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Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NetScaler comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Microsoft Azure Application...
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd)
NetScaler
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (1st), Network Management Applications (3rd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (12th)
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Shehzad Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
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

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"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."
"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"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."
"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"We chose this solution in the first place because it has access to Layer 7. I can control the requests and the content, which I can access on my network if I want to even if it's forbidden access to other external resources. If I want to monitor, for example, traffic, and apply this rule on Layer 7, I can do so. This was our main goal when implementing this application. We wanted to take advantage of the Gateway capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is traffic management."
"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."
"Good customization; able to report and take action on alerts."
"It is a scalable solution...The installation phase of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is very easy."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"The solution was very easy to configure. It wasn't hard at all to adjust it to our needs."
"The most valuable feature is WAF."
"Helped us a lot with load balancing."
"This solution allows the user to easily scale out application delivery, and provides secure remote access."
"My clients use it for load balancing."
"The solution was very easy to deploy."
"The load balancing and VPN features are most valuable. AAA authentication is also valuable."
"From a security standpoint, It is a comprehensive solution in a single box."
"We have good customer support."
"The load balancing feature and the fact that you can do context switching in the WAF are the most valuable. We majorly use it for load balancing, but we also use it for context switching in the WAF. It is also robust and very easy to work with and manage."
 

Cons

"I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."
"DNS Management."
"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."
"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."
"There are some issues with the CDN services."
"The security of the product could be adjusted."
"The tool is a pain to deal with when it comes to the area of configuration."
"We have encountered some issues with automatic redirection and cancellation, leading to 502 and 504 gateway errors. So, I experienced some trouble with containers."
"The graphical interface needs improvement because it is not user friendly."
"We faced some downtime while validating CNAME."
"I believe that there is room for improvement in terms of additional functionality. It is an advantage to have features readily available for configuration without needing customer-defined rules."
"The configuration is very specific right now and needs to be much more flexible."
"The increased security that we are considering is because of some of the things that the security team has brought to our attention. They have pointed out that we would most likely require a better web application firewall than Azure Application Gateway."
"The GUI should be improved."
"The solution's pricing is a big concern and should be improved."
"Should offer more flexible cost-effective licensing for small to medium sized organizations."
"The technical support could be improved. They do not respond or assist customers in a timely manner."
"We had some bugs in the previous firmware. These were not big issues, but more testing on the firmware would be key to happier customers."
"I feel that Citrix NetScaler's customer support needs to improve."
"The configuration is complex, and only one or two people know how to assist when problems arise."
"They need to make the solution a little more familiar with easy study guides, learning videos, etc."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"The price is reasonable."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a pretty affordable product. My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs of the solution. The additional costs apart from the licensing costs of the solution vary."
"Every solution comes with a license and cost. Microsoft provides the license and the total cost is for the maintenance every year."
"The price of the solution can be reduced a bit."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has less price than other application gateway solutions."
"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."
"The solution is paid monthly. The solution is highly expensive."
"Regarding pricing for Azure Application Gateway, I would rate it at seven."
"I do not have any experience with the pricing of the product."
"Costly product and complicated licensing."
"The license for Citrix NetScaler is on an annual basis and it is reasonably priced."
"Its price is comparable to others and affordable."
"After deployment, Citrix Netscaler shifted to a subscription-based license scheme for support, which is slightly more expensive."
"The solution's pricing is very high compared to its competitors."
"The pricing for Citrix Web App and API Protection is unreasonable. I don't know the exact price, but I heard it's tens of thousands and it's a bit too much for the small country I live in."
"Ninety day free trial makes it easy to try out this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
 

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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
What needs improvement with Citrix ADC?
Citrix NetScaler is a robust product, but mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexi...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NetScaler and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.