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Imperva DDoS vs NetScaler comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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

Imperva DDoS
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
CDN (6th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th)
NetScaler
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (1st), Network Management Applications (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Imperva DDoS is 2.0%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 3.3%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DerrickAkankwasa - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide DDoS protection and better security at effective rate
It is expanding its number of data centers for scrubbing traffic. Currently, there is only one POP for cleaning in South Africa. They might add another POP in North Africa, possibly in Nigeria or Egypt. Latency concerns customers, especially in regions like East and West Africa, where traffic has to travel to South Africa before returning. Increasing the number of POPs across the continent would help address these latency issues and improve overall service. While the platform is already quite strong, there’s always room for improvement, especially in keeping up with emerging trends and new types of attacks. Enhancing security capabilities could be beneficial. Integrating more advanced AI features could significantly improve its effectiveness and help customers leverage these tools more effectively. It would be great to see more focus on AI integration to handle and analyze data more efficiently.
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

"I like the user-friendly interface."
"Gives us the ability to trace each connection, and to have logs to be able to differentiate between a positive and a false-positive intruder action."
"There are quite a few useful Imperva Incapsula features. For example, one of them is the reports. The graphics are very good and it's easy to configure. The whole process is very fast and reliable too. They have good tech support as well."
"The complete solution is valuable for everything it delivers and the protection it offers."
"On the real time, you can see live traffic, which is flowing into our website."
"On the site security, I can see which countries have incidents, whether it was a robot attack, a real human user, or non-human user."
"The solution's most valuable aspect is that it is easy to configure."
"There is no need to have an appliance in house for the services because it is on the cloud."
"Enables a Web service that offers persistent client-server connections, IP restriction, URL rewrite (such as remove "/assets/" path from client-side URL path), and cache for CSS or JS files... You can easily use the GUI to set up all these requirements on the same network device within 20-30 minutes. (If you do the same steps on CLI, it might take less time.)"
"Compared to other solutions, Citrix ADC is much more robust in terms of the native integration to cloud platforms. It is far more robust from an operational point of view as well."
"The flexibility in configuration options is impressive."
"This solution increases the backend network service performance, which is one of the things that we like the most."
"Citrix Web App API Protection allows you to enable a blocking mode"
"The solution improves security performance."
"The load balancing and VPN features are most valuable. AAA authentication is also valuable."
"It is the best product out there."
 

Cons

"It needs to be improved every time there are new attacks."
"The log analytics interface within Incapsula isn't really good. For example, if you have to get all logs from there, it's a very cumbersome process."
"I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise."
"Analytics in the area of risk need to be improved to supply more information to the users for creating better environments."
"Incapsula services also provides load balancing services for their service IP address environment. So far, with monitoring their services, the IP address was only changed once."
"Certificate management could be improved."
"I would like to have support for SSL management and secure DNS."
"It would be beneficial to include vulnerability management in the solution, similar to what they have for their on-premise solution."
"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."
"Scripting and writing expressions need to be improved by putting logic behind the rules and improve policies involving some of the scripting part, which is a tedious task to do."
"Security could be improved because then I can get rid of my Cisco firewalls. If they improve the security then I could run my security, my proxy, my firewalling and my SDN solution on one device instead of having to have multiple devices."
"Citrix NetScaler has been recently acquired by another company and the support has been negatively impacted, the solution is at its end of life. The support for the solution could improve. The sales team needs to be improved."
"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."
"The solution is a bit more expensive than some of the available solutions in this region. One solution in particular that I noticed was cheaper was Kemp."
"Currently, the support team's responsiveness is lacking, and the technical personnel on calls often seem unfamiliar with the issues or inadequately trained."
"I feel that Citrix NetScaler's customer support needs to improve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is on par with other solutions such as Cloudflare and Akamai."
"The solution's price is high for small companies."
"For enterprise contracts you will be in touch with a dedicated account manager who will guide you regarding licensing."
"We have an issue with Imperva Incapsula in the Iraqi market because of the high price."
"​Although the pricing can be a little high, it is worth the protection and security that it offers.​"
"We are satisfied with the pricing."
"Varies depending on the needs of the customer."
"There is a license or subscription renewal that our customers pay."
"The solution is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The firewall license is included by default, with no additional costs."
"The client pays for the Citrix NetScaler license annually."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"For partners, NetScaler is not as expensive price-wise versus F5."
"The tool is cheap."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Imperva Incapsula?
We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise. For example, the initiation of an attack on the endpoint level cou...
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 ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva DDoS vs. NetScaler and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.