Citrix DaaS vs. NetScaler

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Citrix DaaS
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, or XenDesktop) is a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and application virtualization solution from Citrix.
$375
NetScaler
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
NetScaler ADC is an application delivery controller.N/A
Pricing
Citrix DaaSNetScaler
Editions & Modules
Virtual Apps
$375
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Citrix DaaSNetScaler
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
Citrix DaaSNetScaler
Considered Both Products
Citrix DaaS
Chose Citrix DaaS
Other products were more cost efficient, offered a better support contract, were much simpler to configure, and had better documentation.

We chose Citrix over the alternatives, because one of our customers required the use of Citrix for the connection of third-party vendors.
NetScaler
Chose NetScaler
Our company uses both Citrix ADC and F5 BigIP. This is mostly due to team preference. F5 seems to require the use of separate types of devices to do multi-site load balancing while Citrix ADC functionality is the same software on all devices you implement.
Chose NetScaler
Our organization replaced 5 BIG-IP appliances with Citrix ADC, both are comparable products. The largest advantage for our organization switching to Citrix ADC is the shared code base and reduction of the number of vendors in an implemented solution chain from end to end.
Chose NetScaler
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 …
Chose NetScaler
The Citrix NetScaler is the competitor to the f5 BigIP LTM/GTM. I've used both products extensively and the both have pros and cons against each other. F5 has better support and better documentation, and is purpose built for load balancing applications. The NetScaler has a more …
Chose NetScaler
I use F5 as well, which portions we could do in NetScaler, but we kept our environments separate for specific uses.
Best Alternatives
Citrix DaaSNetScaler
Small Businesses
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.0 out of 10
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.0 out of 10
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.0 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Citrix DaaSNetScaler
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(55 ratings)
8.6
(26 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(7 ratings)
7.7
(6 ratings)
Availability
8.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.9
(8 ratings)
7.3
(4 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
2.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Citrix DaaSNetScaler
Likelihood to Recommend
Citrix
DaaS is ideal in large-scale environments that require centralized, secure management. Remote workforces at large organizations. Highly regulated industries like finance. It allows for easy security and monitoring over one aspect instead of multiple remote machines. DaaS is not ideal for organizations with small budgets due to the pricing and organizations with lousy network connectivity. This would make the end-user experience terrible.
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Citrix
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.
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Pros
Citrix
  • Enables remote access anywhere, to any device which eliminates managing the endpoints how traditional VPN would require.
  • Integrates well with modern applications to offer optimized user experiences similar to native applications which increases user acceptance.
  • Extremely flexible in how policies are applied to different use cases to ensure the appropriate security mitigations are in place with minimal effort.
  • Easy to maintain and expand environments to fit business needs.
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Citrix
  • 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.
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Cons
Citrix
  • A single console to manage the environment.
  • The configuration is a bit complicated and we have hired Citrix administrators. But it's a good solution.
  • User profiles need improvement. They could use more stability and more functionality as well as user profile redirection.
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Citrix
  • 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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Citrix
Because it has been a mainstay of our business for many years.
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Citrix
No answers on this topic
Usability
Citrix
Getting the environment setup took me three months of off and on work, with 3 complete rebuilds of the environment. Utilizing the WebUI to access the environment had presented so many random issues that we had to require end users to use the Citrix Reciever App. As it was the only stable solution. Aside from that, it hasn't required much admin intervention since the stand-up was completed.
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Citrix
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.
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Reliability and Availability
Citrix
Xendesktop did a great job with HA of all the components.
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Citrix
No answers on this topic
Performance
Citrix
The performance of XenDesktop is the best in the industry because of the fine-tuned protocol and years of updating. Overall, I don't think there is a better performer on the market. The question is if the added complexity of running XenDesktop is really worth the performance gain. While the latest version of XenDesktop is the easiest to deploy so far, it is still more challenging than the competitors.
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Citrix
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Citrix
The support is great when you get an engineer that knows what they are doing but getting that individual sometimes takes a while. Overall, they are professional and polite and competent in their knowledge. Sometimes the cases are open for an extended period of time which becomes very frustrating when dealing with critical issues.
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Citrix
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.
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In-Person Training
Citrix
I was self trained
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Citrix
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Citrix
Easy to understand and learn at my own pace
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Citrix
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Citrix
Take it slow and read the directions each step of the way. If you are not familiar with Citrix products, use a reseller or other experienced engineer to assist you in the setup of your environment
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Citrix
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Citrix
Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops is platform agnostic (we can use any underlying hypervisor technology) and really flexible for any use case. Using a golden image and provisioning it (with Machine Creation Services or Provisioning Services) is powerful and really straightforward, compared to the complexity in Microsoft RDS of maintaining a coherent farm, or the limitation of VMware Horizon to run on VMware Products.
Read full review
Citrix
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
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Scalability
Citrix
Easily scalable
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Citrix
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Citrix
  • XenApp has allowed us to continue support of legacy applications and all access of those applications to users across the globe with any device.
  • XenApp can also manage software licenses by restricting number of users, number of concurrent sessions, or combination of both to required specification.
  • While initial investment in XenApp can be costly, continuing support and upgrade are very cost effective and product stability is excellent.
  • While there are competing products from Microsoft and VMware, when it comes to remote application access, XenApp is the best of breed.
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Citrix
  • 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
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