Fortinet FortiADC vs NetScaler comparison

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Fortinet FortiADC

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiADC and NetScaler based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiADC vs. NetScaler Report (Updated: July 2024).

Fortinet FortiADC vs. NetScaler

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Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiADC

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

8th

Average Rating

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetScaler

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiADC is 11.5%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 13.5%, down from 15.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Unique Categories:

No other categories found

Featured Reviews

Saeid Khanipour Ghobani

IT Manager at Technology Evaluation Center

Sep 9, 2022

High-level load balancing and routing protocols but scalability is limited to 200 gigabits

The initial setup and configuration are very easy because the solution includes a simple OS. Initial configuration takes about ten minutes for simple environments. It is important to assess the environment and decide what services, servers, and web applications are needed. The solution can be configured in router mode or one-arm mode which uses source NAT as destination NAT to send traffic to the firewall. One-arm mode is more complex and requires discussions with our engineers. For example, you have a website with Node.js for your programming language, Amazon S3 for your CDN, NGINX for your web server, and you use both React and reCAPTCHA. Our team meets with your developer to learn your website and OS through a multi-step process and then we configure the solution to protect everything.

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Djurre Woudstra

Senior Network Engineer at a legal firm with 201-500 employees

Feb 2, 2023

A stable solution to facilitate Citric remote access, with a very complicated configuration process

We solely use this solution for Citrix remote access This has allowed us to secure Citrix remote access from the internet, as it is currently the only solution available that enables this. We appreciate that this solution facilitates our access to Citrix internet. We would like to see some…

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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

"I like the solution's load balance with DNS intelligence."

"The GSLB, the DR side, is the best part. Because we had our main side in one city, we created another, and we had a complete MPLS over the internet. We used the GSLB and data loss for our business applications."

"It's a good product because it supports all the features that ADC solutions in the market can support, like F5 solutions, for example, such as the LTM of F5."

"TSL and SSL offloading are both very good features."

"Key features include SSL Offloading, VM availability, and L7 load balancing."

"The solution provides high-level services such as availability, redundancy, and load balancing between servers."

"The product has flexible and interesting licensing options."

"Because ADC is the intermediary between the servers and the end-user application, it gives thorough information about the traffic, what the problem is."

More Fortinet FortiADC pros

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

"Manageability and visibility are good."

"One feature that works really well is the SSL VPN. It's very easy to set up and you can go very granular with it. You can define what user groups get what kind of access and the management overhead is very low."

"The web application firewalling component is a powerful feature."

"Compared to other solutions, Citrix ADC is much more robust in terms of the native integration to cloud platforms. It is far more robust from an operational point of view as well."

"Citrix NetScaler offers robust security features, including SmartAccess and customizable policies, making it a reliable choice for safeguarding user data."

"If you need PCI-compliance and have high security requirements, WAF is the most valuable feature. If you need to monitor your load-balancing services with complex types of monitoring, make sure everything is alright, and load balancing is important, Content Switching and Monitoring features are the keys to your needs. If you want to provide a lot of static images or data, the Caching feature works best for you."

"The load balancing is one of the most valuable features."

More NetScaler pros

Cons

"The L7 Persistent load-balancing algorithm has not worked for me after having tested it many times with my customer's in-house application. I'd like to suggest that the company make sure that all load-balancing algorithms work properly with most applications, even those that are in-house apps."

"I had a terrible experience with Fortinet support. I only used support once when I bought the solution. I got no response for two days. However, I believe that it's no longer the case. Fortinet solutions have problems when they're launched. For example, we had issues with Fortinet's authenticator when it came out. We also had trouble with FortiNAC in the beginning."

"Fortinet FortiADC should include an advanced-level SD-WAN."

"There is a mismatch between the number of features they are offering and the device capacity on how much it can handle."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."

"The user interface could be more friendly and CLI could be more like that of Fortigate."

"The solution's WAF needs an upgrade because it is not as good as FortiWeb, VMware, F5, or Imperva."

"The solution should improve finding false positives and false negatives. There are a lot of false positives."

More Fortinet FortiADC cons

"Mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexity."

"The technical support has room for improvement."

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

"I think the documentation should be improved."

"Technical support sometimes takes a little longer because of the multilevel ticket priority."

"The product provides some templates to integrate with applications like MS Exchange, MS SharePoint, SAP Enterprise Portal, and others. However, the last update for these templates was 2013 (lots of applications are running on versions newer then 2013)."

"Finding relevant documentation for learning NetScaler can be challenging, especially for beginners who prefer a web interface over command-line interfaces."

"In terms of what could be improved, I would say the user interface because sometimes it can be complicated."

More NetScaler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is competitive"

"The product has affordable pricing."

"The solution is less expensive than F5 or Imperva and is the most reasonably priced option available."

"I believe the price is good. It's fair. There are no extra costs."

"The solution's pricing is an issue and should be improved."

"Compared to F5, FortiADC pricing is better."

"I rate Fortinet FortiADC's pricing one out of ten. It is fixed."

"The product has average pricing. I rate its pricing a five out of ten."

More Fortinet FortiADC pricing and cost advice

"The licenses for this product are payable as a yearly subscription, and carry a high price-point. The subscription scheme is quite complicated, and costs will increase with each additional feature that is required, outside of the basic setup."

"It's an expensive product but it works well."

