Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs HAProxy vs NetScaler comparison

Read 42 HAProxy reviews

7,217 Views
5,485 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

Read 107 NetScaler reviews

7,489 Views
6,066 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Barracuda Load Balancer ADC, HAProxy, and NetScaler based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, Microsoft and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC).

To learn more, read our detailed Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Report (Updated: July 2025).

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

July 2025

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Helped 865,140 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Barracuda Load Balancer ADC is 1.5%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 11.9%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 14.4%, down from 16.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

Roni Wijaya

Vice President of It Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

A simple and powerful solution with WAF feature

The solution is simple and powerful. I find the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC's load balancing function most valuable. It balances the traffic well. The security features, like the Web Application Firewall, are also very helpful. I use the SSL offloading feature too. It's very helpful because it prevents overload. Our application runs on HTTP, but we upload HTTPS on the load balancer. This means there are no performance issues. I think it's very helpful.

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Kaushlendra Singh

Manager - IT Infrastructure and Network at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Used for load balancing, but its dashboard and reporting could be improved

We use the solution for load balancing The solution's implementation and troubleshooting are not easy. The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved. I have been using HAProxy for 12 years. We didn’t face any issues with the solution’s stability. I rate the solution’s stability an…

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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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Barracuda's technical support is good - whenever we have an issue, they immediately connect and resolve it."

"The price is very good, and it's not very expensive."

"The most useful features in Barracuda Load Balancer are its security capabilities, load balancing efficiency, and scalability."

"I would rate the stability of Barracuda Load Balancer as a ten out of ten; it has high stability."

"The solution is simple and powerful. I find the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC's load balancing function most valuable. It balances the traffic well. The security features, like the Web Application Firewall, are also very helpful."

"The ease of use of the configuration, and great documentation, are the most valuable features for us."

"It is a crucial tool in ensuring smooth service provision without any interruptions."

"I have found HAProxy very helpful in replicating production environment architecture in a development and testing environment."

"I estimate that this product has saved our company hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in possible downtime from previous load balancers. We make a lot of our money from online sales, so it is critical to have 99.9% uptime."

"The anti-DDOS PacketShield filtering solution (embedded in the physical appliances) as well as the BGP route injection are great features and heavily used."

"We use it as a load balancer for our application servers."

"What I like best about the product is its simplicity and speed. When you need to set up a load balancer quickly, HAProxy offers options like sticky sessions and round-robin. It's also fast to configure, including adding SSL for security. While it may have fewer options than other solutions like F5, HAProxy gets the job done for basic load-balancing tasks."

"The solution is effective in managing our traffic."

More HAProxy pros

"It is simple for both IT specialists and customers."

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

"The stability is good. If there is a problem, the load will be shifted to other sites automatically, which has been a good experience for us."

"The load balancing feature of this solution is very good."

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

"It has helped us to increase the resiliency of the application and the performance."

"For desktop application management, I recommend the NetScaler edition. This product is like a Swiss army knife. Citrix NetScaler ADC supports the education front-end."

"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."

More NetScaler pros

Cons

"There are areas of Barracuda Load Balancer's security that have room for improvement, particularly concerning handling traffic."

"Load Balancer ADC is competitively priced, but it's not feature-rich, and its technology is not that advanced."

"The Barracuda Load Balancer ADC could be improved with more customization features. For example, F5 uses iRules for custom configurations. I haven't found something similar in Barracuda yet. The load balancer and WAF's basic and common features are enough, but we need more customization options."

"The quality of the solution's performance could be improved."

"Maybe HAProxy could be more modular."

"There is no standardized document available. So, any individual has to work from scratch to work it out. If some standard deployment details are available, it would be helpful for people while deploying it. There should be more documentation on the standard deployment."

"The basic clustering is not usable in our very specific setup. The clustering is mainly a configuration replication and is great in a case of active-passive usage. In the case of an active-active (or with more than two nodes) where the configuration is not fully identical, it cannot be used as-is."

"HAProxy is very weak in the logging and monitoring part and requires improvement."

"The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."

"Improving the documentation with multiple examples and scenarios would be beneficial. Most users encounter similar situations, so having a variety of scenarios readily available on the tool's website would be helpful. For instance, if I were part of the HAProxy team, I'd create a webpage with different scenarios and provide files for each scenario. This way, users wouldn't have to start from scratch every time."

"The only area that I can see needing improvement is the management interface, since it is pretty much all through the CLI or configuration. A GUI/web interface could be helpful for users who are not as experienced in the Linux shell. However, HAProxy does have another product that we evaluated called ALOHA, which has a web front-end, but we found it did not meet our needs."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing model. It could be cheaper."

More HAProxy cons

"ADC from Citrix has added functionalities from other products and the usability is very difficult for someone who is used to a simpler user interface, it's a little bit of a mess to use."

"Maybe creating policies with simple regular expressions."

"Technical support could be improved."

"If one device or switch fails, the failover to another device is not seamless which is painful."

"We face challenges with the solution's firmware upgrades frequently."

"The configuration for its web application firewall is complicated."

"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."

"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."

More NetScaler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Load Balancer ADC is cost-effective and is about half the price of F5."

"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."

"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."

"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."

"Test/lab virtual machines can be installed without a licence. They can't be used for performance testing but otherwise behave like production nodes."

"HAProxy is free software. There are optional paid products (support/appliances)."

