environments, including on-premises and public cloud, but its customer service reputation suggests room for improvement.

Pricing and ROI: NetScaler is perceived as more expensive but offers substantial ROI with its stability and feature set, appealing to organizations needing comprehensive delivery solutions. NGINX Plus provides a cost-effective option, particularly attractive for simpler needs or budget constraints, despite additional costs for premium features.

To learn more, read our detailed NGINX Plus vs. NetScaler Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus vs. NetScaler

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

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 (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (10th)

NGINX Plus

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

5th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of NetScaler is 15.6%, up from 13.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 8.6%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

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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Ritesh-Bakhru

Major Account Manager at Check Point Software

Quick installation and very easy to manage while doing orchestration or automation

NGINX cannot be a replacement for your traditional load balancer with what we use in the network today. However, with applications going toward microservices, NGINX is definitely a way forward. F5 has many traditional load balancing features, so they still need to bring some of those features to NGINX. NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5. I think F5 is trying to implement those features in NGINX so they can improve the balancing on NGINX, but I think that will take some time. With the traditional F5 set up, the same OS can do load balancing, firewalls, and even policy enforcement. If we are able to bring some of those capabilities to NGINX, I think it would become a versatile solution and usage would definitely increase.

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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

"Its flexibility, agility, and robustness are the most valuable. Its management and implementation are also quite easy."

"This solution allows the user to easily scale out application delivery, and provides secure remote access."

"The web application firewalling component is a powerful feature."

"The MAS integration for HDX Insight has provided teams with significant visibility into network performance of the user's connection."

"It is a stable solution. It crashed only once, four years ago...There is a return on investment using the solution."

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

"The most impressive thing about Citrix ADM is that we don't encounter latency."

"The maintenance of the solution is not complex."

More NetScaler pros

"The most valuable features are the gateway and the ability to publish to sites."

"Its versatility and capabilities make it invaluable for implementing patches and fixes when necessary."

"The product is resilient."

"The load balancing module, which is equivalent to LTM, is the focus of the PSE. So far, the features of both are identical. I believe NGINX has more features for securing these services, but in terms of load balancing, both are massive solutions."

"It's lightweight software that can handle heavy loads efficiently."

"When you use NGINX, you have more options and power."

"Application Gateway with application-level firewall tool and load distributor and balancer (also serves for A/B testing)."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is simple to configure."

More NGINX Plus pros

Cons

"Technical support could be improved."

"Citrix should improve the documentation. It is not really clear how to set up many features to our advantage. When we setup Citrix NetScaler ADC, we have to figure it out by ourselves without a lot of documentation."

"Integration with other third party providers and third party applications could be better because it can be a bit complex at present."

"Citrix ADM needs to improve on its additional features and reduce the communication ports."

"Maybe creating policies with simple regular expressions."

"It can be difficult to setup."

"It was challenging explaining to customers that it's no longer NetScaler but ADC, and now it's not just ADC but also the rebranding from NetScaler."

"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."

More NetScaler cons

"If NGINX brings some features for health check in the open source version, it would be better. "

"Lack of a feature to print data on the terminal for verification of network traffic during debugging and testing."

"Improvement needed in NGINX Plus could focus on optimizing memory usage for users."

"The drawback is that you must obtain a license for everything."

"It would be great if there was even more automation to make it even easier to maintain."

"The biggest room for improvement would be to allow NGINX Core machines to cluster for memory zones in some way with a plug and play module. "

"The scaling should be built into the software rather than configured from an outside source."

"The user interface could be improved."

More NGINX Plus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, I feel that the solution is a little bit expensive."

"Citrix Web App and API Protection are in the middle when we talk about pricing and licensing"

"It's not for startups or SOHO."

"Citrix NetScaler VPX is not the cheapest solution out there, but you get what you pay for."

"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."

"We get value for money. Its price is fair. I don't think it is overpriced."

"Costly product and complicated licensing."

"For partners, NetScaler is not as expensive price-wise versus F5."

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."

"The price is the cost to contract support with a specialized company, usually during consulting hours."

"You pay for each feature that you want."

"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."

"It's an open source solution, so it's free."

"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."

"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."

"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."

More NGINX Plus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

17%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

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 expensive.

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 complexity. While it could be easier to manage, it is like transitioning from driving a ...

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Which is better - IIS or NGINX Plus?

IIS is a flexible, secure, and manageable web server to host anything on the web. IIS’s scalable and open architecture can handle the most demanding tasks. From media streaming to web applications,...

See all answers

What do you like most about NGINX Plus?

It performs very well. That's one of the primary reasons we use NGINX.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX Plus?

There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free. There's also NGINX Plus, which is a paid version with additional features.

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NetScaler

Compared 15% of the time

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

Compared 13% of the time

HAProxy vs NetScaler

Compared 10% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs NetScaler

Compared 10% of the time

Radware Alteon vs NetScaler

Compared 5% of the time

More NetScaler Competitors

IIS vs NGINX Plus

Compared 19% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 18% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs NGINX Plus

Compared 14% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs NGINX Plus

Compared 9% of the time

Radware Alteon vs NGINX Plus

Compared 4% of the time

More NGINX Plus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NetScaler

November 2024

Download NetScaler product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

November 2024

Download NGINX Plus product report

Also Known As

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

NGINX

Learn More

NetScaler

Overview

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.

NGINX Plus is a versatile solution that offers load balancing, caching, proxying, and API deployment capabilities. It can be deployed on private or public clouds and is ideal for building CDN solutions. The solution can also be used to secure web applications and replace web services like Apache.

NGINX has helped organizations improve functioning, reduce downtimes, and offer a DevOps-friendly solution. Its community support and documentation are highly regarded, and its configuration is more straightforward, making it a recommended choice over HAProxy.

Sample Customers

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

Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus vs. NetScaler

December 2024

Free Report: NGINX Plus vs. NetScaler

Find out what your peers are saying about NGINX Plus vs. NetScaler and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

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