Airlock vs NetScaler comparison

Ergon Informatik and NetScaler are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Ergon Informatik is ranked #24 with an average rating of 10.0, while NetScaler is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.7. Ergon Informatik holds a 0.8% mindshare in WAF, compared to NetScaler’s 3.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Ergon Informatik users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of NetScaler users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

NetScaler and Airlock compete in managing and securing application delivery. NetScaler appears to have the upper hand in performance and scalability, while Airlock is superior in providing robust security features.

Features: NetScaler is recognized for high performance, scalability, and effective load balancing, supporting various deployment models optimized for application delivery. Airlock is noted for its comprehensive security with application firewall capabilities and identity management, ensuring protection against a wide range of threats.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetScaler provides a flexible deployment model, backed by extensive resources and customer service, allowing seamless complex integrations. Airlock offers detailed deployment support and customer service focused on optimizing security configurations. While both have strong deployment support, NetScaler emphasizes performance efficiency, whereas Airlock focuses on security management.

Pricing and ROI: NetScaler's setup cost is generally considered reasonable due to its performance and scalability, offering good ROI for performance-oriented organizations. Airlock's higher initial cost is justified by advanced security features, with ROI depending on a company's security priorities. NetScaler may appeal to budget-conscious businesses, while Airlock is a valuable investment for those seeking advanced security.

To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

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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 Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.4%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Airlock is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 3.8%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	5.4%
NetScaler	3.8%
Airlock	0.8%
Other	90.0%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

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Tiodor Jovovic

Chief Business Officer at Sky Express

Provides endless features and can be adapted to every single application that exists in the world

WAF is the most beneficial feature for security posture. Our customers are more than satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The level of detail of the configuration is the most significant aspect. We can adapt it to every single application that exists in the world. The product helps with the compliance processes.

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Letarik Terefe

Information Technology Division Director at Ethiopian Roads Administration

Offers better visibility into user sessions compared to other solutions

Improvements are needed to address the issue of machines becoming unregistered, ensuring stability for end users. Troubleshooting with Citrix support can be challenging, so clearer diagnostics would be beneficial. As for global server load balancing, it works well on-premises, depending on user volume and service stability. Overall, it's satisfactory for us.

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 impact of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's integration with existing web technologies on our site's performance and security measures is quite great, actually."

"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."

"It is configurable via API."

"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."

"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."

"It protects web applications efficiently."

"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."

"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"Our customers are more than satisfied with the user experience provided by the product."

"With Netscaler, we have a solution divided in two data centers, a secure and unique point of access, and balanced traffic between all the critical components in the Citrix solutions."

"The solution is very stable. We don't have any downtime or issues of that nature."

"I prefer this solution because of its user-friendly interface. I find it simple and close to what I am currently using, which is Citrix Fortiva Access for Multi-Factor Authentication. I appreciate the familiar user interface and troubleshooting tools it offers."

"We use the solution's IP Reputation and bot protection features."

"The solution improves security performance."

"What I like most about Citrix NetScaler is its stability, and I didn't see a lot of issues with it."

"For NetScaler, our major use cases are database load balancing, PowerVPN VPN access gateway, WAF (Web Application Firewall), and content switching."

"The analytics are a great feature."

More NetScaler pros

Cons

"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."

"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."

"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."

"They need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long."

"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"The tool must be simplified."

"Development team's response time could be better."

"Some features of Citrix ADM are available on the cloud, which could really be helpful if they were available on an on-premise version."

"Reducing the overhead required for AppFlow data collection, specifically for HDX Insight, would be a huge improvement."

"There are certain features that are very useful and Citrix makes you pay a bit more for them."

"Technical support could be improved."

"The tool needs to add a feature where we can access the network policy access manager."

"We are looking for some in-depth monitoring and analytics and more information that Citrix Director doesn't provide. ControlUp has insights that not only give you an overview but also allow you to do some drill-down troubleshooting for what's going on in your environment. We are looking for some more analytical and monitoring data to be able to monitor the environment better, not only from an application standpoint but also from the standpoint of the infrastructure to everything it sits on. They can provide more data to the administrators about what's going on within the application. They can provide data not only on the application side but also about what the application sits on. They're making strides with Citrix Analytics in regards to that."

"Should offer more flexible cost-effective licensing for small to medium sized organizations."

More NetScaler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

"It is not too pricey."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The tool is cheap."

"Regarding pricing, while it's expensive, I can't comment on the exact ROI without a budget analysis. However, in terms of service quality, it's worth the price."

"The client pays for the Citrix NetScaler license annually."

"You can do CapEx and then a yearly monthly fee, or you can do a subscription model, whether that's one month, month-to-month, or three-year subscription model."

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

"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."

"Our licensing fees including technical support are approximately $3,500 USD."

"Costly product and complicated licensing."

"The solution is undoubtedly very good, but it is expensive."

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	45
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	57

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

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What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...

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What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...

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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...

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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...

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What needs improvement with Citrix ADC?

Citrix NetScaler is a robust product, but mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexi...

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Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

AWS WAF vs Airlock

Compared 19% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Airlock

Compared 17% of the time

NGINX App Protect vs Airlock

Compared 15% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Airlock

Compared 10% of the time

More Airlock Competitors

Fortinet FortiADC vs NetScaler

Compared 9% of the time

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

Compared 7% of the time

HAProxy vs NetScaler

Compared 6% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs NetScaler

Compared 6% of the time

NGINX Plus vs NetScaler

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

March 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

Download Airlock product report

Buyer's Guide

NetScaler

March 2026

Download NetScaler product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

Airlock Suite

Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall, NetScaler VPX - Customer Licensed

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

The problem of internet security is almost as old as the internet itself. But there is a reliable solution: Airlock Suite from Ergon. Airlock Suite is underpinned by superb Swiss engineering expertise, many years of experience and well thought-out concepts that master the most complex challenges. Airlock Suite deals with the issues of filtering and authentication in one complete and coordinated solution - setting new standards for usability and services.

Ergon Informatik

NetScaler is an advanced application delivery controller providing load balancing, SSL offloading, and enhanced network performance. Users benefit from its robust security features, seamless Citrix integrations, and cost-effective infrastructure.

Designed to optimize and secure application delivery, NetScaler offers high availability and supports data centers with its load balancing and reverse proxy capabilities. It ensures effective traffic management and provides valuable insights into network health while integrating easily with Citrix products. Users appreciate its centralized management via ADM and flexible deployment options tailored to their infrastructure needs. However, there is room for improvement in its management tools, interface, and documentation, alongside a need for security enhancements and better licensing flexibility.

What are the most important features of NetScaler?

Flexible Deployment: Allows adaptation to different environments and needs.
Load Balancing: Efficiently distributes traffic to enhance performance.
SSL Offloading: Offloads encryption to optimize server performance.
Content Switching: Enables tailored content delivery based on user needs.
Robust Security: Includes firewalling and AAA authentication.
Global Server Load Balancing: Distributes load across multiple locations for high availability.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Delivers an efficient infrastructure without high costs.
Reliable Performance: Ensures consistent delivery and resilience.
High Availability: Maintains network uptime and service quality.
Technical Support: Offers responsive assistance for operational issues.

NetScaler is implemented across sectors like healthcare, finance, and education to guarantee secure remote access, enhance application network management, and support virtual desktops. Its application gateways and VPN access capabilities make it ideal for industries needing secure and efficient connectivity solutions.

NetScaler

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Raiffeisen, SGKB, Generali, Visana

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

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

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