"It all depends on the features that will be used and the number of accesses."

"There isn't much of a difference between the cost of Citrix and that of other similar solutions."

"We have a yearly licencing fee, and there are no additional costs."

"It's not for startups or SOHO."

"The license for Citrix NetScaler is on an annual basis and it is reasonably priced."

"It is true that it is a bit pricey compared to newer technologies coming to the market. For example, A10 is a load balancer that does everything that Citrix can and it does a lot more than what NetScaler does when it comes to the security space, and their prices are so cheap. Every box comes with its own license and support built into it. When you compare that with NetScaler, you have to buy licenses separately, you have to buy a support agreement that is going to be separate. A small NetScaler, even if it is a VPX which is a virtual server, could cost you close to $150,000 to $200,000 dollars. So the pricing is really high."

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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?

For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.

Do you recommend Fortinet FortiADC?

I recommend Fortinet FortiADC. My experience with Fortinet has been very positive. Our company has been using it for around five years. We mainly use FortiADC for the load balancing of application ...

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiADC?

The user interface is very easy and integrates with Sandbox easily.

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 enters our environment.

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 expensive.

What needs improvement with Citrix ADC?

Citrix NetScaler is a robust product, but mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexity. While it could be easier to manage, it is like transitioning from driving a ...

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Comparisons

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Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 23% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 7% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 5% of the time

Loadbalancer.org vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 5% of the time

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Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NetScaler

Compared 20% of the time

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

Compared 19% of the time

HAProxy vs NetScaler

Compared 10% of the time

Loadbalancer.org vs NetScaler

Compared 6% of the time

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer vs NetScaler

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Fortinet FortiADC

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Also Known As

FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC

Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX

Learn More

Fortinet

Overview

Fortinet FortiADC is a robust application delivery controller (ADC) that delivers application optimization, application security, and application availability. FortiADC is a valued offering from Fortinet, which is widely recognized as a trusted supplier of dynamic security solutions worldwide. FortiADC offers dynamic security functions (AV, DDoS, and WAF) in addition to advanced application connectors for a simplified deployment and complete transparency to an organization's networks and applications. FortiADC offers three primary deployment options: physical machine, virtual machine, (VM) and cloud solution options.

Fortinet FortiADC Benefits

FortiADC security protocol: FortiADC integrates with FortiSandbox to improve the overall antivirus security protections where every file is scanned for known and unknown malicious risks. If a file is identified as malicious or problematic, it will be blocked in the future.
SSL protocol: FortiADC securely uses the most up-to-date cryptography to provide exceptional encryption and decryption using a hardware-based SSL ASIC. FortiADC offers complete transparency to inspect all traffic for threats, improves server response time, and reduces backend server load, SSL inspection and SSL offloading. FortiADC integrates seamlessly with Gemalto’s SafeNet Hardware Security Module (HSM).
FortiADC connectors: FortiADC Fabric Connectors offer open API-based integration and coordination with numerous software-defined networks (SDNs), third-party partners, and cloud management providers. Fortinet Fabric Connectors provide deep open and turnkey integration with recognized third-party vendors such as AWS, K8s, OCI, and SAP, in multi-vendor solutions, improving scalability, simplified management, and automation.
Business stability: FortiADC load balancing for on-premise global server load balancing (GSBL) and in the cloud (FortiGSBL Cloud) will ensure users can maintain a reliable and available network by improving the ability of scaling applications throughout numerous data centers to reduce application response times and enhance disaster recovery. Users are able to define protocols based on network latency concerns, overall data performance, and site availability.

Fortinet FortiADC Features

Application availability
- 4-7 application load balancing: DNS, HTTPS, RTMP, RADIUS, MySQL and more
- External fabric connectors: Splunk Integration, AWS/OCI Connector, Kubernetes Service.
- Security fabric connectors: FortiSIEM, Fortigate BanIP Integration, FortiAnalyzer, and more.
- Deployment modes: High availability (AA/AP Failover), Router mode, transparent mode (switch), one-arm mode (proxy with X-forwarded for support.
Web application firewall (WAF)
- Security services: Captcha support, cookie support, HTTP header security, XML/SOAP/JSON validation, CSRF protection, API gateway, and more.
- Application security: Web attack signature, bot detection, web vulnerability scanner, OWASP Top-10 Wizard, API protection and more.

Application enhancement
- HTTP and TCP improvement: TCP buffering, HTTP compressions/decompression, HTTP caching (dynamic and static objects), Bandwidth monitoring using quality of service (QoS), TCP buffering, and more.
- Authentication offloading: Two-factor authentication (Fortitoken/Fortitoken Cloud and Google Authentication), NTLM, AUTH2.0, SAML 2.0 (SP and Idp) RADIUS, LDAP, Kerbos, and local.
- Networking: Integration with Ansible, Cisco ACI, OpenStack and Nutanix, NVGRE and VXLAN support, VLAN and port trunking support, IPv6 Support (SLB, firewall, routing and interfaces), Dynamic NAT, Hide NAT, Static NAT for added scalability and flexibility.
- Management: Syslog support, SNMP using private MIBs with threshold-based traps. REST APIs, VDOMS, data analytics, real-time monitoring graphs, role-based monitoring, intuitive reporting, FortiView integration, and more.

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

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

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

Fortinet FortiADC vs. NetScaler