NetScaler vs Radware Alteon comparison

NetScaler and Radware are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. NetScaler is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3, while Radware is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.9. Additionally, 91% of NetScaler users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Radware users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Radware Alteon and NetScaler compete in the ADC market, with Radware Alteon noted for security features and user-customization and NetScaler recognized for integration with Citrix and efficient load balancing.

Features: Radware Alteon offers comprehensive application delivery capabilities with strong load balancing, reverse proxy, and SSL offloading. It is user-friendly and competitively priced. NetScaler provides flexible deployment with features like Triscale architecture and seamless Citrix integration, adding value for Citrix-centered users.

Room for Improvement: Radware Alteon could improve automation, ease of use, handling false positives, traffic monitoring, and third-party integration support. NetScaler users desire better customization, a more intuitive GUI, and improved multi-tenancy and suggest simplifying configuration and licensing.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Radware Alteon is primarily on-premises, highlighted for reliable technical support, especially in Spanish-speaking regions, though time-zone issues can cause delays. NetScaler is flexible for cloud and hybrid deployment, with generally competent technical support and ease of deployment in Citrix environments.

Pricing and ROI: Radware Alteon's competitive pricing and flexible licensing attract budget-conscious organizations, providing high ROI through solid performance and reduced downtime. NetScaler is viewed as expensive but justified by its feature set and Citrix integration, though pricing may be a concern for smaller enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed NetScaler vs. Radware Alteon Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NetScaler vs. Radware Alteon

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.

Read full review

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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MaverickHurley

Sr network arch at Mohawk Industries

Makes it easier and quicker to spin up services when we deploy applications

The most valuable aspect is the ability to customize the types of load-balancing scenarios needed for customized applications. Some of the load balancers on the market today are strictly out-of-hand load balancers for SSL or HTTP. Radware Alteon is most useful for customizing in-house applications based on ports and protocols. Another great feature is integrated application protection. There are many features you can activate. Some of them are add-ons, such as WAF protection, DDoS, rate-limiting, and connections-per-second per application. We also use Radware where we do all the programming.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"The solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."

"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."

"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 DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."

"The tool is user-friendly."

"The most valuable feature is its usability."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is external DNS. It is also very secure. They have their own main server and once you configure it, the product takes care of everything. There are no issues in resolving IPs and low latency is also present."

More Cloudflare pros

"This solution increases the backend network service performance, which is one of the things that we like the most."

"It is a very stable solution."

"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 most valuable feature for us is the application firewalling in Citrix NetScaler, ensuring only valid traffic enters our environment."

"The most valuable feature is the content switching."

"Most of the functions are user-friendly and great."

"Load Balancing and SSL offloading are key features."

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

More NetScaler pros

"The interface is easy, it's friendly, and has good alerting."

"The integrated application protection provided by Alteon is very good. It really helps to avoid false positives in some cases. It provides important granularity to avoid a situation in which security or cybersecurity scenarios escape us."

"I found the link load balancer and server load balancer are the most valuable."

"The round-robin distribution of the load is quite useful."

"The device blocks threats and allows legitimate users to work correctly."

"The UI is user-friendly."

"The most valuable feature of Radware LinkProof for traffic distribution is its DNS management capability."

"The most valuable features of Radware Alteon are the reverse proxy functionality and the SSL offload and hardware."

More Radware Alteon pros

Cons

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

"The pricing could be improved."

"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."

"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."

"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."

"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."

"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."

More Cloudflare cons

"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."

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

"In every release - and it doesn't matter if it's a minor release or a major release - they keep moving things around and they keep changing the mechanism. So certain things can work in one version one way, and everything works really well, then when you upgrade it to the next version, it breaks everything because they have a new way of doing it."

"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."

"Citrix should offer a demo or free-trial version of NetScaler. Several other vendors do, but Citrix does not. Pricing should also be more readily available."

"I would like to see the virtual and desktop license included in the pricing."

"The solution's pricing is a big concern and should be improved."

"Finding relevant documentation for learning NetScaler can be challenging, especially for beginners who prefer a web interface over command-line interfaces."

More NetScaler cons

"Alteon's user interface and usability can be improved by providing a more modern and streamlined design and focusing on simplifying workflows in the UI."

"It can be improved by combining the web application firewall (WAF) facility."

"Their support can be better. The Radware management is very proactive. We can connect to anybody in Radware Management in India. We can even connect with the MD of Radware India. However, their lower level staff should be more proactive towards the customers."

"Multiple software bugs exist. Most of the time, they're issues with Radware's patching. The organization has a vulnerability and penetration team attempting to upgrade the system to version n minus one. If we have deployed the software to the n-minus-one range, the device isn't performing well because it's already in the testing version."

"The solution could be more robust."

"Support is an area that needs improvement."

"The solution could be more open to additional third-party add-ons being integrated into it."

"The resolution time could be faster."

More Radware Alteon cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

"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."

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

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"We are quite happy with price. It's not too high."

"The tool is cheap."

