Citrix NetScaler alternatives and competitors

It is for internal load balancing of servers.

It provides load balancing. So, it potentially brings some performance improvement and high availability. If one server goes down, there is a seamless transition to the other one. 

The load balancing function, the monitors that you can create, and iRules programmability are most valuable.

Its GUI could be a bit better. Other than that, it's already pretty good. We don't use it in a high-performance environment. So, we don't really care so much about too many features.

It has been quite a few years. We might have been using it for six to eight years.

It has been stable and reliable. It has been working well for us.

It is scalable, but we didn't really need to scale. It met all the performance requirements we had. So, we had no issues where we were not able to add something.

Currently, its usage is quite low, but it's not because of the product. It's because of how our company works. In other words, how much we need to use it. It's not used a lot, and we don't plan to expand its usage.

We did open some tickets, and usually, it was a very good experience.

For load balancing, we previously had Cisco solutions. We had CSS and then Application Control Engine (ACE). We switched because they stopped that service. It was end-of-life, and Cisco discontinued that range.

It was straightforward. I would rate it a five out of five in terms of the ease of setup. 

There were no issues or obstacles, and its deployment was pretty fast. We had to do preparation of all the surroundings, such as the VLAN or IP assignment, but the deployment itself was just a couple of hours.

We have a managed service provider, and they hired a consultant. We had some help there, but that was not just because of LPM. We also had other modules of F5. It was our initial or first experience with F5, and there were also other things to be migrated, which were much more complex than the LPM module. That's why the consultant was there.

For deployment, there was one person deploying it. For maintenance, we have a managed service provider. So, we have a team of people, but they're also looking at other devices and not just F5.

It was probably a one-time purchase and then you have maintenance, but I don't have the details on that. We bought what they called the Best bundle at the time, which pretty much included all of the modules. There was probably no additional cost afterward.

There were evaluations. There were Citrix NetScaler and Application Delivery Controller from A10 Networks, but in the end, F5 was chosen because of the virtualization environment that we were using at the time. We were using VMware, and we are still using it. They had better support for the VMware VDI solution. They were able to act as a gateway for the VMware VDI.

One piece of advice would be that if you are not that much concerned with performance or you definitely don't need physical hardware, you can go for a virtual edition. It might save you the migration effort when the hardware is end-of-life. 

If you need a load balancer, go for it. We didn't have any hurdles or obstacles. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Our company uses the solution to publish services that are on Azure. There is more than one way to publish services. 

You can use the Microsoft infrastructure for app services including small programming, configurations related to obligations, and publishing. Or you can publish manually by using VMs and attaching the WAF with the solution. 

The solution does not include a security policy so you need to configure a WAF and attach it to the solution. There is an option in the Gateway to automatically go to the web. 

The solution has built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure. You can enable any missing rules or create custom rules if needed. 

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

There isn't a standardized process for blocking IPs. IPs need to be blocked individually, whether one or one hundred. A normal scenario would be to copy and paste multiple IPs at the same time but the solution does not offer this option. Updating takes a long time and is up to the WAF. In most cases, we prepare scripts to handle these updates. 

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The stability is very high. 

The solution scales automatically based on what you use. 

We are a partner with Microsoft so we have full support under a special agreement. Our support experience is not the same as other users. 

The support we receive is rated a ten out of ten. 

Positive

The setup is straightforward. If you select the features you want in advance, it will be easy. 

The service can be ready in less than one hour. 

We implement the solution for customers with one resource for infrastructure and another for obligation or security. 

The solution is seamless with little ongoing maintenance. 

If you have some live metrics you can't follow, you can get the locks with some experience in the query language. 

The pricing is based on how much you use the solution. This format is good because you don't have to pay for a yearly license that you rarely use. 

We recommend solutions to our customers based on their needs and budgets. Our initial assessment considers the type of company, the application's use case, and what features are needed within the solution or from a third party. 

Other products do not include all of the solution's features. 

Most people are moving from the solution to Azure's Front Door. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

Avi Load Balancer is the next-generation load balancer, which VMware provides.

Earlier, we used a traditional type of load balancer. Due to the limitation of this traditional load balancer, we deployed this next-generation load balancer. This has very advanced capabilities like a web application firewall and very high-level visibility of an application's traffic flow. 

