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Citrix Gateway vs Hillstone E-Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

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

Citrix Gateway
Ranking in SSL VPN
4th
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Universal Access Gateways (1st)
Hillstone E-Series
Ranking in SSL VPN
11th
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
23rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (39th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the SSL VPN category, the mindshare of Citrix Gateway is 11.2%, down from 16.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 3.9%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
SSL VPN Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Citrix Gateway11.2%
Hillstone E-Series3.9%
Other84.9%
SSL VPN
 

Featured Reviews

SK
Enterprise Architect at Wipro Limited
Strong security and versatile features drive positive experience, but support responsiveness can improve
The main purpose of Citrix Gateway is to enforce the appropriate level of access to the correct user on the proper device under the correct conditions. This is enabled through Citrix Gateway combined with endpoint analysis and optional Citrix analytics for security. Regarding improvements, implementing adaptive access policies on Citrix Gateway could be enhanced, particularly in security posture. Although it enforces real-time contextual access control based on device, user network risk, certain aspects can be improved. Other areas for improvement include BYOD access control and risk-based decision-making. Additionally, there is potential for reducing administrative overhead by applying policies dynamically based on context rather than static rules. Incident response speed is another area that could be enhanced.
TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Offers good features like URL filtering, IPS, and IDS to users
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. When we updated the tool's features, everything became okay. The tool only had some memory-related problems. It took the tool a month to fix the issues.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I find most valuable about this solution, is that it runs seamlessly."
"Citrix Gateway is stable once I am connected."
"The solution is very stable. If I were to rate it out of ten, I would give stability a nine."
"The solution is scalable."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the web app support and VPN."
"It performs quite well."
"The solution is scalable and can go from a very small deployment to handling 10,000 transactions a second."
"We have users in a remote environment that might require to access the service."
"The installation is easy, we have not had any complaints from our customers."
"Five out of five ROI."
"The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ransomware protection that the tool offers."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"This solution has two main features that we find very valuable; a threat-intelligence option, and a web/application filtering option. The technical support team are very good and very quick."
"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients a secure connectivity."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is very complex."
"The tool must provide better integration and connectivity."
"Lacks access through a mobile device."
"Its interface could be made a lot easier. It is very kludgy."
"Citrix Gateway could improve the speed of the VPN. I sometimes have to wait for 10 to 15 minutes to get connected and other times when I am connected I have to abort, and reconnect."
"We have experienced issues relating to multi-factor authentication"
"As Citrix Gateway is a third party solution, we wish to have one which is more integrated and involves less administration."
"Stability and security could be enhanced."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"The tool only had some memory-related problems."
"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"The current usage reporting is very basic."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a need to make yearly payments for licensing purposes. Also, it is not an expensive one."
"Usually with Citrix the issue is the pricing, especially for the African region. We believe it's really expensive."
"Pricing is very high if you do a comparison with what is available in the market."
"There are two or three different models, but you can actually have a CapEx where you purchase the unit outright and then there's a yearly maintenance cost on top for years two and three, and four, or you can actually do a subscription purchase through Citrix cloud and you pay on a monthly basis, or you can have a three-year subscription contract as well. I give the solution a six out of ten for its cost."
"I consider Citrix Gateway to be an expensive solution, generally ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 yearly, depending on the model."
"Citrix is quite expensive."
"The price could be lower."
"It costs about 4,000 a year."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable. It depends on the model. The product's pricing is around 600 USD. You need to buy a software license to activate the features. You need to pay around 150 USD for that."
"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix Gateway?
The price is one aspect, but technically it is complete. Technically, it is really complete.
What needs improvement with Citrix Gateway?
It's difficult to say that because Citrix Gateway is changing all the time. It is improving all the time, and I think that it is periodically giving us patches. Anything that I can think to be impr...
What is your primary use case for Citrix Gateway?
I participate in integrator projects over the last year or two. Citrix Gateway is used in both my company and my customer's companies.
What needs improvement with Hillstone E-Series?
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. Wh...
What is your primary use case for Hillstone E-Series?
I use the solution in my company for site-to-site VPN, SSL VPNs, URL filtering, IPS, IDS and all the other features which are available in the firewall.
What advice do you have for others considering Hillstone E-Series?
Our company did not use the tool's micro-segmentation features. There were no issues while integrating the tool. I have not used any AI in the tool. I recommend the tool to others. I rate the tool ...
 

Also Known As

Citrix NetScaler Unified Gateway
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aeronamic, Avianca, Bechtel Corporation, Betfair UK, Catholic University Leuven (K.U. Leuven), Centene Corporation, Cerner, Charityshare, City of High Point, Clark Builders
Bank of China Macao, Instituto Tecnológico Bolivariano, Ministry of Labor in San Salvador, FEDCO
Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix Gateway vs. Hillstone E-Series and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,481 professionals have used our research since 2012.