F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Imperva Web Application Firewall comparison

The compared F5 and Imperva solutions aren't in the same category. F5 is ranked #2 in ADC , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 15.0% mindshare in the category. Imperva is ranked #6 in WAF , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 6.4% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Imperva users who would recommend it.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Read 120 F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) reviews

8,171 Views
6,832 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Read 51 Imperva Web Application Firewall reviews

6,352 Views
5,077 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

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

Find out in this report how the two Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall Report (Updated: September 2020).

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

September 2020

Download the complete report

Helped 815,854 peers since 2012

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)

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Application Firewall (WAF) (6th)

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Imperva Web Application Firewall 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.
Imperva Web Application Firewall, on the other hand, focuses on Web Application Firewall (WAF), holds 6.4% mindshare, down 7.1% since last year.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Richard Polyak

Sr. Architect at NBC Universal

Jun 21, 2022

Reduces maintenance downtime and has a strong user community

Our primary use cases for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager are high availability for applications and SSL offload certificates F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager helps reduce our downtime for maintenance purposes. It also offers us ease of use for the deployment of certificates onto a central…

Read full review

Abdullah Jin

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 9, 2024

Offers bot protection and DDoS Protection and protects public-facing portals

Support is one thing I wish Imperva could improve. They follow the phone model and keep rotating you from one customer service person to another. The layer one support isn't very clear about the workings of the product. My feedback is primarily about Imperva Cloud, not on-premise. On-premise is a whole new story. Support is the issue for Imperva Cloud. It's also a bit pricey. It's a premium service and very expensive. The licensing model is not very straightforward. Every feature is priced separately, and to enjoy maximum protection, you'll have to spend a lot of money. The licensing model is a bit complex, and each feature is very pricey. For example, API security and web application protection are two separate license packages.

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 web application firewall feature is the most valuable and useful feature. It is a leading industry product when it comes to load balancing. Its user interface is very simple. There isn't a steep learning curve. When we initiate someone to F5, they start using it quickly."

"It is very intuitive, easy to deploy, and manage."

"The most valuable features of the solution are in the area of DDoS and WAF."

"Features such as SSL offloading, various balancing methods, and the ability to work with HTTP, HTTPS, or TCP protocols are beneficial."

"The F5 GTM/BIGIP DNS (Global Traffic Manager) is a valuable feature. This feature allows for DNS load balancing, which means that high availability and load sharing can be done across services locally, as well as across datacenters with advanced capabilities."

"The most valuable feature is the F5 LTM (Local Traffic Manager). This is the part of the product most organisations will be using most. It provides the core functionality to be able to load balance services and the means and the intelligence to be able to load balance based on advanced logic, e.g., TCL scripting."

"If I were to choose one key feature in particular, perhaps it would be the iRule feature. It’s a really versatile tool."

"I have found F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) to be stable."

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

"The solution is cloud-based and offers us good uptime. It has combined web and API security. Therefore, with one license, you access both application security and also API security."

"The valuable features of Imperva WAF include its effective security breach prevention through automatically updating rules."

"Data masking is the most valuable feature of this solution."

"The most valuable features of the Imperva Web Application Firewall are DDoS, malware, and the other malicious threat prevention it provides. Additionally, third-party integration is available. You can forward the log for further analysis."

"The configurability of the tools and the ease of operation to be the most valuable feature of Imperva."

"Imperva has a complete picture of how the applications are utilizing it. It is handy. DDoS is good. It has an internally managed database. It is very easy to integrate. We have integrated it with SIEM services."

"Learning mode and custom policies are helpful features."

"There is a quick switch between any of the the nodes if something goes wrong, where there's a there's an attack against a specific area. The security setup is reasonably easy. It's not a problem to do setups and rules and integrations. And, yeah, just the the back end team is also very willing to insist if there's questions that that we cannot answer or with these questions that we do have"

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pros

Cons

"Its scalability and deployment should be better. It should be more scalable, and it should be easier to deploy."

"The management interface is unclear, complex, and not concise. I would like a better user interface."

"The user experience for dashboards and reports can be improved. They should make dashboards and the reporting system easier for users. They need to add more reports to the dashboard. Currently, for complicated reports, I have to do the customization. It should have more integration with network firewalls to be able to gather all the information required for traffic management."

"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."

"One area for improvement with F5 BIG-IP LTM could be its pricing, which some may find on the higher side."

"It requires a particular skill or training before being able to manage it."

"I wouldn't recommend the tool to small companies, considering its high price and the infrastructure needs of small businesses."

"I think the logging could be improved."

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

"Their portal is very limited and needs improvement."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall can improve by adding more features to the dashboard. increasing the visibility of the real-time events, besides configuring the administration itself."

"The signature updates could be faster. Sometimes we have to upload signatures to the Imperva portal for checking and analysis before we can use them."

"An improvement for Imperva WAF would be to reduce the number of false positives and create more strong use cases based on AI/ML or behavioral analytics."

"I'd like the option to pick your bot protection."

"The solution works for particular zones but isn't always the best solution for all zones."

"Some of the features should be included in the next release is a file integrating monitoring tool. This feature should be improved."

"Sometimes, support tickets don't get addressed quickly."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The price of the solution is sometimes expensive."

"There are no additional fees to the standard licensing fee; everything is paid once."

"Try to negotiate all the software features that you require upfront."

"The price is high."

"It is sort of a commodity product. A load balancer is a load balancer. What will be, at the end of the day, the cheapest option or have the best performance, that is what it will come down to."

"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 model of F5 BIG-IP LTM is highly complex. The operation cost of the solution is high. The overall cost is high."

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

"The price of this solution is a little bit high compared to competitors."

"There are some licenses that you have to buy to use some features. Its price could be better. Price is always important because, at the end of the day, customers have a budget. If you can meet the budget, you can sell, and if you don't, you cannot sell."

"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."

"There are a couple of different licensing models."

"The tool is expensive."

"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."

"Imperva’s pricing is a bit higher in the market since it offers a full-blown WAF."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall 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

815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

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.

See all answers

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

I use the solution for load balancing.

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

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?

For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.

See all answers

DDoS solutions: Any other solutions to consider aside from Radware DefensePro and F5 Silverline DDoS Protection?

You can have a look to Imperva Cloud WAF, the anti-DDoS mitigation is under 1s and works very well. I observed a lot of DDoS attacks that were well managed (even not seen by the customer) by Imperv...

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 18% of the time

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

Compared 13% 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 7% of the time

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

Compared 7% of the time

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

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 17% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 17% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 15% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Cloudflare vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 2% of the time

More Imperva Web Application Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

November 2024

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report

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

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall

November 2024

Download Imperva Web Application Firewall 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

Learn More

Imperva

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 Web Application Firewall is a versatile solution that protects web applications and databases from various attacks, including DDoS, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection attacks. It offers data security, availability, and access control and can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud.

The solution has good security against web attacks and offers advanced bot protection, API security, and mitigation features. Imperva WAF is easy to configure and deploy; it has good customer service and an excellent user interface.

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

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

September 2020

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: September 2020.

DOWNLOAD NOW

815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall report.

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.