A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Amazon Elastic Load Balancing comparison

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Amazon Elastic Load Balancing

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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

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Amazon Elastic Load Balancing

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

9th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is 5.0%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Elastic Load Balancing is 1.5%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

SatishBabu

Vice President at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Known for its load balancing capabilities, the WAF features need to be improved

The solution's initial setup process was easy. For the installation, it takes around five minutes. One person can do the maintenance since it is not required much. So, it's a one-time solution, and its maintenance is fine. The number of people required for maintenance depends on the clients as well. One or two engineers are fine to serve around a hundred clients. If you have a number of devices, more people are needed for their maintenance because of the patching it requires during regular operations. Only for the maintenance, one engineer's fine. However, for regular operations, we need multiple people.

Read full review

Mohd Farhan

AWS Cloud Solution Developer | DevOps | SpringBoot | Android/iOS at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

Manage complex traffic routing with ease and ensure system availability

The ELB would benefit from allowing deployment in a single availability zone for test servers to avoid unnecessary costs. Additionally, the ability to directly block specific IP addresses without additional service integration would be beneficial. Furthermore, sometimes ALB has a delay in recognizing the need to scale the system based on CloudWatch metrics, which could use improvement.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution."

"The Deterministic CGNAT feature is valuable for us."

"We have two appliances and I'm able to move my application from one appliance to another. I don't have to move my whole A10 to be active on the other side or to be passive on the other side. If an application is having a problem, I can just move it using a command."

"The SLB and GSLB load balancing are the most valuable features. They meet our need to do server-side load balancing and global site load balancing so we can distribute traffic, not only intra-data center, but inter-data center."

"Feature-wise, A10 Networks Thunder ADC is better for troubleshooting...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."

"We can control access based on the specific application. If other devices are attempting to directly access the servers, you can block them. Additionally, you can balance the load among servers to optimize performance. For example, utilizing caching can make the application run faster."

"It's a very friendly solution, easy to configure and it's very flexible."

"The DNS application firewall and load balancing are very valuable."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pros

"The network load balancer is really fast."

"We use the solution for internet-exposed websites and internal load-balancing purposes."

"The feature that I like the most is the scalability. The solutions I build often have many pieces, which are very complicated. If a client comes to me with a design, my developer has made this as a template or a cloud formation script. It's a design on paper, and I want it executed a certain way. I can do that quickly and repeatedly with AWS. That is a considerable advantage because I can take that template and do it five times in different zones. That is an excellent feature based on a template, et cetera."

"The Elastic Load Balancer facilitates the distribution of incoming application traffic, which directs requests to various servers, preventing overload on a single instance."

"The best part about ALB is its ability to connect with different services including EC2, ECS, API Gateway, or Lambda functions, offering a lot of benefits like attaching a WAF."

"Customer support is good."

"The tool integrates well with Amazon native services. Its valuable feature is integrations."

"It has very good features. It is very configurable. Security with TLS, et cetera is also very easy."

More Amazon Elastic Load Balancing pros

Cons

"The costs can be quite high."

"In my opinion, they need to improve their cloud support. There is support for cloud, but not all functions are there, such as high-availability."

"There is room for improvement in the upgrading process. Sometimes we have to contact A10 for verification of some stuff."

"There is two-factor authentication built-in, but it could be more robust."

"It scaled well for our numbers, up to 3 million subscribers for our most crowded region but I would like to see the same scalability numbers for the virtualized version as well."

"The interface and integrated custom applications can be a bit difficult."

"Currently, the solution's WAF features are fewer. They should consider increasing their WAF features."

"The setup depends on certain situations. In certain scenarios, it may be more complex than others. For example, while the initial configuration may be easy, the environment itself may be complex and that may limit the ease of deployment. It is easy for those who understand their environment."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC cons

"They should improve the solution's pricing."

"They charge for technical support depending on the support model required."

"The ELB would benefit from allowing deployment in a single availability zone for test servers to avoid unnecessary costs."

"Sometimes the target group takes too much time to configure or to be seen on the internet, especially when configuring through ISV tools."

"The latency compared to the network load balancer could be improved."

"Improvement is needed in the integration with Terraform, especially in writing scripts for creating load balancers and target groups."

"We faced some issues with the health check."

"Clients sometimes face issues with Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, and it can take a long time to detect these issues."

More Amazon Elastic Load Balancing cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As for the initial investment in the hardware, F5 and A10 are quite similar now. For the current A10 solution, the initial cost was about $36,000. As for annual support, the F5 solution would be between $10,000 and $12,000, while the A10 is $2,200 a year for support."

"For the hardware and license, we paid $35,000 per box, which was a one-time cost. Then, for the Gold Support on the two boxes, we pay $9400 annually."

"We just pay for support in addition to our licensing."

"The price of the maintenance support is too expensive."

"The price of A10 Networks Thunder ADC depends on capacity and the customer's requirement. They have several offerings. They have different price models and options to choose from. Additionally, you need to subscribe to support for the hardware appliances."

"The pricing is a third of the price of the F5 competition."

"Pricing is one of the features of the product that influence customers to use the product."

"One of the main reasons for switching away from Cisco was the licensing model. A10 gives you global server load balancing for free, while Cisco charged a significant licensing fee for that."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pricing and cost advice

"There is a yearly license."

"The solution is expensive."

"The product is not cheap."

