A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

A10 Networks and Microsoft are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. A10 Networks is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0, while Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.2. A10 Networks holds a 5.0% mindshare in ADC, compared to Microsoft’s 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of A10 Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 78% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Read 22 A10 Networks Thunder ADC reviews

2,544 Views
1,826 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure Application...

Read 46 Microsoft Azure Application Gateway reviews

4,422 Views
3,802 Comparison Views

78% willing to recommend

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Microsoft Azure Application...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

A10 Networks Thunder ADC and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway both compete in the application delivery controller category. A10 Networks Thunder ADC seems to have the upper hand in advanced traffic management and security due to its feature set, while Microsoft Azure Application Gateway excels in scalability and integration within Azure ecosystems.

Features: A10 Networks Thunder ADC offers all-inclusive licensing simplifying management, SSL offloading supporting robust security, and a single pane dashboard for traffic analysis. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway integrates with Azure services, automates deployment and updates, and offers comprehensive WAF capabilities, excelling in scalability and ease of cloud integration.

Room for Improvement: A10 Networks Thunder ADC faces limited third-party integrations and cloud support deficiencies, which can hinder scalability in containerized environments. Its predominantly Asia-focused support may be inconvenient for US users. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is deemed costly, confined to Azure environments limiting third-party tool integration, and its UI and documentation need enhancement, particularly its AWS's WAF.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: A10 Networks Thunder ADC supports mainly on-premises deployment but offers highly responsive customer service. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, known for its cloud flexibility, supports hybrid and public environments but is criticized for complex initial setups. Microsoft's support, though robust, lacks the personalization found with A10.

Pricing and ROI: A10 Networks Thunder ADC's all-inclusive pricing model is seen as advantageous, with users reporting significant ROI from cost savings in support and operational efficiency. Despite high initial costs, lower support expenses offset the investment. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway follows a pay-as-you-go model, which reduces unnecessary expenses while allowing scalability, though additional costs for advanced features are reported.

To learn more, read our detailed A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

January 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 832,138 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

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

Microsoft Azure Application...

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

4th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 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 Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is 8.2%, down from 10.9% 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

Sooryanarayan Hegde

Technical Architect at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Easy management and configuration, affordable, and has good features

We use all the features. It is very useful. Using WAF, we can control the WAF rules based on our application requirements. We can control what rules should be used and what should be disabled. The role of the tool is limited to HTTP traffic. It does exactly what it must do. It's a regional service. We know how to use it for DR scenarios. WAF has been the most valuable in protecting applications. We use at least three instances in the back end to give the best performance for our applications. The management and configuration of the solution is quite easy. All certificate renewals are automatically taken care of by Key Vault.

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

"The Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) is simple to use."

"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 Deterministic CGNAT feature is valuable for us."

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

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

"Being a public entity and having a public website which is highly visible with a lot of traffic, we are a target for DDoS. Within the last year, we have had a couple of DDoS attacks which could have affected our web traffic and taken down certain parts of our website. This did not happen because the A10 was able to mitigate the attacks using rate limiting that can be configured for DDoS mitigation on the box."

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

"The solution is stable."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pros

"Azure Application Gateway's most valuable feature is ease of use. The configuration is straightforward. It isn't difficult to adjust the size of your instances in the settings. You can do that with a few clicks, and the configuration file is the same way. You can also set rules and policies with minimal time and effort."

"I find Application Gateway’s WAF module valuable because it helps prevent layer 7 attacks."

"Good customization; able to report and take action on alerts."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is traffic management."

"Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it."

"The load balancing features are valuable."

"The security feature in all the layers of the application is the most valuable."

"The most valuable feature is WAF."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pros

Cons

"We are starting to do a lot with containers and how the solution hooks into Kubernetes that we haven't explored. I'm hoping that they have a lot of hooks into Kubernetes. That would be the part for improvement: Marketing use cases with containers."

"They need to make the user interface (GUI) a bit more usable and intuitive. Some features can be a little difficult to find at times. Sometimes, the workflow in the GUI doesn't match the workflow of an actual workflow. E.g., if I want to create a load balancer application, sometimes you've got to do things a bit out of order in the GUI in order to make it work right."

"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."

"A graphical dashboard for analyzing performance is needed."

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

"The user interface is what people complain about most of the time, particularly if they don't use it very often. Then they complain that it's a bit clunky."

"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."

"I would like them to provide learning tips and a community forum where users can share ideas. They need more detailed support articles on the A10 website."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC cons

"The tool's pricing could be improved."

"One of the challenges we faced was the solution does not support any other PCP protocols apart from HTTP and HTTPS."

"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway could improve by allowing features to use more third-party tools."

"We have encountered some issues with automatic redirection and cancellation, leading to 502 and 504 gateway errors. So, I experienced some trouble with containers."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."

"The pricing of the solution could be improved. Right now, it's a bit expensive."

"We faced some downtime while validating CNAME."

"The support can be improved when you are configuring the system rules. The Disaster Recovery feature can be added in the next release. The price of the solution can be reduced a bit."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There were budgetary constraints that keep us from investing in the single pane of glass traffic management feature. We saw a demo of this feature about a year to a year and a half ago."

"The solution costs less than its competitors."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

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

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pricing and cost advice

"I rate the pricing seven out of ten because some third-party solutions are even costlier than this."

"The solution is reasonably priced."

"The product is not expensive."

"Every solution comes with a license and cost. Microsoft provides the license and the total cost is for the maintenance every year."

"I would rate the pricing a three out of ten, with ten being cheap and one being expensive."

"The solution is paid monthly. The solution is highly expensive."

"The tool's pricing model is pay-as-you-go."

"The solution is reasonably priced compared to other solutions."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

12%

University

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about A10 Networks Thunder ADC?

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

See all answers

What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?

We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...

See all answers

How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft Azure Application Gateway web application firewall software was the better fit ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it.

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 25% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 16% of the time

NetScaler vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 15% of the time

Radware Alteon vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 9% of the time

HAProxy vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 5% of the time

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC Competitors

F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 13% of the time

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 11% of the time

AWS WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 11% of the time

HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

Cloudflare vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

February 2025

Download A10 Networks Thunder ADC product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

January 2025

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Download Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report

Also Known As

Thunder ADC, AX Series

Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway

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

Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

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

Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell

Buyer's Guide

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

January 2025

Free Report: A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report.

See our list of best Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) vendors.

We monitor all Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.