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Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software vs. NetScaler

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ACisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the core OS for the ASA suite. It provides firewall functionality, as well as integration with context-specific Cisco security modules. It is scaled for enterprise-level traffic and connections.N/A

    NetScaler

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ANetScaler ADC is an application delivery controller.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareNetScaler
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareNetScaler
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareNetScaler
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Cisco has made it easy to buy, set up, and manage all of our firewalls with the central FirePower Management Center. All licensing is done via one license portal too. Tech support is standardized for all ASA devices and like support engineers who know the different models to …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Our Palo Altos and Cisco ASAs are pretty comparable. They both seem to work well when used in an HA pair. They can both do IP/Port based ACLs. But the Palos also have APP-ID which helps to make sure that the traffic passing through your firewall is the type of traffic …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    We actually went with the Palo Alto firewalls in most sites, and are using the Palo Alto to replace the classic ASAs; however, there was one location where cost was a major issue so we decided to go with the X-series ASA. We spent a few thousand dollars (though only the L4 …
    Incentivized
    Cloud Software Group
    Chose NetScaler
    Citrix NetScaler seems to be a beast right away. Once you start testing and getting used to the logic that is in place, it becomes the obvious choice for selecting such appliance to be used in an enterprise setting.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    87%
    Would buy again
    40 Answers
    93%
    Would buy again
    13 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    42 Answers
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    13 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    42 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    14 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    36 Answers
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    41 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    Features
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareNetScaler
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and NetScaler
    Feature
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    8.9
    50 Ratings
    4% above category average
    NetScaler
    -
    Ratings
    Identification Technologies7.932 Ratings00 Ratings
    Visualization Tools7.931 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content Inspection8.433 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls8.446 Ratings00 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP8.448 Ratings00 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console9.049 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging8.949 Ratings00 Ratings
    VPN10.049 Ratings00 Ratings
    High Availability9.649 Ratings00 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection10.046 Ratings00 Ratings
    Proxy Server9.032 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareNetScaler
    Small Businesses
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.3 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Azure Application Gateway
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Azure Application Gateway
    Score8.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareNetScaler
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (88 ratings)
    8.5
    (26 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.1
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.4
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.7
    (8 ratings)
    7.3
    (4 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    6.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareNetScaler
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Cisco ASA's are great for internal network connected access between a firewall and the central management server. And, for complex networks where high security requirements with overly strict compliance are necessary. For networks with limited connectivity to the core or for poor network connectivity these are not the best solution. There are other more stand-alone firewall's that do this better. These firewall's are a little more complex to set up to start with so significant knowledge of these devices is required to set them up and ensure they are best practice installed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cloud Software Group
    Citrix Netscaler can be a powerful network appliance for environments that are fully committed and open to utilizing a network appliance that isn't made by a traditional network vendor. Administrator user experience has improved over the years and will continue to improve with the flexibility of virtual and physical appliances available for medium and large enterprises.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • ASA is our VPN concentrator. The client and server are very stable and very easy to use
    • ASA also offers Intrusion Prevention, to an extent. This is also very useful for an improved security posture for a small company
    • ASA allowed us to scale very quickly. We could onboard clients, partners, and consultants and give them a great onboarding experience as well
    • Administrative costs with ASA are low. It's very easy to administer.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cloud Software Group
    • Flexibility. NetScaler assumes its admins know a bit about networking and in-depth details surrounding the applications they are configuring access for/to. This being so, the range of configuration options is very broad allowing various versions' combinations of protocol patterns, expressions, rules etc., all to the benefit of the admin.
    • Granularity. Having such a broad range of configuration options available, while still allowing simple options to be configured simply. The GUI is well-stylized and navigation has a good flow.
    • Ease of control. For load-balancing of simple services right out of the box, NetScaler makes it pretty easy, compared to the range of options available in the surrounding GUI and under the hood.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • The ASDM software is at times a nightmare to install because of different java versions[.]
    • [The firewall] could do with a power button, just to be able to do a hard reboot when needed[.]
    • It would be nice to manage the firewall via the web on port 443[.]
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cloud Software Group
    • The documentation could use an overhaul with specific examples related to the command line as well as GUI. Explanations in the documentation would also be helpful.
    • Being able to have more than just one routing table would allow the ability to leverage security.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    To be honest there has been now great products out in the market compared to Cisco ASA. I beleieve Cisco has to do a lot of improvement in this area. The other defeiniete factors is the cost when it comes to renewals which is always a premium on Cisco products
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cloud Software Group
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cloud Software Group
    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
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    I generally have not noticed the outages, however since it's a machine it can malfunction, we need to implement the firewall infrastructure in such a way that it is highly available with device failure, region failure etc. Else any solution will be having the issues if they are not build with resiliency.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cloud Software Group
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    The support is usually very good and gets back to you very quickly. However I had some instances of when two engineers will give me wildly different answers to what I thought was a simple question. Overall however I do rate the support highly and they are generally always very good.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cloud Software Group
    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
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    It was quite a good one, how ever requires an expertise to deploy hence the SMB segment would be finding it difficult to implement this product. The one good reason is that there are lot of ASA certified engineers in compared to the other certified engineers. Hence this resembles positively on the deployment as you have quite a lot of experienced engineer on your deployment
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cloud Software Group
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    We were using [pfSense] before in our environment but we regularly facing difficulties over it due to software bugs & downtime. After implementing Cisco ASA, it resolved our availability issue & provides us a reliable solution with the best security features & easy to understand GUI.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cloud Software Group
    easy to use and setup and reliable. Once the configuration was setup and running this has been really useful and easy to maintain. The other solutions seemed overly complicated and difficult to configure and get up and running with the security that we required
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • Most network engineers have worked with ASA, so there is no need for re-training when adding or turning over staff
    • Current configs from older devices plug in easily, and are operational on larger devices if an upgrade is required
    • Many support options available
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cloud Software Group
    • We had this set up before COVID and it saved us. We just added user licenses and scaled out our citrix farm and IT sat back and just monitored users from home.
    • Scales up and out with ease
    • Challenging to find NetScaler experts for advanced features you want to enable and use
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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