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NetScaler vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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)
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (3rd), Network Management Applications (12th)
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
34th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of NetScaler is 3.0%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is 1.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetScaler3.0%
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)1.2%
Other95.8%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

MP
Senior Data Center Engineer at Axians
Load balancing and secure access have supported complex migrations and automation at scale
NetScaler has positively impacted my organization because I work for a system integrator and deploy it for customers. Many customers are really happy with NetScaler, except for the pricing, as Citrix has changed a lot of their pricing in the last two or three years when they transitioned to Cloud Software Group. However, despite that, I know customers are really satisfied with the technical capabilities that NetScaler provides. While I do not have specific outcomes or metrics from my customers, I think using Core Logic has made it much easier for the big municipality I mentioned to implement NetScaler as a total solution, thus speeding up their automation. There are likely many benefits, but I lack benchmarks or timing figures to quantify that.
reviewer2161107 - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Room for improvement with user interface while competitive pricing impresses
It is managed through Infrastructure as Code, so all configurations can be managed in the code itself, which is beneficial. Because it uses rules, it is easy to set up, and we have many different sites where the configurations are straightforward. Though the UI is not very interactive, which is a downside, we can manage many things. The UI is not very intuitive and could be better. However, we manage all the configurations through code, which is easy to maintain. It has extensive anomaly detection capabilities, so the traffic is classified into several categories where thresholds can be defined and customized based on false positives and false negatives. This is advantageous because you do not need to tweak it very often. Once you set it up, an audit once a quarter would suffice. Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The load balancing feature of this solution is very good."
"If you have a use case for an application controller for load balancing, web application firewall, or virtual infrastructure, you can straight away go for this solution."
"The load balancing is one of the most valuable features."
"The maintenance of the solution is not complex."
"It has been a very useful solution for us, allowing us to manage application accessibility even during the pandemic with complete visibility of application accessibility and any malicious activities, along with analytics reports so we can support our infrastructure in a very secure manner."
"Deployment of NetScalers on our DMZ enables our organization to implement a secured gateway for our Web Portal, Inbound/Outbound application web service calls across our partners/clients, security, and Traffic Management."
"We appreciate that this solution facilitates our access to Citrix internet."
"The load balancing and VPN features are most valuable. AAA authentication is also valuable."
"Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate."
"When configuring a web application firewall using Signal Sciences, we configure a rule whereby no one except a few people can access the application."
"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily."
"Fastly (Signal Sciences) integrates and tags the intermittent traffic based on patterns. It generates signals and provides them in a dashboard where we can view them and decide whether to allow or deny traffic. It's a more advanced and easy-to-navigate dashboard."
 

Cons

"The only thing customers told me that could be improved is that they would like to be able to purchase and receive the products in one box, rather than two boxes. This is something related to marketing, though."
"Getting to use some of the advanced tools, even with the assistance of Citrix support, can be challenging."
"Reducing the overhead required for AppFlow data collection, specifically for HDX Insight, would be a huge improvement."
"Development team's response time could be better."
"Our customers' feedback was that support wasn't the best."
"It can be difficult to setup."
"There are specific features that we like but are not available at our licensing level."
"The tool needs to add a feature where we can access the network policy access manager."
"Even if we create some custom rules, Signal Sciences cannot capture some of the malicious traffic."
"Fastly don't support caching for China users. That's the only feature lacking compared to Akamai."
"The areas that could be improved in Signal Sciences include the effectiveness of rules, as many didn't function optimally and required custom rule-writing to address bypasses for WAF."
"The UI is not very intuitive and could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Regarding pricing, while it's expensive, I can't comment on the exact ROI without a budget analysis. However, in terms of service quality, it's worth the price."
"The solution is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"Its price is comparable to others and affordable."
"Ninety day free trial makes it easy to try out this solution."
"The tool is cheap."
"The solution is undoubtedly very good, but it is expensive."
"We get value for money. Its price is fair. I don't think it is overpriced."
"NetScaler does the same thing as an F5 and it's cheaper."
"The pricing is 50% less than Akamai."
"Signal Sciences is pretty cheap compared to other solutions."
"The product has an affordable cost."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Retailer
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise59
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering Citrix NetScaler?
My advice to others looking into using NetScaler is simply to go use it. I give this product an overall rating of 8.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix ADM?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has revealed that the licensing recently changed to a plus model, which is manageable if you know what you are doing. However, the transition f...
What needs improvement with Citrix Web App and API Protection?
I think NetScaler can improve in pricing, and with the recent release of version 15.1, the successor to 14.1, there are claims of improved performance due to the kernel change. I believe that integ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Signal Sciences?
The pricing is very competitive compared to other providers. The pricing is definitely a factor in our decision-making process.
What needs improvement with Signal Sciences?
We do use it, but the UI can be improved as we mostly work through the CI/CD. It provides support, but sometimes it is hard to navigate unless you are very familiar with it.
What is your primary use case for Signal Sciences?
The CDN is for caching and The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is for protecting the servers from malicious traffic. They both perform different jobs and serve different purposes, ...
 

Also Known As

Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall, NetScaler VPX - Customer Licensed
Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF, Signal Sciences RASP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk
Chef, Adobe, Datadog, Etsy, GrubHub, Vimeo, SendGrid, Under Armour, Duo, AppNexus
Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.