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F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Radware Alteon comparison

F5 and Radware are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. F5 is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6, while Radware is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.9. F5 holds a 15.4% mindshare in ADC, compared to Radware’s 4.7% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Radware users who would recommend it.
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...
Read 120 F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) reviews
  • 7,233 Views
  • 6,005 Comparison Views
83% willing to recommend
Radware Alteon
Read 47 Radware Alteon reviews
  • 2,302 Views
  • 1,581 Comparison Views
92% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Radware Alteon and F5 BIG-IP LTM are leading contenders in the application delivery controller category. Radware Alteon appears to have an edge in cost-effectiveness and ease of deployment, while F5 BIG-IP LTM is emphasized for its comprehensive feature set despite being more complex and expensive.

Features: Radware Alteon excels in SSL-TLS acceleration, robust security features, and efficient load-balancing, along with global load balancing and reverse proxy capabilities. Users appreciate its hardware stability, ease of configuration, and user-friendly interface. F5 BIG-IP LTM provides comprehensive load balancing, a wide array of security capabilities, and offers powerful customization via iRules, though it is noted for its complexity in management.

Room for Improvement: Radware Alteon users suggest improvements in automation, reporting, and GUI, along with better technical support. F5 BIG-IP LTM could benefit from improved cloud integration, a simplified GUI, pricing adjustments, and enhanced security features. Integration with other systems and feedback on pricing and technical support are issues for both products.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both systems typically operate on-premises, but F5 BIG-IP LTM more frequently utilizes hybrid cloud environments. Radware Alteon is praised for ease of deployment, while technical support receives mixed reviews despite being responsive and knowledgeable; faster resolution is desired. F5 BIG-IP LTM's technical support is noted for robust models aiding large-scale deployments, though concerns exist about response times and pricing.

Pricing and ROI: Radware Alteon is viewed as cost-effective, offering competitive pricing and a positive return on investment due to performance and favorable package deals combining hardware and support. Conversely, F5 BIG-IP LTM, though robust, is critiqued for high pricing, affecting its ROI. Radware appears to offer a quicker ROI due to lower upfront costs.

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To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Radware Alteon Report (Updated: January 2025).
Buyer's Guide
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Radware Alteon
January 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...
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
Radware Alteon
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.4%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Radware Alteon is 4.7%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Q&A Highlights

HG
Dec 04, 2020
F5 BIG-IP vs. Radware Alteon Comparison
I can say the difference between both high end devices as F5 BIG-IP 4200v and Radware Alteon 5224XL comparission, 1. Layer 4 Throughput of F5 BIG-IP is 10 GBps whereas Radware Alteon is 8 GBps. 2. Layer 4 Connection per second of Radware Alteon is 480000 whereas F5 BIG-IP is F5 BIG-IP is 300000 only. 3. Layer 7 Connection per second of Radware Alteon is 190000 whereas F5 BIG-IP is F5 BIG-IP is 100000 only. 4. SSL Transaction per second wise Radware Alteon is 11200 whereas F5 BIG-IP is F5 BIG-IP is 9000 only. 5. SSL Bulk Throughput of F5 BIG-IP is 8 GBps whereas Radware Alteon is 4.1 GBps only. 6. Compression rate of F5 BIG-IP is 8 GBps whereas Radware Alteon is 3.6 GBps only.
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Featured Reviews

Mahmoud-Yassin - PeerSpot reviewer
You can fully automate disaster recovery
LTM's cloud capabilities could be improved. Cloud providers all offer load balancing, but you can't get the same level of security. F5's cloud service is still not on par with its on-prem service. F5 acquired multiple companies a few years ago, but they still haven't integrated those solutions. For example, F5 acquired Shape Security, which had an excellent solution for detecting bots and automated login attacks, but F5 offers the solution in an inflexible way. It is only available as a cloud-based solution. It isn't zone-based. Some companies are restricted from sending financial data outside the country because of GDPR in Europe or other national regulations. Here in the UAE, we can't send host data out.
Read full review
MaverickHurley - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes it easier and quicker to spin up services when we deploy applications
The most valuable aspect is the ability to customize the types of load-balancing scenarios needed for customized applications. Some of the load balancers on the market today are strictly out-of-hand load balancers for SSL or HTTP. Radware Alteon is most useful for customizing in-house applications based on ports and protocols. Another great feature is integrated application protection. There are many features you can activate. Some of them are add-ons, such as WAF protection, DDoS, rate-limiting, and connections-per-second per application. We also use Radware where we do all the programming.
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

