We performed a comparison between Citrix NetScaler and Kemp LoadMaster 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."Its flexibility, agility, and robustness are the most valuable. Its management and implementation are also quite easy."
"The load balancing feature and the fact that you can do context switching in the WAF are the most valuable. We majorly use it for load balancing, but we also use it for context switching in the WAF. It is also robust and very easy to work with and manage."
"I would say the rewriting and redirection functions are must-have's for us."
"For NetScaler, our major use cases are database load balancing, PowerVPN VPN access gateway, WAF (Web Application Firewall), and content switching."
"Content Redirection and SSO integration with Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop. The GUI was wonderful."
"Citrix Director has been great. It gives us one pane of glass to be able to monitor what's going on with the user sessions as well as to keep on top of the virtual desktops, any servers that may be offline or behaving suspiciously, or any troublesome spots like disconnections. We also use Citrix Studio for maintaining the actual servers that are hosting these applications. We use it for delivery groups in case we need to modify delivery groups in regards to which groups have access to which applications. It has been very helpful."
"I like the ease of use. It's easy to manage. I also like it's ease of use with virtualization technologies with applications."
"The web application firewall is one feature I found valuable in the solution."
"Failover is seamless and our services are rock solid."
"The Global WAF has saved us more than one time from unwanted traffic."
"Persistence is very valuable. This holds the connection information of the source and that connection is important to RDP and our APO calls. The connection has to be persisted to the original source to operate properly. We also use the subsections for sub-services to create services inside our services for our API resources, this is most awesome. We would not be able to do this without Kemp and offer this type of sub-service to route based on an API instance. It routes the traffic properly based on the sub-service type."
"LoadMaster is easy to deploy and understand."
"The feature I find most valuable is load balancing with different algorithms."
"Using Kemp as a front-facing service appliance, it allows me to have the flexibility of swapping out real servers behind the scenes without any intervention from my network team."
"One of the most valuable features I like is the ability to block specific cipher suites like RC4, and older protocols like SSL 3.0."
"Mitigates content security policy issues."
"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."
"Reducing the overhead required for AppFlow data collection, specifically for HDX Insight, would be a huge improvement."
"Manageability and adaptability can also be challenging for end customers."
"I would like to see them make it easier to do some of the more complex things. For example, a web re-direct requires two pieces to it. You have two ports and when people want to go to a web page, they just type in the webpage that on the backend it will redirect them to a secure link. The initial setup of that is cumbersome because you have to do it twice. There are things that can be replicated. The IP address, for example, is the same. This change would go a long way. Don't make me do it twice and don't make me have to read tons of documentation to figure out how to do it. Ease of configuration for some of the more complex processes would be a good improvement."
"Should offer more flexible cost-effective licensing for small to medium sized organizations."
"I think there is always room for improvement in this type of solutions. For example, I think the GUI should be easy to understand."
"The solution is a bit more expensive than some of the available solutions in this region. One solution in particular that I noticed was cheaper was Kemp."
"Technical support sometimes takes a little longer because of the multilevel ticket priority."
"Although Kemp is very user-friendly, it lacks a more custom configuration."
"The auth website of ESP is really lacking. It’s not responsive (mobile friendly) and the procedure of changing the website is difficult. We tend to avoid using pre-auth for that reason."
"When we go serverless, we may again have to revisit this because the configuration needs to be changed. With this change, we can run into a lot of other configurations that we haven't got into, which involve additional expenses. It would be challenging to convince management to buy at that price point. It would be a balancing act of justifying that expense and the value, that is, how it is going to save a bit of time and make our platform secure. It can have better configuration ability. A lot of iterations happen when we have multiple servers pointing to the same domain. If we do not orchestrate carefully, it gets into a loop, which takes away the precious time of the user who is trying to subscribe to a service. It takes a little longer time to realize services as well as web pages."
"UI is very basic and unattractive."
"If you want logging for SMTP traffic, you have to enable ESP, which requires you to define allowed IP addresses. That’s irritating, to say the least."
"The ability to see live traffic is not great and can be improved."
"SNMP and/or RESTCONF management, in order to collect many counters, for plotting in a central application need to be improved."
"Certificate installations could be simplified and modernized, and allowed to be monitored for expirations/issues."
Citrix NetScaler is ranked 2nd in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 85 reviews while Kemp LoadMaster is ranked 7th in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 48 reviews. Citrix NetScaler is rated 8.4, while Kemp LoadMaster is rated 9.4. The top reviewer of Citrix NetScaler writes "Optimizing application delivery and ensuring robust network performance with its excellent stability and comprehensive load-balancing capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Kemp LoadMaster writes "Reliable, easy to set up, and can increase your security score". Citrix NetScaler is most compared with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, Fortinet FortiADC, HAProxy and Barracuda Web Application Firewall, whereas Kemp LoadMaster is most compared with HAProxy, NGINX Plus, Fortinet FortiADC, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and A10 Networks Thunder ADC. See our Citrix NetScaler vs. Kemp LoadMaster report.
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