F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Imperva Web Application Firewall comparison

The compared F5 and Imperva solutions aren't in the same category. F5 is ranked #2 in ADC , with an average rating of 8.9, and holds a 15.3% mindshare in the category. Imperva is ranked #7 in WAF , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 5.6% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Imperva users who would recommend it.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Read 122 F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) reviews

7,891 Views
5,760 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Read 52 Imperva Web Application Firewall reviews

4,782 Views
4,495 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Imperva Web Application Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall Report (Updated: September 2020).

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

September 2020

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Helped 861,524 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

122

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd)

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Application Firewall (WAF) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Imperva Web Application Firewall aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is designed for Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) and holds a mindshare of 15.3%, up 15.4% compared to last year.
Imperva Web Application Firewall, on the other hand, focuses on Web Application Firewall (WAF), holds 5.6% mindshare, down 6.6% since last year.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Bonieber Orofeo

IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital

Identifying compromised traffic and securing data has been a significant advantage

One of the most beneficial features of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) ( /products/f5-big-ip-local-traffic-manager-ltm-reviews ) is its ability to identify compromised traffic and its capabilities in authentication. Additionally, the security aspect of it provides a significant advantage as it helps us secure our data, which is a major investment and benefit for us. Before using this system, we had difficulties in storing our data and managing the traffic that comes in and out.

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Mitesh D Patel

Senior Technical Consultant- Cyber Security at Ivalue Infosolution

Effectively defends against threats like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and others

It does bring value. For example, consider a BFSI customer. Their application is critical and represents their brand. Without a WAF, an attack could take their application down, harming their reputation. It leads to hampering the customer's workflow. With an Imperva WAF, they protect against attacks like DDoS or SQL injection, ensuring their application remains available and customers are happy. That's the main benefit for both the customer and the organization. The impact depends on the customer's use case. If their business primarily operates online, a CDN is beneficial for traffic optimization. Moreover, the integration options depend on the specific use case of our customers. Generally, integration capabilities are good with SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) parts.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It also has an AVR feature: application, visibility, and recording. It's good for customers looking for what is actually happening in their network and where the latency is."

"I think F5's tech support may be better than Citrix's because they mainly focus on the ADC product, but Citrix support covers Hypervisor, XenMobile, FAS, and ADC. And from my experience, sometimes, we face some issues that Citrix cannot handle."

"The occasion in which we needed technical support, we didn't have problems with them, because they always answered our questions without any trouble."

"F5 has many capabilities for load balancing and web application firewall features."

"BIG-IP LTM is completely stable, and its performance is good."

"I like that F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is a product that comes with valuable features, but what stands out from all features is load balancing."

"F5 Big-IP Local Traffic Manager has better modular features especially LTM, which according to the clients, is very beneficial. Most of the users opt for a combination of big IP LTM and WAF which helps them to leverage application load balancing and enhance application security many-fold."

"We like the capability to combine the content switching with the intrusion prevention and adding the security roles, so we can expose certain sub-pieces outside without exposing everything."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pros

"The most important feature I have found to be the ease in how to do the backup and restores."

"Compared to other web application firewalls in the market, Imperva does things in the most accurate way."

"The solution has been quite stable. I have not seen any bugs at all."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is stable."

"Protection is the best solution since it has profile functionality."

"The compliance is the most valuable aspect."

"It has fewer false positives"

"It has threat intelligence and we are using Incapsula. With threat intelligence, we can separate HTTP and HTTPS traffic. We can use Incapsula to send all the threat intelligence to the WAF."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the user interface."

"There are issues with F5 BIG-IP but they are minor issues not affecting production and services. Sometimes the operations and the facility systems fail. However, there is an alert action from the windows. An ordeal for the manager."

"It would be good to have better traffic and better data. It would be nice to have more granularity to see packets in terms of the header details, the analytics, etc. It would be nice if that was also part of it and to have analytics added to the traffic."

"To improve the product, they could add more load balancing solutions in Kubernetes."

"The pricing of the product is a bit too high."

