NetScaler vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

NetScaler and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. NetScaler is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.3, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.6. NetScaler holds a 3.3% mindshare in WAF, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of NetScaler users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

NetScaler

Read 107 NetScaler reviews

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641 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...

Read 110 Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks reviews

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1,046 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

NetScaler

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 25, 2025

NetScaler and Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks compete in the enterprise IT solutions category. NetScaler appears to have the upper hand in load balancing and traffic management, while Prisma Cloud excels in security features across multi-cloud environments.

Features: NetScaler offers flexible deployment models including the TriScale architecture, Global Server Load Balancing, and SSL offloading. Prisma Cloud excels in comprehensive security and compliance features, providing Cloud Workload Protection, identity micro-segmentation, and vulnerability assessments.

Room for Improvement: NetScaler requires innovation in features and better scripting capabilities, while its updates can be buggy. Prisma Cloud's high costs and complex integration processes need addressing, along with improving automation and UI navigation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetScaler supports hybrid cloud deployments with variable customer support experiences. Prisma Cloud offers cloud-based deployment with mixed reviews on support speed and expertise, highlighting a need for improved service quality for both solutions.

Pricing and ROI: NetScaler is expensive with additional licensing fees but provides high ROI through performance. Prisma Cloud’s comprehensive security might be costly, yet it saves by consolidating multiple security solutions, offering value for medium to large enterprises with cloud security needs.

To learn more, read our detailed NetScaler vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NetScaler vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

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

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)

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

6th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

110

Ranking in other categories

Container Security (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (1st), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of NetScaler is 3.3%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 2.0%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

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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Mohammad Qaw

Senior Security Consultant at helpag

It gives you one console to see all of your assets, review their configurations, and build your processes

Most customers use Prisma Cloud for visibility and compliance. Prisma has so many features, but many organizations do not use them. They primarily use the visibility part to connect all their cloud accounts and hosts for visibility to see if they are missing any security controls or if they have any misconfigurations. You can connect it to cloud environments such as Azure, AWS, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba, etc., or to an on-prem data center. Prisma Cloud gives you so many options to automate processes related to your daily operations. When it comes to cybersecurity, you can automate things with their existing APIs. They also have out-of-the-box integrations with many solutions. I have not seen any limitations. Everything is customizable. You can do whatever you want, defining the reporting and custom use cases. They recently updated the UI, so it's much better than before.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"The MAS integration for HDX Insight has provided teams with significant visibility into network performance of the user's connection."

"The solution is easy to work with and manage."

"High availability, performance, and security are the main pillars. It enhances the security for accessing the applications."

"It's very easy to configure."

"The solution improves security performance."

"The solution is very stable."

"The web application firewall is one feature I found valuable in the solution."

More NetScaler pros

"We were pleased with Prisma's custom and built-in reports. We could go into the dashboard and see all these notifications telling us which subscriptions didn't have TLS 1.2 enabled. The security controls were the most valuable features."

"The most valuable features of the solution are areas like compliance and asset inventories, along with runtime protection."

"The solution offers very good configuration capabilities."

"Configuration monitoring and alerting is the most valuable feature; it happens at the cloud's speed, allowing our development team to respond quickly. If a configuration goes against our security best practices, we're alerted promptly and can act to resolve the issue. As cloud security staff, we're not staring at the cloud all the time, and we want to let the developers do their jobs so that our company is protected and work is proceeding within our security controls."

"The framework to configure controls is pretty good; it's pretty sophisticated. We can implement a fair amount of testing for a fair number of controls."

"CSPM is very useful because it gives us good policies and violation alerts."

"It supports the multi-cloud environment beautifully."

"Prisma Cloud offers robust runtime scanning capabilities, which is beneficial for security teams."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks pros

Cons

"The technical support has room for improvement."

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

"Citrix Web App and API Protection could improve in the area of licensing"

"I would like to see multifactor authentication added to this solution to improve the security."

"Overall the price of Citrix ADC could be more competitive."

"Citrix ADC can be really complex. It isn't very simple like some other appliances that I've worked with. You need a lot of skill and experience to manage it. I'm not talking about a year or two. You need at least four years to understand it very well. It is not that easy to learn. They should make it a lot simpler for users to understand the management of it. They can also provide some additional training. The material they have on the site is not sufficient enough for you to understand how to manage it. Their training is expensive, and not everyone has the funds and experience for it. Citrix isn't very popular around these parts of the world. So, it can use some more marketing, sales, enlightenment, and advertisement. These could bring more market for them. Basically, there are just a few companies that really go for Citrix. Most of the companies go for VMware because they marketed themselves more than Citrix. There isn't much difference between Citrix and VMware. VMware is a little more robust than Citrix. Citrix has focused more on desktops rather than server virtualization, and that's the advantage VMware has over Citrix. Citrix also needs to educate and inform users about the infrastructure that is supported with a version. Currently, if the customers don't look at the datasheet, they might miss this important information."

