F5 BIG-IP DNS vs. NetScaler

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
F5 BIG-IP DNS
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
F5 BIG-IP DNS (formerly BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager) secures DNS infrastructure.N/A
NetScaler
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
NetScaler ADC is an application delivery controller.N/A
Pricing
F5 BIG-IP DNSNetScaler
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
F5 BIG-IP DNSNetScaler
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
F5 BIG-IP DNSNetScaler
Best Alternatives
F5 BIG-IP DNSNetScaler
Small Businesses
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
F5 BIG-IP DNSNetScaler
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(10 ratings)
8.7
(25 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
F5 BIG-IP DNSNetScaler
Likelihood to Recommend
F5
It's well suited. Like I said, it provides us, it provides the clients and the business environments throughout an Internal Revenue Service. The network visibility needed for them to provide their application and the use of their applications throughout the Internal Revenue Service and the enterprise, as far as IRS.
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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
F5
  • The easy of importing DNS records into the BIG-IP
  • The ease of searching and locating records
  • The speed of creating multiple records when you need to duplicate effort.
  • The DNS dashboards to see requests and data points.
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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
F5
  • I'd like to see better reporting capabilities on the decision-making process for DNS resolutions. Currently there are plenty of log messages for that, but I'd like to see tighter integration into the GUI.
  • It could be an improvement to better discriminate features intended for AA vs LDNS functionality within the GUI.
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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
F5
We use this heavily and it is one of the best products out there for this type of use case. We already have LTMs and to leverage GTM on top of that is just a piece of cake. Everything is so well integrated its amazing
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Citrix
No answers on this topic
Usability
F5
I think the interface that you guys have, it is pretty user friendly. I personally find it easy to work with.
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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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Support Rating
F5
No answers on this topic
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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Alternatives Considered
F5
As I mentioned, the GSLB capability, being able to do intelligent DNS by having access to monitor specific endpoints associated to my current BIG-IP infrastructure, I believe that brings a huge value, then combine fast responses and security.
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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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Return on Investment
F5
  • Protection against security threats using DNS as a vector.
  • Protection against security threats targeting DNS itself.
  • Provide top user experience to application clients, by directing their requests to where they will be treated with the best performance.
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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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ScreenShots