"You get the value for your money. There aren't any hidden fees."

"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."

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

"We have all the features and functions of Citrix because we have a premium license."

"Its licensing cost is much higher than other products, but it is acceptable because it is a one-time investment, and we are getting our requirements fulfilled when we buy this product. So, there is no issue with the pricing."

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

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

"It has a good price point and is more reasonable than other comparable products"

"The price conforms to what the tool provides. It is not an inexpensive tool and not all companies can afford an ADC solution such as Alteon. However, it justifies its price with the options it offers."

"Its pricing is very good. It is very competitive. Radware Alteon is the leader in the market. At a lesser price, we get a good product and also good support. Other vendors who are providing load balancers charge separately for two items. You have the hardware cost, and you have the support cost, whereas, in the case of Radware, you get both in a single package."

"It is cost-efficient. That is why we have gone with Alteon. As a product, it is efficient and robust. We have not faced any issues with the device."

"Price-wise, the solution is a reasonable one."

"Our government agency opted for Radware Alteon due to its affordability and efficiency. While I can't say precisely how much it costs the organization, the price per device. In India, we always look for affordable products, so I assume Alteon is cost-effective because the government chose it."

"I'm content with Alteon's pricing."

"Alteon's price is excellent compared to other solutions. F5 costs around twice as much. We still have about three years left before this hardware reaches the end of its life. We're migrating to the cloud, and phasing some of this out, but it's nice that they've given us a long window to keep their hardware in place."

More Radware Alteon pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

15%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

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 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

What do you like most about Radware Alteon?

It saves us a lot of work in terms of management since it has tasks already defined automatically. That enables us to...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Radware Alteon?

We have a three-year contract with Radware. It is beneficial to have a longer-term contract because you can obtain mo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Radware Alteon?

It is a fairly complete service and it is difficult for me to think of what can be improved. A feature that I would l...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NetScaler

Compared 12% of the time

HAProxy vs NetScaler

Compared 11% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs NetScaler

Compared 9% of the time

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

Compared 8% of the time

More NetScaler Competitors

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Radware Alteon

Compared 17% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Radware Alteon

Compared 12% of the time

HAProxy vs Radware Alteon

Compared 8% of the time

NGINX Plus vs Radware Alteon

Compared 7% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Radware Alteon

Compared 6% of the time

More Radware Alteon Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

NetScaler

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Radware Alteon

March 2025

Download Radware Alteon product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

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

Alteon, Radware AppWall

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

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

Radware Alteon is an application delivery controller (ADC) solution that provides global load balancing for all web, cloud and mobile-based applications. The solution is designed to help your organization simplify operations while ensuring resilience and SLA. It manages application traffic across both data and cloud center locations, optimizing availability and performance. In addition, Radware Alteon integrates multiple application protection services to provide protection against an array of cyberthreats.

Radware Alteon Features

Radware Alteon has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Robust
Load-balancing reverse proxy
Stable
Flexible
Guaranteed application availability
Application aware traffic redirection capabilities
Faster web application response time
Application specific optimized configuration guides
Configuration templates
Built-in virtualization
Built-in application and network security

Radware Alteon Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Radware Alteon. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Flexible deployment options: Radware Alteon is deployable in a multitude of form factors, including on-premises, virtual, and cloud, and provides a consistent application delivery and security service in any application environment.

Automation scripts library: To support faster time to service for complex application delivery and security services, Alteon is supported by an extensive range of automation scripts library. This also enables seamless integration of Radware Alteon services into the DevOps CI/CD processes.

Integrated application protection: The solution offers comprehensive application protection via embedded WAF, bot management, threat intelligence, and API protection capabilities. This ensures application availability and helps to minimize false positives, as well as keep applications along with their data secure.

Actionable visibility: With Radware Alteon you can stay ahead of issues and threats. The solution provides real-time visibility and actionable insights for proactive management of application availability and security issues before the user experience is impacted.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the solution.

PeerSpot reviewer Jefe de implementaciones de Datos at RETO Industrial S.A. de. C.V., mentions, “The simple and well-documented configuration allows us to be able to implement new balancing services at the request of the user with the same conditions and good service that they expect. We can also make changes to services that are already running, as I mentioned before, the graphical interface is very intuitive and you can almost always make the most common changes quickly. Radware has been characterized by being extremely robust. This gives us the confidence to offer our users a continuous service.”

A director of consulting says, “The most valuable features are the load-balancing and reverse proxy. Global-load balancing as well is valuable. I also find it to be stable. To date, we have not had any issues with it.”

An SOC Specialist at a tech services company explains, “The interface is easy, it's friendly, and has good alerting. When you have a problem with a server, it will alert you. It is useful in many areas, especially for web applications and load balancing. It's something that the customer can see on the internet.”

Radware

Sample Customers

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

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

Convergys

Buyer's Guide

NetScaler vs. Radware Alteon

February 2025

Free Report: NetScaler vs. Radware Alteon

Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler vs. Radware Alteon and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.

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