"There is a challenge in Pakistan. This is when there is a hardware failure. Sometimes, it takes more time to get a replacement because it is sent out from the U.S. or some other regional outpost. Thus, it takes two to three days to receive a replacement."

"This is a very expensive solution."

"The synchronization does works fairly well. However, if I were to make changes, I would make it easier to start the sync process."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) cons

"Imperva Web Application Firewall can improve by providing better features, such as improved prevention of zero-day attacks. Additionally, it should include a VR meta-analysis."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is very expensive."

"If they can bring in generative AI features, that would be useful."

"The user interface could be better."

"Some of the features should be included in the next release is a file integrating monitoring tool. This feature should be improved."

"One potential improvement for Imperva is enhancing its alert system."

"Their portal is very limited and needs improvement."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the API integration. It was complex for us. Additionally, The onboarding could be better."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to using open-source products, the prices are not cheap."

"Though functionality is high, its cost can be considered slightly higher than its competitors."

"It could be priced a little less, especially on the virtual side. It gets a bit expensive, but you get what you pay."

"The tool is a bit expensive."

"F5 is more expensive than other solutions, so you have to be sure F5 is the best solution to fit the requirements."

"The price is high."

"I use a yearly subscription, which is the most expensive one now compared to its competitors."

"It is cheaper than the average on the market."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pricing and cost advice

"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."

"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."

"It is a very affordable solution."

"The pricing is somewhat expensive. It is actually a huge investment when compared to other countries."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is expensive."

"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."

"There are some licenses that you have to buy to use some features. Its price could be better. Price is always important because, at the end of the day, customers have a budget. If you can meet the budget, you can sell, and if you don't, you cannot sell."

"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?

The price needs improvement as it is quite costly.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?

We're using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) ( /products/f5-big-ip-local-traffic-manager-ltm-reviews ) for our applications and for managing our incoming and outgoing traffic.

See all answers

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)?

The solution is robust and reliable.

See all answers

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

My recommendation is Imperva.

See all answers

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?

For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.

See all answers

DDoS solutions: Any other solutions to consider aside from Radware DDoS Protection Service and F5 Silverline DDoS Protection?

You can have a look to Imperva Cloud WAF, the anti-DDoS mitigation is under 1s and works very well. I observed a lot of DDoS attacks that were well managed (even not seen by the customer) by Imperv...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 19% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

NetScaler vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

HAProxy vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 7% of the time

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Competitors

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 15% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

More Imperva Web Application Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

July 2025

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report

Download F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall

July 2025

Download Imperva Web Application Firewall product report

Also Known As

F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP

No data available

Overview

F5 BIG-IP LTM optimizes the speed and reliability of your apps via both network and application layers. Using real-time protocol and traffic management decisions based on app and server and connection management conditions, and TCP and content offloading, BIG-IP LTM dramatically improves application and infrastructure responsiveness. BIG-IP LTM's architecture includes protocol awareness to control traffic for the most important applications. BIG-IP LTM tracks the dynamic performance levels of servers and delivers SSL performance and visibility for inbound and outbound traffic, to protect the user experience by encrypting everything from the client to the server.

BIG-IP LTM provides enterprise-class Application Delivery Controller (ADC). You get granular layer 7 control, SSL offloading and acceleration capabilities, and advanced scaling technologies that deliver performance and reliability on-demand. The highly optimized TCP/IP stack combines TCP/IP techniques and improvements in the latest RFCs with extensions to minimize the effect of congestion and packet loss and recovery. Independent testing tools and customer experiences show LTM's TCP stack delivers up to a 2x performance gain for users and a 4x increase in bandwidth efficiency.

Imperva Web Application Firewall is a versatile solution that protects web applications and databases from various attacks, including DDoS, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection attacks. It offers data security, availability, and access control and can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud.

The solution has good security against web attacks and offers advanced bot protection, API security, and mitigation features. Imperva WAF is easy to configure and deploy; it has good customer service and an excellent user interface.

Imperva

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.

BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

September 2020

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: September 2020.

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