"This is a solution that does what it's supposed to do at the price point."
"The most valuable features are DNS, APM, and ASM. Additionally, it is easy to use and you have a lot of flexibility to use the solution within a network."
"The most valuable features are the WAF and the big IP."
"The initial setup is easy."
"F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is very easy to use, from SSL Management to enabling, disabling loads, applications, systems, and monitoring. Overall the solution keeps our application functional from a client's perspective 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
"Initial setup is easy and pretty standard."
"F5 has many capabilities for load balancing and web application firewall features."
"The capability is at a seven or eight out of ten."
More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pros
"I like how easy it is to create policies in Alteon. Debugging and SSL offloading are also simple, and the global load-balancing part is good. Load-balancing and SSL offloading are the two features that ensure your virtual services work perfectly."
"The health status information, with its highly detailed reporting, has saved us time on troubleshooting. We have the precise information needed that helps us find different types of situations."
"It is easy to expand. Our clients are enterprise-size."
"The features that mitigate attacks are very valuable."
"The round-robin distribution of the load is quite useful."
"With Alteon, the load-balancing options are practically unlimited. We haven't had any issues with offloading, decryption, putting in cookies, or any other load-balancing features. We can check URLs, etc., on the back end for load balancing instead of running a TCP check. We're also doing some certificate stuff on there. Alteon covers all of the standard load-balancing techniques, and we employ most of them daily."
"The integrated application protection provided by Alteon is very good. It really helps to avoid false positives in some cases. It provides important granularity to avoid a situation in which security or cybersecurity scenarios escape us."
"I like the concept of self-service, that I can do everything on my own."
More Radware Alteon pros
 

Cons

"LTM would be improved with the inclusion of signature-based blocking."
"I would like them to have more flexible models."
"The GUI needs improvement."
"My only point of contention would be that it is a little pricey."
"Logging is a bit of a problem. Logging and monitoring are only in plain text. You have to search and you have to know what you are searching for to find anything. So of course, monitoring and getting alerts for abnormal situations is hard. There are no tools for monitoring and alerts"
"F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is expensive. Pricing needs to be improved."
"Needs to provide a visual interface to follow a customer's activity (from client to BIG-IP to SNAT IP to the chosen server, then back). Today, we are still performing packet captures."
"Not everything is intuitive."
More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) cons
"They keep integrating new features that sometimes break our production, but we use clustered systems, so we can test those software releases."
"You need to have pretty good internal knowledge of the solution."
"Could have more customizations on the dashboard."
"The solution could be more open to additional third-party add-ons being integrated into it."
"We don't integrate anything with it because most things don't integrate with Radware. If it were F5, we could integrate it. We can integrate F5 with practically anything that integrates with a load balancer, but that's not the case with Alteon."
"They keep integrating new features that sometimes break our production, but we use clustered systems, so we can test those software releases. However, sometimes they take a while to reach us. We have had to work with Radware to remedy issues on their side that they have verified."
"Performance could be improved."
"The reverse proxy piece is a little bit complicated. If the reverse proxy were easier to implement, that would help."
More Radware Alteon cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"BIG-IP LTM isn't a cheap solution - I'd rate its pricing as three out of five."
"It's fair, it's not too expensive. Maybe just a little high."
"The cost that they have with AWS are almost prohibitive. I'm being forced to use F5 WAF. I would not simply use it based on cost. I agree that they have some great features, but for me, cost is key in terms of AWS."
"There are no additional fees to the standard licensing fee; everything is paid once."
"It could be priced a little less, especially on the virtual side. It gets a bit expensive, but you get what you pay."
"The only area that has room for improvement would be pricing, so its competitors do not have a say."
"It is cheaper than the average on the market."
"The solution is quite expensive if we compare it with the competition."
More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pricing and cost advice
"The pricing seems reasonable to me for what the solution provides. It is within the parameters of this type of solution."
"We have three-year contract with Radware. It is beneficial to have a longer-term contract because you can obtain more discounts. It seems to be a much cheaper alternative."
"Our government agency opted for Radware Alteon due to its affordability and efficiency. While I can't say precisely how much it costs the organization, the price per device. In India, we always look for affordable products, so I assume Alteon is cost-effective because the government chose it."
"Alteon's price is excellent compared to other solutions. F5 costs around twice as much. We still have about three years left before this hardware reaches the end of its life. We're migrating to the cloud, and phasing some of this out, but it's nice that they've given us a long window to keep their hardware in place."
"The solution is cost-efficient."
"Radware LinkProof is neither cheap nor expensive."
"It is cost-efficient. That is why we have gone with Alteon. As a product, it is efficient and robust. We have not faced any issues with the device."
"Price-wise, the solution is a reasonable one."
More Radware Alteon pricing and cost advice
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Answers from the Community

