Forum Discussion
NimbostratusF5 VS Netscaler
We are trying to decide between Netscaler and F5 for our environment. Could someone that knows about them both recommend a solution for me and why? Need a good solution for multiple data centers.
As someone who was previously a Netscaler fanatic I would still generally recommend F5.
There may be some Edge cases where something with Citrix may be easier or more 'supported' to set up with netscaler, in which case you may consider using Netscaler over F5. I personally have had great success using F5 to provide access to Citrix resources for clients.
In my opinion though F5 has much greater community support. It has better free and paid training options. It gives you the flexibility of iRules and iRulesLX. The power behind that previous statement cannot be stressed enough.
When the F5 guys first came into my shop...I was SO against them. I absolutely did not want to put that device in anywhere. I went out on a limb though and downloaded the trial...just after fiddling my way around for a few hours and watching some of the good free training on F5 University I was convinced it was a better way to go moving forward.
With Netscaler (and maybe this has changed) I found it difficult to publish any application because there was simply no guidance on anything. If you actually did figure out how to publish say Exchange 2010 it was based off some guy's blog post...and to me that isn't something that's really enterprise class or supportable when something goes wrong. F5 has such a great ecosystem...the community here is really great.
I honestly don't think there's anything you would miss from Netscaler when going with if you want to use the Web Application Firewall or secure applications with custom login flows/requirements etc.
2 Replies
In my opinion I would recommend to use the right tool for the right job. What are you exactly planning on doing? For now I would recommend F5, because it's less typing ;-)
JWhitesPro_1928Cirrostratus
As someone who was previously a Netscaler fanatic I would still generally recommend F5.
There may be some Edge cases where something with Citrix may be easier or more 'supported' to set up with netscaler, in which case you may consider using Netscaler over F5. I personally have had great success using F5 to provide access to Citrix resources for clients.
In my opinion though F5 has much greater community support. It has better free and paid training options. It gives you the flexibility of iRules and iRulesLX. The power behind that previous statement cannot be stressed enough.
When the F5 guys first came into my shop...I was SO against them. I absolutely did not want to put that device in anywhere. I went out on a limb though and downloaded the trial...just after fiddling my way around for a few hours and watching some of the good free training on F5 University I was convinced it was a better way to go moving forward.
With Netscaler (and maybe this has changed) I found it difficult to publish any application because there was simply no guidance on anything. If you actually did figure out how to publish say Exchange 2010 it was based off some guy's blog post...and to me that isn't something that's really enterprise class or supportable when something goes wrong. F5 has such a great ecosystem...the community here is really great.
I honestly don't think there's anything you would miss from Netscaler when going with if you want to use the Web Application Firewall or secure applications with custom login flows/requirements etc.