It works as a load balancer, so the application availability for day-to-day operations has bee really useful. It's helped the organization to enable the high availability of applications and also the monitoring and security of applications.

The WAF - the web application firewall itself - is great. The API and application debugging features, where we can see the tie of any requests, have been great. 

The solution is stable. 

It scales easily.

The product itself is very reliable, and robust, and offers an all-in-one product.

I'm not sure if there is a particular area that needs improvement. 

The initial setup is a bit complex. 

I just used it for a very little amount of time for one of our projects, which was just handed over to our clients. I've used it for around 3.5 months.

It is a stable solution. It is reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

We find the solution to be easily scalable. 

We have around 1,000 or more users.

It's unclear if the client has plans to increase usage. 

We previously used a Citrix Load Balancer and Aria Networks Load Balancer. 

The implementation is a little bit complex. It is not a traditional load balancer. You require some application-level and networking-level knowledge for the deployment of this application. It is a very new deployment type as there is one controller and there are service engines in there. 

You only need one person to handle the deployment and maintenance. 

We deployed the solution ourselves. 

We have seen an ROI. Moving from a legacy solution to a newer one has provided us with tangible returns. 

I'm not sure of the exact licensing costs. 

We did not evaluate other options before deciding on Avi.

I'd advise potential new users to exploit the next-generation capability in Load Balancer. Everyone should consider this next-generation solution for the deployment and high availability of applications.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

My primary use case of this solution is as a web application firewall.

Kemp mitigated our cross-scripting vulnerabilities, cookie-related issues, and content security policy issues. Instead of working on each application, we can do everything with Kemp. In addition, using Kemp has raised our site score from average to fully-secured.

The most valuable feature is that Kemp can be integrated with our active directory, so then we can use ESP. Then SSL certificates can be hosted or deployed from Kemp rather than going through the application.

The UI is very basic and not very attractive, so this could be an area for improvement. In the next release, I would like to see global load balancing and the ability to connect to networks not physically attached to the individual device (VPNs or point-to-point connections, for example).

I have been using this solution for three years.

Kemp is very reliable.

I had some difficulty getting the correct load balances, but it's very reliable otherwise.

I have had no issues at all with their support team.

I previously used an open-source version of this solution, but it was very hard to maintain and suffered frequent crashes, so we switched to Kemp for better reliability. I also used Citrix, but the use case for it is completely different than for Kemp.

The initial setup was very straightforward, requiring only around an hour of configuration.

A team wasn't required because the product is straightforward.

Our aim in implementing Kemp was to improve our security posture and increase our security ratings because we were losing business due to our rating being a bit low. Once we implemented Kemp and shared our new security scorecard, our projects got extended, so I believe that Kemp has helped to bring us more business.

We pay around $10,000 a year for licensing. There are no additional costs.

I evaluated the on-premises version of Citrix but found Kemp to be more helpful, while Citrix was more expensive and not very user-friendly.

Each and every organization that hosts applications should have this solution. I would rate this solution as nine out of ten.

In our experience, Loadbalancer.org is best suited for small businesses looking to balance their website. They don't require HA, DR, or anything else.

Loadbalancer.org is less complex than Citrix. In some cases, our customers do not have an engineer on staff who can support this device.

These customers have a large number of Linux engineers but don't have the money. We suggested using Loadbalancer.org and other open-source tools. Many customers are of different sizes and have different budgets.

Loadbalancer.org has everything that is needed.

The price could be reduced. 

Loadbalancer.org's complexity could be reduced.

I last used Loadbalancer.org three years ago, but I deploy this solution for our clients.

I am also working with F5, Kemp, Barracuda, Cisco, and NGINX.

The last time that I used Barracuda was three to five years ago.

We used F5 Big-IP with some customers and deployed it to others.

It is easy to deploy Loadbalancer.org.

Loadbalancer.org is an open-source solution, with additional costs, however, in some cases, the price remains the same. It is dependent on the customer and what discounts F5 has given.

Loadbalancer.org is based on open-source products, but it requires money for support and other activities.

I would recommend this solution for small businesses with limited resources and do not have complicated requirements.

I would rate Loadbalancer.org an eight out of ten.