Citrix Gateway vs. NetScaler

Citrix Gateway is also a great browser or alternate browser if you need a more search engine for your research and other important things to know. It is perfect for your browsing experience and I highly recommend Citrix to my colleagues and friends. For me, this tool is really useful and I believe to others too.

Citrix NetScaler is suited to any environment where hardware load-balancing, application delivery or SSL offloading is a requirement. It's a product that can be used to manipulate traffic flows in a multitude of different ways and its only limit is the protocol, application and imagination of the administrator. It's not a product that includes helpful wizards to guide the admin through each process gracefully. While it is a fairly intuitive product to use, it's not for someone who is not initiated into the ways of networking and network protocols and communication. Nor is this a product that would lend itself solely for the usage of single usage scenarios where small traffic flows would be expected (although if desired the VPX product would probably suffice in that specific scenario depending on the environment)

Incentivized

• Citrix Netscaler Gateway is a solid front end for any organizations externally facing infrastructure. Nothing is impenetrable but Netscaler is as close to it as you can get.
• Netscaler is high on available customization so it can be used by both small shops and large shops in that it offers opportunity to change most parts of the system to your liking.
• In blending well with Citrix Xenapp and Xendesktop systems, Netscaler is particularly strong in protecting other Citrix products. Both the Netscaler and the Xen systems have hooks built into them to best use each other.

Incentivized

• The GUI interface is fairly easy to learn making ramp-up time faster than some similar products.
• It is used by thousands of companies around the globe so finding free support on Google is usually quite easy.
• The virtual implementation version of the product runs on a Linux-based hypervisor install so no additional licensing is needed for the OS.
• When used in conjunction with a Citrix Web front/Storefront, the integration is very tight making the passing of packets very quick.
• Even in the lesser VPX versions, there is the ability to have a cluster of Netscalers to allow for uptime capability.

Incentivized

• One main opportunity that I want to be improved is to lessen the lag and errors in using Citrix.
• We wish to reduce support request with self service password resets.
• We would also want to lessen authentication to involve less administration.

Incentivized

• At times it seems like there is a flurry of firmware updates needed to remediate security vulnerabilities which creates some overhead.
• Out of the box automation using ADM is a bit lacking
• Nit picking but occasionally there are minor config changes that need to be done via CLI or GUI but nothing significant.

Incentivized

I gave the NetScaler a 7 here because the system once configured and deployed is very easy to use. However, if you did not deploy the system and do not have the fundamental background knowledge then you will have trouble using the product in general. Overall it is a great product and service but does typically require professional services to be deployed.

Incentivized

Support is pretty good and pretty fast to respond. I can't say I can really complain about the support experience I've had with them, as they've resolved issues within a reasonable time-frame. Of course, they could always be faster and better, but I think for what we pay, it's well worth the money.

Incentivized

Overall, our organization's experience with Citrix support is that support can be hit or miss. Oftentimes it takes multiple attempts and much longer than desirable to obtain a viable solution for issues experienced with their products. It would be great to see Citrix invest time, effort, and almighty dollars into improving their support and bug fix process across the board.

Incentivized

We chose Citrix Netscaler Gateway for its wide market presence and its great experience over time. Although the implementation time may be longer than in the other solutions, I think the results are better and it allows configuration with greater capacity than the others. The cost is similar in all the solutions seen.

Incentivized

Netscaler has more features than F5 BIG-IP APM product and easier to manage with friendlier user interface for network admins. It was more cost efficient as well and if you have a Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop environment, it is more compatible with those products as well. Our annual maintenance cost is lower as well.

Incentivized

• we moved from Cisco to Citrix VPN, and no longer had to worry about certificate issues
• profile issues from Cisco were no longer a problem with Citrix.
• the amount of time PER VPN call dropped significantly in the internal helpdesk, however, the volume of calls stayed the same.

Incentivized

• Features - There are many features to be used that we haven't quite gotten to.
• Licensing - The need for licensing is one of those necessary evils.
• Reporting - It gave our management team the requested graphs and statistics on usage.

Incentivized