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HAProxy vs NetScaler vs Radware Alteon comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 July 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 12.3%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 14.6%, down from 16.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Radware Alteon is 4.8%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

Kaushlendra Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
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.
Vivek Nadiminti - PeerSpot reviewer
The integrated application protection has helped secure our critical web applications
Valuable features of Radware Alteon include global server load balancing, SSL offloading, Layer 7 load balancing, automation and traffic scaling, real-time analytics, and reporting. Alteon's integrated application protection has helped us. As a state government agency, we face increasing threats and need to secure our critical web applications. Our finance websites are the primary targets for DDoS, SQL injections, and other sophisticated attacks. Traditional security is insufficient to defend against the volume and complexity of the attacks. We need protection against attacks on the application and infrastructure layers and DDoS attacks. Alteon offers visibility and actionable insights into each security event. Radware has free training available on their website. I've completed a few training courses and found them very helpful for me in my daily work. The basic course covering the UI takes a week, and it was easy to understand. When we're troubleshooting a scenario, we can check the Alteon knowledge base articles. The combination of training and the knowledge base shortens the learning curve.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I can't speak to all of the HAProxy features because we don't use them all, but load balancing is very good."
"The VRRP redundancy is also a mission-critical feature that works seamlessly. I can bring down a server live with minimal downtime because of this."
"It is scalable."
"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 anti-DDOS PacketShield filtering solution (embedded in the physical appliances) as well as the BGP route injection are great features and heavily used."
"I can simplify configurations of many internal services (e.g. Web server configs) by moving some elements (like SSL) to HAProxy. I can also disable additional applications, like Varnish, by moving traffic shaping configurations to HAProxy."
"The ease of use of the configuration, and great documentation, are the most valuable features for us."
"The solution is effective in managing our traffic."
"It is a stable solution. It crashed only once, four years ago...There is a return on investment using the solution."
"The NetScaler appliance has provided a lot of customers with greater high availability for their enterprise applications within a single site and across multiple locations."
"The MAS integration for HDX Insight has provided teams with significant visibility into network performance of the user's connection."
"The web application firewall is one feature I found valuable in the solution."
"The analytics are a great feature."
"The most valuable feature of Citrix NetScaler was the seamless integration. Additionally, the UI is good."
"It allows students to access required software for their studies."
"Content Redirection and SSO integration with Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop. The GUI was wonderful."
"The solution has been very stable."
"I found the link load balancer and server load balancer are the most valuable."
"Overall, I would rate Alteon a nine out of ten."
"With Alteon, the load-balancing options are practically unlimited. We haven't had any issues with offloading, decryption, putting in cookies, or any other load-balancing features. We can check URLs, etc., on the back end for load balancing instead of running a TCP check. We're also doing some certificate stuff on there. Alteon covers all of the standard load-balancing techniques, and we employ most of them daily."
"The features that mitigate attacks are very valuable."
"It is easy to expand. Our clients are enterprise-size."
"The round-robin distribution of the load is quite useful."
"The UI is user-friendly."
 

Cons

"The product does not have any new technologies."
"They should introduce one feature that I know many people, including me, are waiting for: HAProxy should have provide hot-swipe for back-end servers. Also, they need a more detailed GUI for monitoring and configuration."
"The configuration should be more friendly, perhaps with a Web interface. For example, I work with the ClusterControl product for Severalnines, and we have a Web interface to deploy the HAProxy load-balancer."
"There are three main areas to improve: 1) Make remote management more modern by adding API. 2) Propose a general HA ​solution for HAProxy (no I'm using keepalived for this). 3) Thread option should be a bit more stable."
"We've changed solutions as it doesn't fit with our current needs."
"HAProxy could improve by making the dashboards easier to use, and better reports and administration tickets."
"The web stats UI, which provides the status of the health and numbers, could greatly benefit from having a RESTful interface to control the load-balanced nodes. Although there is a hack around the UI (by issuing a POST request to HAProxy with parameters), a RESTful interface would greatly improve the automation process (through Chef and Ansible)."
"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."
"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."
"Currently, the support team's responsiveness is lacking, and the technical personnel on calls often seem unfamiliar with the issues or inadequately trained."
"The licensing model and technical support of the solution could be improved."
"Manageability and adaptability can also be challenging for end customers."
"The solution's pricing is a big concern and should be improved."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say the user interface because sometimes it can be complicated."
"The configuration for its web application firewall is complicated."
"There are some features which are missing.​"
"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."
"I would like for the load balancing to work with premier and the cloud, a mix of premium and cloud."
"You need to have pretty good internal knowledge of the solution."
"I would like this solution to have an integration tool that will convert configuration from other software, into readable values for this product during implementation."
"We’d like the solution to include more security features in the standard license."
"The GUI needs to be improved. Right now, the solution isn't so user-friendly."
"Alteon's user interface could be improved. F5's user interface is more user-friendly than Radware's, but Radware's hardware performs better."
"We are in the process of updating our version of the solution, so judging what should be improved is difficult. But in some cases, the visualization takes a while, especially for mapping issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"HAProxy is free software. There are optional paid products (support/appliances)."
"HAProxy is an open-source solution."
"The tool is open-source."
"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."
"The product is open source."
"HAProxy is free open-source software."
"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."
"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."
"Our licensing fees including technical support are approximately $3,500 USD."
"The client pays for the Citrix NetScaler license annually."
"Citrix ADC could improve the price and make it less expensive, other competitors have a better prices. This would allow Citrix ADC to keep dominating the market."
"We have all the features and functions of Citrix because we have a premium license."
"Its price is comparable to others and affordable."
"We get value for money. Its price is fair. I don't think it is overpriced."
"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."
"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."
"It has a good price point and is more reasonable than other comparable products"
"We have three-year contract with Radware. It is beneficial to have a longer-term contract because you can obtain more discounts. It seems to be a much cheaper alternative."
"The Radware team we work with always gives us the best price. As a university, our budget is limited. We need something that is the best solution but with a low or economical pricing. We are getting a better price than competitors. The shift from Barracuda to Alteon was primarily due to cost efficiency. It is very economical, and the price fits our business needs."
"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."
"The cost of Radware Alteon is mid-ranged."
"I'm content with Alteon's pricing."
"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."
"The solution is cost-efficient."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 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...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall
Alteon, Radware AppWall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk
Convergys
Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, Microsoft and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC). Updated: June 2025.
859,687 professionals have used our research since 2012.