HG
Dec 4, 2020
Dec 4, 2020
F5 BIG-IP vs. Radware Alteon Comparison
Apart from throughout consideration. Radware license charges based on throughput and F5 charges based on features only. For example, if you buy F5 with an appliance throughput of 10g that throughput available on day one, but if it's Radware, you will get a 1gbps license and hardware has 10gbps throughput. You can only use 1gbps on day one. On the load balancing side, both are equal only I rule ...
2 out of 3 answers
SP
Jun 3, 2020
I can say the difference between both high end devices as F5 BIG-IP 4200v and Radware Alteon 5224XL comparission, 1. Layer 4 Throughput of F5 BIG-IP is 10 GBps whereas Radware Alteon is 8 GBps. 2. Layer 4 Connection per second of Radware Alteon is 480000 whereas F5 BIG-IP is F5 BIG-IP is 300000 only. 3. Layer 7 Connection per second of Radware Alteon is 190000 whereas F5 BIG-IP is F5 BIG-IP is 100000 only. 4. SSL Transaction per second wise Radware Alteon is 11200 whereas F5 BIG-IP is F5 BIG-IP is 9000 only. 5. SSL Bulk Throughput of F5 BIG-IP is 8 GBps whereas Radware Alteon is 4.1 GBps only. 6. Compression rate of F5 BIG-IP is 8 GBps whereas Radware Alteon is 3.6 GBps only.
Read full answer
OK
Jun 4, 2020
For ADC both are very good, But in the leader in Gartner of ADC products, the tops rivals are Citrix ADC and F5  They are very good and can do the job but only some major differences to consider are. Citrix ADC -  Has App Expert Wizard which is a GUI ready to use to build simple to complex traffic syntax rule easily. Any admin that has some good background sees this syntax can understand and configure, it is very easy. This is good for a big complex environment or in case your network admin leaves the job and new one comes to take the role. GUI; Travesing each menu is very easy as they are all in the same pattern with every feature. F5 - Use the iRule, which does the same job. If you like to write programming code with lots of { {   } }, etc, it's ok. But for many admin teams, it may be hard to troubleshoot the traffics rules if the guy who wrote the rule left, not that hard to learn but still harder than GUI. GUI- F5 GUI is sometimes too complex than needed, sometimes it's left, right, under have to drill down a lot just to get to the simple tasks. Overall there are both good. 
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See all 3 answers
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
See all answers
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.
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
What do you like most about Radware Alteon?
It saves us a lot of work in terms of management since it has tasks already defined automatically. That enables us to better administer our services. It is very dynamic and easy to administer.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Radware Alteon?
We have a three-year contract with Radware. It is beneficial to have a longer-term contract because you can obtain more discounts. It seems to be a much cheaper alternative. We use their Gel Elasti...
See all answers
What needs improvement with Radware Alteon?
It is a fairly complete service and it is difficult for me to think of what can be improved. A feature that I would like to see included in the next version might be better analysis when working wi...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Fortinet FortiADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
Compared 19% of the time
NetScaler vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Logo
NetScaler vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
Compared 10% of the time
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Logo
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
Compared 8% of the time
VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Logo
VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
Compared 7% of the time
A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Logo
A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
Compared 6% of the time
More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Competitors
NetScaler vs Radware Alteon Logo
NetScaler vs Radware Alteon
Compared 13% of the time
F5 Advanced WAF vs Radware Alteon Logo
F5 Advanced WAF vs Radware Alteon
Compared 10% of the time
HAProxy vs Radware Alteon Logo
HAProxy vs Radware Alteon
Compared 9% of the time
NGINX Plus vs Radware Alteon Logo
NGINX Plus vs Radware Alteon
Compared 7% of the time
A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Radware Alteon Logo
A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Radware Alteon
Compared 7% of the time
More Radware Alteon Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
February 2025
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) reportDownload F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) product report
Buyer's Guide
Radware Alteon
February 2025
Radware Alteon reportDownload Radware Alteon 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
Alteon, Radware AppWall
 

