A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Loadbalancer.org comparison

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A10 Networks Thunder ADC

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

A10 Networks Thunder ADC and Loadbalancer.org are two notable solutions in the load balancing category. A10 Networks Thunder ADC appears to have the upper hand due to its extensive feature set and cost-effective licensing.

Features: A10 Networks Thunder ADC provides robust security measures, high-performance traffic management, and SSL offloading capabilities, making it ideal for complex environments. It incorporates advanced traffic management and a comprehensive security feature set, including DDoS mitigation. Loadbalancer.org is designed with simplicity in mind, making it easy to set up and use. It supports essential load balancing activities without the complexity, offering reliable performance at an affordable price point.

Room for Improvement: A10 Networks faces challenges with mobile web acceleration and lacks smooth third-party application integration. Users have reported delays in technical support and wish for an improved graphical user interface. Loadbalancer.org could improve its scalability and security features, and the setup process may be too complex for users unfamiliar with its system.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: A10 Networks Thunder ADC is mostly deployed on-premises, receiving positive feedback for technical support despite some response time issues. Loadbalancer.org is also commonly implemented on-premises, offering satisfactory customer service, but would benefit from more detailed support documentation.

Pricing and ROI: A10 Networks Thunder ADC is considered cost-effective due to its inclusive licensing, providing substantial ROI through delegation and cost savings. Loadbalancer.org, with its open-source model, offers a more affordable and flexible price structure, delivering ROI through ease of use and cost efficiency associated with open-source components.

To learn more, read our detailed A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Loadbalancer.org Report (Updated: March 2025).

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Loadbalancer.org

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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

Loadbalancer.org

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

12th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

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 Loadbalancer.org is 3.5%, up from 3.2% 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.

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Roger Seelaender

UCaaS Engineering Manager at EarthLink

Great WAF - low-maintenance solution that performs as advertised

The solution can be improved with the development of a SIP engine because it is difficult to manage SBCs. All SBCs are really tough to write rules for. If we could put this in front of an SBC to have the right rules to possibly block the traffic, that would be very helpful. The solution can also improve the relationship between Loadbalancer.org and Metaswitch, or now, Microsoft because Metaswitch was purchased by Microsoft. They both position themselves as certified but don't always talk to each other. I wish there would be closer integration between the solution and the vendors when either release new upgrades to their product line. Often we find issues on either end post upgrades.

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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

"The ADCs are pretty straightforward and easy to use. There is a GUI base where you can go in and see everything, but they also have a CLI base where you can use a command and get the information that you want, very fast."

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

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

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

"The solution is user-friendly and the CLA troubleshooting is easier compared to other solutions."

"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."

"Compared to F5, which I used about six years ago, the A10 is much easier when routing. You don't have to use the wildcard bits to route it between the different segments. It's much less troublesome to configure."

"The ease of use is very good. It's very robust. It just sits and works."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pros

"We now get notifications when pool members go down, and we eliminate our downtime by not sending traffic to downed pool members."

"Loadbalancer.org is less complex than Citrix."

"The features I find valuable in this solution are the ease of managing the logs on the WAFs, the ease to identify break-in attempts into the network, the front-end firewall, and a more specific firewall."

"Existing customers are trying to migrate from the physical F5 load balancer to the AVI load balancer because it is scalable and easily managed."

"It helps us to route the traffic to the available servers. If we didn't have Loadbalancer we would fail to set the end-user and it would cause a failure in the cluster."

"The support we have received from Loadbalancer.org has been good."

"Loadbalancer is easy to use. It performs well, with low latency."

"The most valuable features of Loadbalancer.org are related to its load balancing capabilities."

More Loadbalancer.org pros

Cons

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

"A graphical dashboard for analyzing performance is needed."

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

"The solution does logging, but the logging capacity is really small. Because we have a bunch of traffic here, we usually get a logging-side warning that "This many logs were lost because of the heavy traffic." If the logging was better, that would be very good."

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

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

"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."

"There is room for improvement in the GUI. I just migrated from the 2.7 software train to the 4.1, and there are still people on 2.7. The latter is a very old GUI if you compare it to F5. It's not as easy to use and a lot of things are missing. They've made a lot of improvements in the 4.1 step, but compared to the ease of use of F5, it's still quite difficult. For people who haven't got a lot of experience, the GUI can be quite challenging."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC cons

"Possibly a more graphical overview page (with colors) to give a two second overview to see if everything is working fine."

"We could enhance the security aspects of the load balancer."

"They're mostly designed to balance a particular type of traffic. I wanted to load balance DNS, and they just don't do it the way that we wanted to. So they're not used as DNS load balancers."

"Loadbalancer.org's complexity could be reduced."

"You can run into an issue when one engineer passes the case over to another engineer after their shift and they don't know what the first engineer worked on up to that point."

"There is room for improvement in Loadbalancer.org in certain areas."

"The solution can be a bit pricey."

"The interface from Loadbalancer.org should be improved."

More Loadbalancer.org cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The price is good they are very comparative."

