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Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Barracuda Load Balancer ADC is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.3%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

Roni Wijaya - PeerSpot reviewer
A simple and powerful solution with WAF feature
The solution is simple and powerful. I find the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC's load balancing function most valuable. It balances the traffic well. The security features, like the Web Application Firewall, are also very helpful. I use the SSL offloading feature too. It's very helpful because it prevents overload. Our application runs on HTTP, but we upload HTTPS on the load balancer. This means there are no performance issues. I think it's very helpful.
Richard Polyak - PeerSpot reviewer
Reduces maintenance downtime and has a strong user community
The advice I would give to others who are looking to implement F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is this: look at their user knowledge base first to see if the solution truly fits what you need. On a scale of one to 10, I would give F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager a nine.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Barracuda's technical support is good - whenever we have an issue, they immediately connect and resolve it."
"The solution is simple and powerful. I find the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC's load balancing function most valuable. It balances the traffic well. The security features, like the Web Application Firewall, are also very helpful."
"The price is very good, and it's not very expensive."
"The most useful features in Barracuda Load Balancer are its security capabilities, load balancing efficiency, and scalability."
"I would rate the stability of Barracuda Load Balancer as a ten out of ten; it has high stability."
"Where we are finding the AWS version helpful is when we are trying to scale up new environments. AWS Marketplace helps here a lot."
"Valuable features include Link Controller and Server Load Balancer."
"It is a very good, flexible solution. It helps us to catch up on flaws in our partner solutions on top of its load balancing feature."
"Load balancing generally brings high availability and a bigger ability to scale out. In some cases, it brings security, depending on how it is configured."
"Users can see a remarkable performance difference from a qualitative sense."
"In terms of stability, it is stable."
"The solution is very easy to use and easy to understand. It's quite an intuitive system."
"ASM for WAF."
 

Cons

"There are areas of Barracuda Load Balancer's security that have room for improvement, particularly concerning handling traffic."
"The Barracuda Load Balancer ADC could be improved with more customization features. For example, F5 uses iRules for custom configurations. I haven't found something similar in Barracuda yet. The load balancer and WAF's basic and common features are enough, but we need more customization options."
"There are areas of Barracuda Load Balancer's security that have room for improvement, particularly concerning handling traffic."
"Load Balancer ADC is competitively priced, but it's not feature-rich, and its technology is not that advanced."
"The quality of the solution's performance could be improved."
"Certificate management needs improvement. I would like automated deployment of new certificates without manual intervention to be in the next release of this product."
"I would like them to have more flexible models."
"F5 BIG-IP LTM can improve on the SSL loading which includes the authentication of certificates. Although, most of these issues have been solved there are still some issue that persists."
"Fixing bugs."
"I would like F5 to incorporate the ability to create your own custom roles and customised permissions within the product set. I have seen many customers wanting to give a certain level of access for the purposes of out-of-hours servicing to out-of-hours staff or teams that fulfill an operations type role."
"Its GUI could be a bit better. Other than that, it's already pretty good. We don't use it in a high-performance environment. So, we don't really care so much about too many features."
"Technical support could be improved."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would expect more integration with different platforms and more integration with the backend systems. Additionally, in the next release, I would like a more secure version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"Load Balancer ADC is cost-effective and is about half the price of F5."
"The price of F5 BIG-IP LTM could improve."
"The cost is high for this product, so it's not suitable for small customers, e.g. those with small environments."
"F5 pricing is too high, compared to Citrix."
"I am a fan of using AWS natively. It is much cheaper."
"Our company pays for the licensing cost on a yearly basis. Also, there are no extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"F5 BIG-IP can be expensive, although there are trial versions available which are helpful to find out if the solution is right for your company."
"If you are planning to use security features, better to go for strong hardware and the best bundle license, which is great for web security."
"BIG-IP LTM is considered a premium product, so it's quite expensive and isn't affordable for all customers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Retailer
11%
Educational Organization
10%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Barracuda Load Balancer ADC?
The Barracuda Load Balancer ADC could be improved with more customization features. For example, F5 uses iRules for custom configurations. I haven't found something similar in Barracuda yet. The lo...
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?
There are no specific areas for improvement as it is already well-resolved and doesn't require further enhancements.
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?
The primary use case includes load balancing to serve application servers and basic web application firewall solutions. Our customers use it for that purpose.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fenwal Blood Technologies
Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
825,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.