Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd)
Fortinet FortiWeb
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Fortinet FortiWeb 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 15.0%, down 16.1% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiWeb, on the other hand, focuses on Web Application Firewall (WAF), holds 8.4% mindshare, up 7.4% since last year.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Kacem CHAMMALI - PeerSpot reviewer
Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb
The xFF, or X-Forwarded-For feature, IP reputation, and protected hostname. We can block access using the IP address, so no one can connect to our web server or website using the real IP. They need to use the FQDN instead. Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb and the option to protect the hostname. All traffic passes through FortiWeb. Machine learning capabilities in FortiWeb: I don't use machine learning all the time. In the initial phase of FortiWeb deployment, we use the learning process to detect the traffic passing through FortiGate to our website.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is IP Intelligence."
"Our experience has been very good, in terms of performance, and securing our application infrastructure."
"Valuable features include Link Controller and Server Load Balancer."
"BIG-IP can do anything. It's like a Swiss Army knife."
"It has made it a single entry point for all users, verging across all the VPCs. It is more of an SSO solution versus multitier user loggin."
"I have found F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) to be stable."
"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."
"The solution is very easy to use and easy to understand. It's quite an intuitive system."
"The most valuable features in Fortinet FortiWeb are sandboxing and threat prevention."
"Built-in security templates, AV integrated, strong threat intelligence."
"SSL Offloading simplifies the public certificate handling and brings additional protection features."
"Some of the threat detection analytics and the filtering capabilities they give us for filtering a certain type of information that we don't want coming into the site are its valuable features. The analytics are pretty good in terms of being able to see what threats have been detected and mitigated, where they're coming from, and things like that."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiWeb is the reports and the AI-based features."
"One of the big advantages of using Fortinet FortiWeb is all the Fortinet family solutions use the same user interface and logic. This makes it easy to use, configure, manage, and understand if you have used one of their solutions before or are wanting to implement other Fortinet solutions in the future. Additionally, all Fortinet solutions can be managed with one application called FortiManager."
"Auto Learn feature: Makes policy additions or deletions for my customers very simple​"
"The deployment was very easy."
 

Cons

"For a future release, I would like to see more features in the cloud."
"I would like there to be more device security. I would like the tool to support SSL links, along with SSL and TLS."
"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."
"The pricing model has caused some frustration. My clients implemented the solution and later wanted to upgrade the features but the pricing structure was complicated. There are other solutions with better pricing models."
"The price for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is very high. This aspect could be improved."
"The ASM administration is quite complex. The topic itself is pretty complex, so it is not easy to provide a nice, clean interface. There are a lot of references and dependencies in-between the different subareas."
"For integration with other AWS environments, we do some tie-ins with some autoscaling groups. This has been challenging for us. We have had issues, where when autoscaling groups scale up, there are some instances which are not showing up in the proper size. Then, those IPs would get registered with F5, but never get released. Therefore, we are ending up with a whole bunch of ghosted IPs."
"The user interface of F5 BIG-IP LTM is old and could improve."
"We would like to know more about the integration with the hardware or security products, such as Gemalto, because we need to move to that point."
"Integration and learning about attacks. I would improve these areas by making FortiWeb integrate with other network technologies and feedback from multiple platforms."
"Another area for improvement is logging. When troubleshooting, the logs sometimes take a while to update. We've had people report that some things aren't logged if they're successful. It's a bit hit-and-miss. For example, sometimes people access one of our services, and it's successful, but we don't see that in the logs."
"The solution is rather complicated. If you know what to do, it's not bad, but it's complicated for a first time user to configure the solution. What I'd like to improve are the custom signatures."
"I had some small problems when I was upgrading firmware. After the upgrade, some of my certificates were deleted.​"
"The F5 solution has more features than Fortinet FortiWeb, such as multiple load balancing."
"No solution is 100% secure and the security could always be worked on."
"The solution could offer more integration opportunities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's fair, it's not too expensive. Maybe just a little high."
"The solution is more expensive than one of its competitors."
"It is quite expensive as a product. Because it is very stable, it is also expensive."
"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."
"The licensing strategy for F5 is good."
"It is a bit expensive product. Kemp Loadmaster is much cheaper than F5. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It can be for one year or three years."
"Compared to using open-source products, the prices are not cheap."
"F5 is expensive."
"Previously, for each project, the cost was $800 to $1,000 per application. Now, it's $100 to $120. For some of the applications, there is a 90% reduction, and for some of the applications, there is a 50% reduction. We're paying only $500 to $600."
"There's only one payment for the duration of the license. On a scale from one to five, I would rate pricing at four. I have not encountered any additional costs on my projects involving Fortinet FortiWeb."
"When I use any other firewall, I have to take a license. It could be a perpetual license or subscription-based. In both cases, we have to pay some amount in advance, whereas in the case of FortiWeb, when using it as a service, I am paying half a dollar only for the domain name, and then I am paying based on the traffic or the number of requests."
"It is an expensive suite and it is an expensive solution, but it is a manageable one for an enterprise."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the tool an eight."
"The solution is cheaper compared with other solutions. It has a yearly license."
"Due to the situation in Iran with the sanctions, the price of this solution is very expensive."
"​The pricing is reasonable."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
42%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?
Price is an area of the tool where improvements are required. I want to see CDN capabilities in the product.
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
It's better. Yeah, it's really good. It's one of the main points why we offer it. Since we are partners with them, sometimes we offer our customers a lower price.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
Fortinet's technical support is pretty slow, especially when you have quick questions. The support kind of delays itself and sometimes takes more time. That's the only thing that I can think of at ...
 

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
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Fortinet FortiWeb and other solutions. Updated: April 2023.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.