"It is $7000 per unit for the support annually."

"The pricing is fine, considering the features they are providing. If you are an individual user, they'll price the product differently compared to how they price the product that is sold to an organization."

"You get a lot more for your dollar with A10."

"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."

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

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pricing and cost advice

"For now, it's stable."

"These guys make their pricing scheme really easy."

"The solution requires an annual support license of $2,780 for four systems or $695 a year per unit for support not including the units."

"It is inexpensive, and even their “unlimited” version, the VA MAX is still far cheaper than competitors."

"It filled a requirement for our project, and it did so at lesser cost than their competitors."

"I love that they do not price on some arbitrary throughput rating where you are guessing at what the load balancer is going to handle."

"The costs associated with Loadbalancer.org depends on the technology. For some, we need to pay, but others are open, so they're free."

"It was easy to upgrade the license for unlimited clusters and servers. Pricing is fair."

More Loadbalancer.org pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

Government

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

University

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.

Do you recommend Loadbalancer.org?

Since Loadbalancer.org is an open-source solution, I would recommend this solution for smaller businesses that don’t have major scaling requirements and don’t have the budget for a commercial solut...

What do you like most about Loadbalancer.org?

Existing customers are trying to migrate from the physical F5 load balancer to the AVI load balancer because it is scalable and easily managed.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Loadbalancer.org?

Pricing of Loadbalancer.org is something to consider.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Comparisons

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Compared 16% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 15% of the time

Radware Alteon vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 9% of the time

Array APV Series vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 2% of the time

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC Competitors

NetScaler vs Loadbalancer.org

Compared 26% of the time

HAProxy vs Loadbalancer.org

Compared 20% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs Loadbalancer.org

Compared 15% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Loadbalancer.org

Compared 13% of the time

More Loadbalancer.org Competitors

Product Reports

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Download A10 Networks Thunder ADC product report

Download Loadbalancer.org 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

Loadbalancer.org is a versatile solution that offers load balancing for small businesses, multiple instances of applications, web application firewall, publishing Windows and SQL applications, and security for telephone service systems. It is easy to use, cost-effective, and performs well with low latency.

The connection maintenance and security features are valuable, including managing logs on WAFs, identifying break-in attempts writing rules to block them and using HAProxy to control what is allowed. Loadbalancer.org has helped organizations reduce the impact of connection issues, provide security, and ensure no downtime or impact on productivity.

Top Industries that use Loadbalancer.org:

Healthcare: Loadbalancer.org is widely considered the top load balancer provider in the healthcare IT industry. Loadbalancer.org sees that healthcare IT personnel can ensure their organizations are moving seamlessly toward interoperability and are able to easily scale to meet today’s continually growing data demands with no compromise in performance.

Storage solutions: Loadbalancer.org has significant offerings and partnerships with object-based storage providers to ensure they are always ready for today's ever-changing dynamic storage needs. The comprehensive integration offers high-performance scalable solutions which can provide always available next-gen storage solutions.

Security: Loadbalancer.org solutions provide an extra layer of security to protect against the latest risk and threats. Loadbalancer.org will provide a close integration to ensure the organization is always secure.

Print: Loadbalancer.org can work with organizations to ensure their print environments keep working smoothly and is the only organization that fully supports Microsoft Print load balancing. Loadbalancer.org minimizes the complexities of print environments to ensure that all systems are consistently available.

Loadbalancer.org is certified as an OEM provider for all of Microsoft's most popular key applications and solutions. Loadbalancer.org has created and developed streamlined deployments to facilitate improved scalability, performance, and uptime. They offer a tailored GUI to make every process super easy. Loadbalancer.org offers several flexible licensing plans to ensure cost-effectiveness, improved margins, revenue opportunities, and optimized TCO. The numerous robust solutions Loadbalancer.org offers can ensure that any enterprise organization is able to satisfy the growing demands of today’s dynamic marketplace while maintaining an excellent user experience.

Reviews from Real Users

“Loadbalancer.org is less complex than Citrix. In some cases, our customers do not have an engineer on staff who can support this device. These customers have a large number of Linux engineers but don't have the money. We suggested using Loadbalancer.org and other open-source tools. Many customers are of different sizes and have different budgets. Loadbalancer.org has everything that is needed.” - Artem M., System Engineer at CROC

“We use Loadbalancer for balancing loads in our main application. Loadbalancer is easy to use. It performs well, with low latency.” - Walid M., Network and Security Engineer at a logistics company

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

Vodafone, NASA, Mercedes, NBC, Siemens, AT&T, Barclays, Zurich, Penn State University, Fiserv, Canon, Toyota, University of Cambridge, US Army, US Navy, Ocean Spray, ASOS, Pfizer, BBC, Bacardi, Monsoon, River Island, U.S Air Force, King's College London, NHS, Ricoh, Philips, Santander, TATA Communications, Ericcson, Ross Video, Evertz, TalkTalk TV, Giacom, Rapid Host.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Loadbalancer.org