F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Imperva SecureSphere Database Security comparison

The compared F5 and Imperva solutions aren't in the same category. F5 is ranked #2 in ADC , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 15.4% mindshare in the category. Imperva is ranked #2 in DS , with an average rating of 7.5, and holds a 30.7% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Imperva users who would recommend it.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Read 121 F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) reviews

6,405 Views
5,241 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Imperva SecureSphere Databa...

Read 55 Imperva SecureSphere Database Security reviews

3,520 Views
2,286 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Imperva SecureSphere Databa...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Imperva SecureSphere Database Security based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, HAProxy and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC).

To learn more, read our detailed Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

April 2025

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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

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

121

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd)

Imperva SecureSphere Databa...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database Security (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Imperva SecureSphere Database Security 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 15.4%, down 15.9% compared to last year.
Imperva SecureSphere Database Security, on the other hand, focuses on Database Security, holds 30.7% mindshare, down 32.4% since last year.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Database Security

Q&A Highlights

Madhav Karki

Network/System Engineer at NA

May 11, 2020

What is the performance parameter of Imperva X10K versus BIG-IP i2600?

Performance parameters if of Imperva X10K and BIG-IP i2600 may be checked in the following links: https://www.imperva.com/resources/datasheets/Imperva-DS-SECURESPHERE-APPLIANCE-Web092118-1.pdf https://www.f5.com/pdf/products/big-ip-platforms-datasheet.pdf One of the most important parameters being checked for both is their throughput and mutually they have 10G throughput.

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Featured Reviews

Bonieber Orofeo

Information Security Manager at Chong Hua Hospital

Identifying compromised traffic and securing data has been a significant advantage

One of the most beneficial features of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) ( /products/f5-big-ip-local-traffic-manager-ltm-reviews ) is its ability to identify compromised traffic and its capabilities in authentication. Additionally, the security aspect of it provides a significant advantage as it helps us secure our data, which is a major investment and benefit for us. Before using this system, we had difficulties in storing our data and managing the traffic that comes in and out.

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Andrew_Kampolo

Senior Manager at Zamtel (Zambia Telecommunications Company Limited)

The fine-grained auditing available on the platform makes life easier and helps explain anything happening in your database

Imperva's most valuable features are ease of use and log correlation. I also like the ability to trace activity from the host machine to the server access, the user details, and the exact query that they executed. If a database administrator or application process executes a query on the database, people know exactly what was executed, including all the variables. For example, it will tell you how many rows they were trying to select on which table, and you get the OS information, network details, IPs, and the user. That fine-grained auditing available on the platform makes life easier and helps explain anything happening in your database.

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

"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."

"It provides first-tier firewalling, for you application. And it provides server load-balancing, it provides optimization, and it provides a proxy feature, where your users cannot directly access your server. It acts as a fully proxy architecture. It has client-side and server-side connections, both, and they're separate."

"The most valuable feature is being able to manipulate the iRules, so you can send traffic to different avenues."

"It has helped a lot to protect our organization from external attacks, especially XSS or XSRF types of attacks."

"We are using Application Security Manager (ASM) as a web application firewall, where there is a security signature to avoid a web level breach."

"I have Big-IP change and control manager, which give me the roll back option. Therefore, I can view the last things which happened on the device."

"F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) improves the resilience and quality of the application itself, the speed and the user experience for the application. The data that the users need from the application is actually acquired faster. So, it provides faster data acquisition."

"We always use technical support and the team helps us very well. They're able to effectively find and fix issues and they respond very quickly."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pros

"Ability to send event monitoring and administrative activities."

"The solution is very stable."

"Flexible reporting allows for customization that keeps the admins from having to interact with system automation."

"The audit feature is great. It is totally encrypted."

"They have very good documentation and knowledgebase resources that add to the depth of their support."

"The product’s most valuable feature is real-time highlights."

"The most valuable features of Imperva SecureSphere Database Security are the user-friendliness, easy-to-use interface compared to competitors, database operations do not need a specialist, and simple to manage for our security team. Additionally, the solution can show all the databases and the level of sensitivity. It can show what is more sensitive or less sensitive."

"This is a stable product."

More Imperva SecureSphere Database Security pros

Cons

"The pricing could always be better. It's a bit expensive."

"They could improve the product's ease of use. There is some confusion how to operate it."

"The price needs improvement as it is quite costly."

"A more intuitive interface would be helpful."

"Initial setup is tricky, if you do not understand the design of this product."

"BIG-IP LTM is taking a long time to mature in cloud environments. They plan to improve cloud integration in the next version, but it isn't out yet. It's essential because more companies are moving to the cloud these days and using things like Kubernetes or microservices. F5 needs to improve in that direction, and they are."

"BIG-IP LTM's sandboxing integration could be improved."

"F5 has another solution to load balance servers on the cloud, which they got after the purchase of NGINX. It is deployed as Kubernetes or something like that, but the problem now is that they have two solutions for two situations. They should make F5 deployable on the cloud."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) cons

"Data encryption. Yeah, Imperva needs to pull up on data encryption and make it a standard feature to allow maybe for tokenization, encryption of data, and things like that."

