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F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kemp LoadMaster
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
7th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.0%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.5%, up from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

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.
PeterForster - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly stable and scalable load-balancing software that offers great technical support
My company is really happy with Kemp LoadMaster as a product. My company is also happy with the support we receive from Kemp LoadMaster. I want Kemp LoadMaster to provide users with better reporting capabilities in relation to TCP packets. In general, the connections that are present in the system require improvement. Feature-wise, Kemp LoadMaster has everything that our company's customers require. Kemp LoadMaster also has features that have supported our company's past projects.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The capability is at a seven or eight out of ten."
"BIG-IP LTM's most valuable feature is that it allows you to seamlessly add more servers without impacting your application's configuration."
"It can determine if the system is going down, then route the traffic somewhere else."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is IP Intelligence."
"Great load balancing."
"BIG-IP can do anything. It's like a Swiss Army knife."
"It improves the overall performance of applications by decreasing the burden on servers associated with managing and maintaining applications and network sessions, as well as by performing application-specific tasks."
"​Simple to install with good documentation."
"Using Kemp as a front-facing service appliance, it allows me to have the flexibility of swapping out real servers behind the scenes without any intervention from my network team."
"From my personal experience, many firewalls provide Load Balancing functionalities, but Kemp Loadmaster has a lot of features and functionalities like what you can configure. So there are a lot of features but we use only five percent of it."
"The DNS Load Balancer makes it so that I don't have to worry about site failures."
"We are most impressed with the ease of use and great support."
"Load-balancing is a great feature that is very easy to configure and it is always working fine."
"The most valuable feature so far has been the high-availability options that allowed us to add an additional Kemp LoadMaster VLM virtual appliance into our VMware vSphere environment, to provide failover for our existing LoadMaster."
"We needed a Microsoft Threat Management Gateway server replacement solution for a customer and were impressed with the simplified deployment of the Kemp LoadMasters."
 

Cons

"A more intuitive interface would be helpful."
"It reaches a point where scaling is no longer possible."
"I would like to see improvement in the manageability and easier setup."
"There are some aspects of F5 BIG-IP that could be improved, the main one being virtual machine support. We have seen that even with the virtual editions, there are some things that we would like to do that are currently not possible with virtual machines."
"The setup is a little bit complex."
"A lot of functions that are attributed to iRules can actually be simple profile changes. iRules do have a certain performance impact. Therefore, instead of writing simple iRules, they can create certain profiles for classes that will perform the same function."
"The solution is scalable."
"Lacking in free training to help users understand the product more, so they would know how to correctly use it. Like other vendors and their products, becoming more proactive is an area for improvement."
"If you want logging for SMTP traffic, you have to enable ESP, which requires you to define allowed IP addresses. That’s irritating, to say the least."
"I definitely think that the WAF can be improved."
"It lacks an officially supported, well-written SCOM Management Pack."
"The ability to see live traffic is not great and can be improved."
"I think there should be more visual instructions on how to configure advanced features."
"Some documentation is out of date versus the new version, and things have been moved​."
"The GUI is rather technical and complex, so it could be improved by making it simpler and more user-friendly."
"In the web interface, there are a lot of settings in the different menus and it would be helpful if there were an interactive help system or tooltips to help the administrators find and configure the right settings."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"BIG-IP LTM is considered a premium product, so it's quite expensive and isn't affordable for all customers."
"There are additional costs depending on what modules or what functionality is required."
"The solution is quite expensive if we compare it with the competition."
"LTM is a good product, but it's expensive. They should make it more competitive because cloud providers offer free load balancing. Cloud providers can't cover all the security aspects of F5, but you get a decent amount of security. Cloud environments are becoming the norm across the IT industry. Many of the larger companies that previously used on-prem infrastructure are switching to the cloud, so companies like Fortinet and Palo Alto are reducing their prices. Otherwise, they can't compete in the cloud."
"When we purchased additional licenses for our other locations, we received a discount of between 20% and 25%."
"In my view, the cost is somewhat on the higher side. There are discounts available, but I wouldn't say it's overpriced. It's not cheap either, and the value for money is a bit higher from that perspective."
"The licensing strategy for F5 is good."
"The price is little bit on higher side compared to the cost of NGINX."
"Currently, no cost is involved with a virtual load balancer. They have used open source. We did not pay for software. We paid for the expertise. We are only paying the consulting charges, which are very reasonable, that is, around a thousand dollars."
"KEMP gives away free trials for 30 days. This can be stretched if you want. During the test, you will have access to KEMP support.​"
"The license varies according to the number of megabits."
"The pricing is alright and we pay a monthly licensing fee"
"The Kemp LoadMaster is a tremendous value."
"​I have control on the licensing and all the prices since I work for a partner.​"
"They have multiple tiers of licensing and you can upgrade it easily."
"This is a cost-efficient product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
64%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
3%
 

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 Kemp LoadMaster?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial setup of Kemp LoadMaster is very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?
LoadMaster is cheaper than some other solutions. It has a perpetual license, so it's a one-time cost.
What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?
My company is really happy with Kemp LoadMaster as a product. My company is also happy with the support we receive from Kemp LoadMaster. I want Kemp LoadMaster to provide users with better reportin...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT€ Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Kemp LoadMaster and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.