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.

F5

Radware Alteon is an application delivery controller (ADC) solution that provides global load balancing for all web, cloud and mobile-based applications. The solution is designed to help your organization simplify operations while ensuring resilience and SLA. It manages application traffic across both data and cloud center locations, optimizing availability and performance. In addition, Radware Alteon integrates multiple application protection services to provide protection against an array of cyberthreats.

Radware Alteon Features

Radware Alteon has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

  • Robust
  • Load-balancing reverse proxy
  • Stable
  • Flexible
  • Guaranteed application availability
  • Application aware traffic redirection capabilities
  • Faster web application response time
  • Application specific optimized configuration guides
  • Configuration templates
  • Built-in virtualization
  • Built-in application and network security

Radware Alteon Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Radware Alteon. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

  • Flexible deployment options: Radware Alteon is deployable in a multitude of form factors, including on-premises, virtual, and cloud, and provides a consistent application delivery and security service in any application environment.
  • Automation scripts library: To support faster time to service for complex application delivery and security services, Alteon is supported by an extensive range of automation scripts library. This also enables seamless integration of Radware Alteon services into the DevOps CI/CD processes.
  • Integrated application protection: The solution offers comprehensive application protection via embedded WAF, bot management, threat intelligence, and API protection capabilities. This ensures application availability and helps to minimize false positives, as well as keep applications along with their data secure.
  • Actionable visibility: With Radware Alteon you can stay ahead of issues and threats. The solution provides real-time visibility and actionable insights for proactive management of application availability and security issues before the user experience is impacted.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the solution.

PeerSpot reviewer Jefe de implementaciones de Datos at RETO Industrial S.A. de. C.V., mentions, “The simple and well-documented configuration allows us to be able to implement new balancing services at the request of the user with the same conditions and good service that they expect. We can also make changes to services that are already running, as I mentioned before, the graphical interface is very intuitive and you can almost always make the most common changes quickly. Radware has been characterized by being extremely robust. This gives us the confidence to offer our users a continuous service.”

A director of consulting says, “The most valuable features are the load-balancing and reverse proxy. Global-load balancing as well is valuable. I also find it to be stable. To date, we have not had any issues with it.”

An SOC Specialist at a tech services company explains, “The interface is easy, it's friendly, and has good alerting. When you have a problem with a server, it will alert you. It is useful in many areas, especially for web applications and load balancing. It's something that the customer can see on the internet.”

Radware
 

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Convergys
Buyer's Guide
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Radware Alteon
January 2025
Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Radware Alteon
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Radware Alteon and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
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