"The licensing fees are based on the number of connections one uses. It is a free tool for a certain amount of connections, which runs into thousands, and after that, there is a certain amount to be paid to Amazon."

"The cost for using the application load balancer is approximately $18 to $21 per month."

"I have no issues with the tool's pricing."

"The solution's pricing is $30 per month."

"The solution's pricing is low and I rate it a nine out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

Government

Educational Organization

54%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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

I would recommend A10 Networks due that it delivers high performance in a small form factor to reduce OPEX with significantly lower power usage, rack space, and cooling requirements compared to oth...

Do you recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC?

I do recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC. It's very user-friendly, easy to configure, and flexible. It is a very useful solution - especially now, when a lot of employees are working remotely. I hav...

What do you like most about A10 Networks Thunder ADC?

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution.

What do you like most about Amazon Elastic Load Balancing?

Amazon Elastic Load Balancing transfers the data securely from servers to users and splits the traffic based on peak times.

What needs improvement with Amazon Elastic Load Balancing?

Sometimes the target group takes too much time to configure or to be seen on the internet, especially when configuring through ISV tools.

What is your primary use case for Amazon Elastic Load Balancing?

Elastic Load Balancer is used to maintain requests and distribute traffic on target groups. The target could be any type of instances, IPs, or Lambda functions. Most of the time, the target group i...

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Compared 50% of the time

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Compared 31% of the time

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Compared 18% of the time

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Product Reports

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Download A10 Networks Thunder ADC product report

Amazon Elastic Load Balancing

Download Amazon Elastic Load Balancing product report

Also Known As

Thunder ADC, AX Series

No data available

Overview

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a dynamic application delivery controller and advanced load balancer. Thunder ADC is a value-added solution provided by A10 Networks specializing in robust, trusted, scalable application services for cloud, hybrid, edge cloud, and on-premise environments focused on improving business processes and keeping infrastructures safe. The solution consistently provides server availability, improves content delivery, and protects at-risk applications. A10 Networks Thunder ADC easily controls hybrid and multi-cloud deployments using a Polynimbus strategy to minimize difficulties and costs for IT processes, facilitating overall improved business results.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is effective for small to medium businesses (SMBs) to large enterprises. Service providers and cloud operators are all using A10 Network ADC to manage their large and fast-growing group of business-critical applications.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC supplies L4-7 load balancing with numerous layers of security using DNS and web app firewalls, comprehensive support for advanced encryption, single sign-on (SSO) authentication, and high-performance Perfect Forward Secrecy and Error Correction Code (PFS/ECC). Thunder ADC is designed upon A10 Networks Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS®) platform to provide consistent, efficient application performance and trusted security for any environment.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC Benefits

Consistently accessible: A10 Networks Thunder ADC employs numerous load balancing protocols to evenly distribute workloads to all servers and works to ensure constant application functionality. User requests are monitored to ensure loads are directed to the appropriate server so that there is always a proper response delivery to content. This process ensures the applications are consistently available.
Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB): To ensure business processes are fully optimized at all times, A10 Networks Thunder ADC employs a dynamic Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) process to augment server load balancing capabilities throughout global data centers for high availability and improved user experience and application tolerance.
Fast content delivery: A10 Networks Thunder ADC conquers the general WAN latencies, chatty policies, and redundant software programs to ensure quick and responsive service. Employees receive a fast, excellent end-user experience while the organization's business leaders get exceeded SLA mandates and increased productivity with teams working remotely and a step up on the competition.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC Features

Detailed Analytics: When deployed with A10 Networks Harmony Controller, Thunder ADC delivers a large selection of detailed aggregate and per-request reports in real time. The reports include popular URLs, error and health indicators, latencies, and end-to-end response times. The data is further dissected to deliver per-app reporting, availability alerts, and performance.
API Coverage: Thunder ADC utilizes A10 Networks REST-based aXAPIs to structure all features with 100 percent API coverage. The resulting interface is then used to seamlessly integrate custom or third-party management solutions, such as VMware or other SDN platforms, OpenStack, Microsoft SCVMM, or other cloud orchestration systems. There are also software plug-ins available for private clouds utilizing VMware’s vRealize Orchestrator.
Comprehensive Management Controls: Thunder ADC is fully supported by A10 Networks Harmony Controller and can be deployed in software or as a software-as-a-service (SaaS). This controller functions as a native management platform that organizes and distributes application-centric service protocols and configuration data to numerous Thunder appliances and device cluster infrastructures throughout numerous multi-cloud environments. Users can instantly identify, audit and track every appliance using critical operational metrics, such as CPU, disk usage, device partitions, and end users. The A10 Networks Harmony Controller will also complete configuration backups and restore operations, and will schedule regular software upgrades.

A10 Networks

Elastic Load Balancing automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets, such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, IP addresses, and Lambda functions. It can handle the varying load of your application traffic in a single Availability Zone or across multiple Availability Zones. Elastic Load Balancing offers three types of load balancers that all feature the high availability, automatic scaling, and robust security necessary to make your applications fault tolerant.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

123inkt.nl, Bentley University, Box, Brainshark, Buienradar, Capgemini, CGN/LSN & NAT64, Chengdu Telecom, Club One, Code Ready, CRC Health Group, Cyso, Deutsche Telekom, Earth Class Mail, Excite, FFF Enterprises, Florence County, Framingham State University, From30

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Amazon Elastic Load Balancing