"The price is well worth it. HAProxy Enterprise Edition paid for itself within months, simply due to the resiliency it brings. It was a bit more expensive than we were originally interested in paying, but we are thankful we chose to go with HAProxy."

"The tool is open-source."

"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."

"Very good value for the money. One of the simplest licensing schemes in this category of products."

More HAProxy pricing and cost advice

"It is an enterprise solution. Thus, its costs are reasonable."

"The tool is cheap."

"I do not have any experience with the pricing of the product."

"Costly product and complicated licensing."

"Price-wise, I feel that the solution is a little bit expensive."

"Ninety day free trial makes it easy to try out this solution."

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

"Citrix NetScaler VPX is not the cheapest solution out there, but you get what you pay for."

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.

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865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Educational Organization

Retailer

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC?

Pricing for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC can be a consideration. However, it offers good value with its cost-saving be...

What needs improvement with Barracuda Load Balancer ADC?

There are areas of Barracuda Load Balancer's security that have room for improvement, particularly concerning handlin...

What is your primary use case for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC?

The typical use case for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC involves managing and distributing network traffic efficiently t...

Do you recommend HAProxy?

I do recommend HAProxy for more simple applications or for companies with a low budget, since HAProxy is a free, open...

What do you like most about HAProxy?

The solution is effective in managing our traffic.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HAProxy?

HAProxy is an open-source solution.

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...

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

Comparisons

Compared 31% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

Compared 13% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

Compared 8% of the time

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Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs HAProxy

Compared 13% of the time

Istio vs HAProxy

Compared 11% of the time

Envoy vs HAProxy

Compared 11% of the time

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

Compared 10% of the time

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Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NetScaler

Compared 9% 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

NGINX Plus vs NetScaler

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs NetScaler

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

July 2025

Download Barracuda Load Balancer ADC product report

Download HAProxy product report

August 2025

Download NetScaler product report

August 2025

Also Known As

Barracuda Load Balancer

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE

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

Overview

Barracuda Load Balancer is ideal for organizations looking for a high-performance, yet cost-effective application delivery and security solution. With the broadest range of hardware and virtual models, Barracuda Load Balancer provides maximum flexibility for organizations looking to build highly secure and scalable application infrastructure, whether it's deployed on-premises or in the cloud.

Barracuda Networks

HAProxy is considered by many in the industry to be one of the fastest and most popular and trusted software load balancer products in the marketplace today. Organizations are able to immediately deploy HAProxy solutions to enable websites and applications to optimize performance, security, and observability. HAProxy solutions are available to scale to any environment.

HAProxy is an open-source product and has a robust, active, reliable community. The solutions are continually tested and improved on by the community. HAProxy offers a dynamic design to support the most modern architectures, microservices, and deployment environments (appliances, containers, virtual, and cloud).

HAProxy utilizes a cloud-native protocol, which makes it a complete solution for cloud services such as Red Hat OpenShift, OVH, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more. It also can be used as the reference load balancer in OpenStack.

HAProxy Products

HAProxy One: This is a next-gen end-to-end application delivery platform created to secure and streamline modern application architectures. It offers a complete suite of solutions, such as application delivery software, turnkey, and appliance services observed and administered through a central control plane. The product supplies application acceleration, CDN, DDoS, bot management, WAF capabilities, and load balancing.

HAProxy Fusion Control Plane: This product enables organizations to streamline workflows, arrange traffic routing and security protocols, enhance the speed of delivery, and scale out of the organization’s applications. HAProxy Fusion Control Plane offers an intuitive user interface to observe and control the complete product lineup and API for administering numerous fleets of HAProxy Enterprise servers, either in the cloud or on premises.

HAProxy Edge: This product offering is an application delivery network (ADN) that provides a broad array of turnkey application services with amazing scale and complete visibility. Services include application and content acceleration, advanced security, and load balancing.

HAProxy ALOHA Hardware or Virtual Load Balancer: This product is a virtual load balancer or plug-and-play hardware constructed upon HAProxy Enterprise that is designed to support proxying at Layer 4 and Layer 7. It has a user-friendly GUI, simple deployment, and no limit on backend servers, making it a complete product for organizations desiring a reliable system to provide high-end load distribution for critical services.

HAProxy Enterprise Kubernetes Ingress Controller: This product is designed to facilitate smooth traffic flow into a Kubernetes cluster. It is able to automatically discover anomalies and changes in an organization's Kubernetes infrastructure and provide precise distribution of traffic to healthy pods, with no downtime caused by poor pod health or scaling changes. The product comes with an embedded WAF to optimize the security of an organization’s applications running in Kubernetes.

HAProxy Enterprise: This product is the enterprise-class edition of HAProxy offering a dynamic and sturdy code base with next-generation features, an enterprise suite of add-ons, professional services, and trusted support.
- Cluster-wide tracking and rate limiting
- Advanced DDoS and bot management
- Web application firewall
- Reliable expert support
- High performance modules
- Device detection and geolocation
- Real-time dashboard

Reviews from Real Users

“Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind.” - Nathanel S., Platform Architect at SES

“I use HAProxy for individuals who can not buy low balancers. I built NFV in a box and send individuals a pathway into an HAProxy VM. The setup was not difficult; it usually takes a day to complete for a VPC. When it comes to pricing, HAProxy is free.” - Nasir O., Network & Cloud Architect at Koala Compute Inc.

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.

Sample Customers

Fenwal Blood Technologies

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp

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