"Native integration needs to be improved. You cannot build ISE codes natively. For DevOps, integration would be very helpful because it would be a lot simpler from an operational standpoint."

"Too many bugs in the software and it's always difficult when you need to update."

More NetScaler cons

"Having auto Defender upgrades so that we do not have to upgrade Defender manually would be helpful."

"Prisma Cloud's application security capabilities should be enhanced."

"In terms of improvement, there are some small things like hardening and making sure the Linux resources are deployed well but that's more at an operational level."

"They should improve the user experience."

"The access controls for our bank roles were not granular enough. We needed specific people to do particular actions, and we often had to give some people way too much access for them to be able to do what they needed in Prisma. They couldn't do their jobs if they didn't have that level of access, so other people had to do that part for them. It would help to have more granular role-based access controls."

"It does not provide runtime security or protection for Windows Server. It is currently lacking in terms of Windows environment."

"When an account is onboarded, if it is missing any permission, it should automatically be updated with the required permissions and policies."

"I would like Prisma Cloud to improve its mapping feature to increase usability."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight or nine out of ten."

"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."

"The price for Citrix ADC here in Mexico was good, when you compare it with F5 and Radware."

"The tool is cheap."

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

"For partners, NetScaler is not as expensive price-wise versus F5."

"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."

"F5 BIG-IP is much more expensive than Citrix ADC. For example, If we choose two platforms, Citrix ADC, 3000 version, and we choose F5, F4200 version. F5 BIG-IP has connections, timers, and throughput similar to Citrix ADC, but the price is very expensive."

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is competitive; for the most part, the security firms have similar prices."

"It is an expensive tool. It is not cheap technology. It is a serious investment for any customer. Customers typically buy it together with services. In my experience, customers buying Prisma Cloud are prepared to pay for the implementation and the tool itself."

"The purchasing process was easy and quick. It is a very economical solution."

"Prisma Cloud licensing works on credits."

"It is fairly priced. However, its price can be better so that small banks or small organizations can afford it and adopt it to secure their environment and data."

"I wouldn't mind if it were cheaper. We are spending a fair amount of money on Prisma Cloud."

"Prisma Cloud is affordable."

"If you pay for three years of Palo Alto, it's better. If you're planning on doing this, it's obviously not going to be for one year, so it's better if you go with a three-year license... The only challenge we have is with the public cloud vendor pricing. The biggest lesson I have learned is around the issues related to pricing for public cloud. So when you are doing your segmentation and design, it is extremely important that you work with someone who knows and understands what kinds of needs you will have in the future and how what you are doing will affect you in terms of costs."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?

Prisma Cloud helps support DevSecOps methodologies, making those responsibilities easier to manage.

See all answers

What Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform do you recommend?

We like Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, since it offers us incredible visibility into our entire cloud system. We are able to easily see where our container vulnerabilities lie and and where cl...

See all answers

What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?

Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NetScaler

June 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

June 2025

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks report

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Also Known As

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

Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto

Overview

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.

NetScaler

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks delivers comprehensive security for cloud environments, focusing on workload protection, identity creation, and seamless AWS integration. Its cloud visibility and control, combined with thorough vulnerability scanning, help maintain robust security across multi-cloud platforms.

Prisma Cloud provides essential capabilities for cloud security posture management, container security, and compliance monitoring. Enterprises utilize it to secure cloud configurations, detect vulnerabilities, and ensure regulatory compliance, spanning AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. Its runtime management, identity-based micro-segmentation, and threat detection enhance cybersecurity. Despite needing improvements in documentation, integration complexities, UI, and the need for role-based access control refinement, it remains pivotal for securing assets across cloud infrastructures, particularly with its capabilities for vulnerability scanning and CI/CD pipeline integration.

What are the key features?

Workload Identity Creation: Establishes identities for cloud workloads, enhancing security through precise access management.
Dynamic Workload Protection: Protects applications dynamically, securing resources during runtime.
Integration with AWS Products: Seamlessly integrates with AWS services, maximizing the efficiency of cloud operations.
Automated Forensics: Provides detailed insights through automated investigations and runtime mapping between containers.
Application Dependency Map: Enables compliance and asset management through comprehensive inventory functionality.

What benefits or ROI should users expect?

Proactive Threat Prevention: Enhances security measures with advanced threat detection and prevention.
Cloud Visibility and Control: Offers control across multi-cloud environments, ensuring users maintain a strong security posture.
Prevention Capabilities: Users value its ability to prevent vulnerabilities and threats effectively.
Integration Capabilities: Supports seamless integration into existing cloud infrastructures and CI/CD pipelines.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Prisma Cloud is implemented to strengthen cybersecurity measures, facilitate regulatory compliance, and enhance governance. Organizations leverage its features to secure sensitive data, monitor configurations, and integrate security processes within CI/CD workflows, ensuring robust protection across complex cloud infrastructures.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

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

Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America

Buyer's Guide

NetScaler vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

June 2025

Free Report: NetScaler vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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