"Imperva SecureSphere Database Security could improve the database defense feature called camouflage. This feature was responsible for the data mask but now it does not work well and we need another solution. All our banks have teams that are regarded with care and they need to mask sensitive data in order to provide testing to developers."

"Improvements can be made in data enrichment and enhancing the GUI (Graphical User Interface) for a better user experience."

"They can maybe look at its pricing model. Its pricing could be cheaper for the African countries or developing economies."

"I would like to see improvement in the integration part of the tool. This should be an easy process."

"Performance can be slow under heavy loads, but this should be adjusted by scaling."

"SecureSphere activity log can be used with Imperva CounterBreach in an effort to protect enterprise data from theft and loss caused."

"It is very expensive. Its price can be better."

More Imperva SecureSphere Database Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are a few licensing options available for F5 BIG-IP LTM. You can have a perpetual license which is a lifetime license. You then only need to renew the support, if you choose to open a ticket with the support."

"F5 BIG-IP is a stable solution. It is quite mature and does not have many concerns."

"I use a yearly subscription, which is the most expensive one now compared to its competitors."

"This is a high-priced tool. We pay for its license yearly."

"I am not aware of the exact cost of the product. However, it is expensive."

"Take a look at the modules that you are going to use. Look into the best bundles for them."

"The cost is high for this product, so it's not suitable for small customers, e.g. those with small environments."

"Great product for the money. But they can get really expensive, so get what meets your needs."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pricing and cost advice

"It is very expensive."

"There is an annual licensing fee for upgrading the device."

"The product is expensive."

"Its pricing could be cheaper for the African countries or developing economies. The British pound is valued way more than the currency of most African countries. A better or cheaper pricing model for Nigerian and African customers would be better. It has a per-year subscription model. You pay exactly for what you need. That's all. You don't have to buy what you don't need."

"It is quite expensive. We wanted it in my former organization, but the price was very high. So, we couldn't purchase it. I moved to a different organization, and this organization has purchased it."

"The setup and license are quite expensive."

"We have all the licenses, which we pay for annually. The price is a little high, but the product is good."

"This is an expensive solution and the price should be reduced."

More Imperva SecureSphere Database Security pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

28%

Computer Software Company

15%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?

The price needs improvement as it is quite costly.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?

We're using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) ( /products/f5-big-ip-local-traffic-manager-ltm-reviews ) for our applications and for managing our incoming and outgoing traffic.

See all answers

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)?

The solution is robust and reliable.

See all answers

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

My recommendation is Imperva.

See all answers

How does IBM Guardium Data Protection compare with Imperva SecureSphere Database Security?

IBM Security Guardium Data Protection is a solution for database security from IBM that gives complete visibility, control, and analysis to secure sensitive data and comply with regulations. IBM S...

See all answers

What do you like most about Imperva SecureSphere Database Security?

The tool's pricing is flexible and affordable for small and medium enterprises.

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 20% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

HAProxy vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

NetScaler vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

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IBM Security Guardium Data Protection vs Imperva SecureSphere Database Security

Compared 62% of the time

Oracle Audit Vault vs Imperva SecureSphere Database Security

Compared 21% of the time

DataSunrise Database Security vs Imperva SecureSphere Database Security

Compared 8% of the time

Trustwave DbProtect vs Imperva SecureSphere Database Security

Compared 5% of the time

jSonar vs Imperva SecureSphere Database Security

Compared 2% of the time

More Imperva SecureSphere Database Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

May 2025

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report

Download F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Imperva SecureSphere Database Security

April 2025

Imperva SecureSphere Database Security report

Download Imperva SecureSphere Database Security product report

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

Overview

F5 BIG-IP LTM optimizes the speed and reliability of your apps via both network and application layers. Using real-time protocol and traffic management decisions based on app and server and connection management conditions, and TCP and content offloading, BIG-IP LTM dramatically improves application and infrastructure responsiveness. BIG-IP LTM's architecture includes protocol awareness to control traffic for the most important applications. BIG-IP LTM tracks the dynamic performance levels of servers and delivers SSL performance and visibility for inbound and outbound traffic, to protect the user experience by encrypting everything from the client to the server.

BIG-IP LTM provides enterprise-class Application Delivery Controller (ADC). You get granular layer 7 control, SSL offloading and acceleration capabilities, and advanced scaling technologies that deliver performance and reliability on-demand. The highly optimized TCP/IP stack combines TCP/IP techniques and improvements in the latest RFCs with extensions to minimize the effect of congestion and packet loss and recovery. Independent testing tools and customer experiences show LTM's TCP stack delivers up to a 2x performance gain for users and a 4x increase in bandwidth efficiency.

Imperva SecureSphere Database Security:

Audits all access to sensitive data.
Alerts or blocks database attacks and unauthorized activities, in real time.
Detects and virtually patches database vulnerabilities.
Identifies excessive user rights and dormant users, and enables a complete rights review cycle.
Accelerates incident response and forensics investigations with advanced analytics.

Imperva

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.

BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens

Buyer's Guide

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

April 2025

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