Imperva Web Application Firewall vs NetScaler comparison

Imperva Web Application Fir...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

NetScaler and Imperva Web Application Firewall compete in application protection. User feedback indicates NetScaler holds an edge due to favorable deployment flexibility and robust support, while Imperva is recognized for its superior security features despite higher costs.

Features: NetScaler offers flexible deployment models, including the TriScale architecture, SSL offload capabilities, and global server load balancing to aid in cost management. Imperva provides inline transfer mode, strong threat intelligence, and extensive web application security for comprehensive protection.

Room for Improvement: NetScaler can enhance feature innovation, improve configuration capabilities, and manage frequent disruptive updates. Imperva could benefit from reducing its pricing and simplifying its licensing structure, alongside enhancing its configuration interface and management processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetScaler boasts adaptable deployment across on-premises and hybrid clouds but requires simplified configuration management. Its customer service sees mixed reviews in terms of responsiveness. Imperva is straightforward in cloud deployment but less so on-premises, with customer support noted for lack of responsiveness and high pricing complexities.

Pricing and ROI: NetScaler's pricing is considered high and complex, yet its ROI remains favorable due to management cost savings. Imperva's pricing is premium, justified by advanced security features, with its ROI seen as worthwhile by various users, though perceptions of cost-effectiveness differ.

To learn more, read our detailed Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. NetScaler Report (Updated: June 2025).

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. NetScaler

June 2025

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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

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetScaler

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

14th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

107

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (1st), Network Management Applications (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Imperva Web Application Firewall is 5.8%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 3.2%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Mitesh D Patel

Senior Technical Consultant- Cyber Security at Ivalue Infosolution

Effectively defends against threats like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and others

It does bring value. For example, consider a BFSI customer. Their application is critical and represents their brand. Without a WAF, an attack could take their application down, harming their reputation. It leads to hampering the customer's workflow. With an Imperva WAF, they protect against attacks like DDoS or SQL injection, ensuring their application remains available and customers are happy. That's the main benefit for both the customer and the organization. The impact depends on the customer's use case. If their business primarily operates online, a CDN is beneficial for traffic optimization. Moreover, the integration options depend on the specific use case of our customers. Generally, integration capabilities are good with SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) parts.

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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

"Imperva monitors all traffic, even customer access, to the web application. Then, Imperva uses features like signatures to identify attacks like cross-site scripting or SQL injection."

"There are a number of features that are valuable such as the account takeover and various antivirus features."

"Its inline transferring mode is the most valuable because it is 100% transparent. When you change the IP, there is no change on the network side. If you can't and want to try to reach an IP, you can reach the server IP. There are many other advanced security features in it. The smallest appliances of Imperva can handle the highest traffic at a customer site. For example, a smaller appliance from Imperva can provide you the same security as an F5 product."

"The solution is cloud-based and offers us good uptime. It has combined web and API security. Therefore, with one license, you access both application security and also API security."

"If you are using the appliance as opposed to the virtual deployment, it can stand as the network layer-two and provide real transparency."

"Data masking is the most valuable feature of this solution."

"Very intuitive and granular configuration - It does not require much time, or advanced knowledge, for configuration and maintenance."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is stable."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pros

"We use the product for load balancing and as a reverse proxy solution."

"The solution is very stable."

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

"The most impressive thing about Citrix ADM is that we don't encounter latency."

"We like the periodic upgrades and backups, also made via ADMs, and it makes our environment much more robust and reliable."

"The solution improves security performance."

"The load balancing and VPN features are most valuable. AAA authentication is also valuable."

"The solution can be configured very granularly and has good control over security."

More NetScaler pros

Cons

"I would like to improve the tool's turnaround time in terms of support."

"The Imperva Web Application Firewall automations are good, but there is still room for improvement with them."

"It would be nice to have more security control over mobile applications so I would suggest adding more mobile security features. It would also be beneficial to see improvements in regards to interface bandwidth performance, CPU time, and RAM size. Learning capability of the device is quite weak."

"The reporting is missing some features, such as: only two export formats, and the time period does not include the last day, week, year."

"It would be useful if the solution used more intelligence in attack protection. For example, firewalls are to be dependent on the configuration, but if they could have some data science around it the solution would be even better. The profiling of the traffic, and making decisions surrounding that should be intelligence-based, instead of being based on the configuration of the firewall itself."

"Their portal is very limited and needs improvement."

"There's always room for improvement. Occasionally, there might be false-positive alerts."

"It would be helpful to have a "recommended deployment", or even a list of basic features that should either be used or turned on by default."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall cons

"The solution could be more secure."

"There is room for improvement regarding the pricing policy for Citrix offices."

"Currently, it is not easy to use the configuration capabilities of the product."

"Technical support could be improved."

"Getting to use some of the advanced tools, even with the assistance of Citrix support, can be challenging."

"I feel that Citrix NetScaler's customer support needs to improve."

"The WAF component needs to be simplified so that it is easier to use."

"They can improve the scalability and the multi-tenancy feature. We recently tried to configure an authentication, and we ran into some issues while using the web-based GUI. It was very slow when you log in with your credentials in the web-based GUI. Each time we clicked on the menu, it tried to do the authentication. It works properly in the console."

More NetScaler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."

"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."

"The price of this solution is a little bit high compared to competitors."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."

"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."

"It is a very affordable solution."

"There are some licenses that you have to buy to use some features. Its price could be better. Price is always important because, at the end of the day, customers have a budget. If you can meet the budget, you can sell, and if you don't, you cannot sell."

"The solution's pricing is an issue."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

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

"The solution's pricing is very high compared to its competitors."

"This product is more expensive than some of the competitors."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

My recommendation is Imperva.

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.

DDoS solutions: Any other solutions to consider aside from Radware DDoS Protection Service and F5 Silverline DDoS Protection?

You can have a look to Imperva Cloud WAF, the anti-DDoS mitigation is under 1s and works very well. I observed a lot of DDoS attacks that were well managed (even not seen by the customer) by Imperv...

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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Product Reports

Imperva Web Application Firewall

June 2025

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May 2025

Also Known As

No data available

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

Overview

Imperva Web Application Firewall is a versatile solution that protects web applications and databases from various attacks, including DDoS, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection attacks. It offers data security, availability, and access control and can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud.

The solution has good security against web attacks and offers advanced bot protection, API security, and mitigation features. Imperva WAF is easy to configure and deploy; it has good customer service and an excellent user interface.

Imperva

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

BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens

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