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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
Organizations saw mixed financial results with F5 BIG-IP LTM, noting benefits in performance and security but varied financial returns.
Sentiment score
7.6
Radware Alteon users see significant ROI with improved traffic management, support, and automation, favoring renewals for technological maturity.
The major return on investment is the security of our data.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
F5 BIG-IP LTM support is praised for responsiveness, but users report delays with complex issues and inconsistency in non-premium support.
Sentiment score
7.4
Radware Alteon is praised for responsive support and quick issue resolution, despite some time zone and response challenges.
I would rate the technical support of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) nine out of ten.
We never face support issues, and their team resolves any critical issues quickly once they are involved.
There is a dedicated expert answering even the toughest questions.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
F5 BIG-IP LTM efficiently scales for most users, though some face hardware and licensing challenges necessitating careful planning.
Sentiment score
8.0
Radware Alteon excels in scalability and adaptability, offering seamless bandwidth and throughput increases in global and enterprise environments.
It handles peak loads and thousands of concurrent connections without exceeding 10% utilization.
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
F5 BIG-IP LTM is highly reliable with minimal downtime, swiftly resolved issues, and commendable performance in demanding environments.
Sentiment score
8.2
Radware Alteon is lauded for exceptional stability, offering reliable performance and minimal disruptions despite occasional past issues.
We've never faced downtime, even during peak transaction hours.
 

Room For Improvement

F5 BIG-IP LTM is expensive, complex, lacks pay-as-you-grow, with room for improving support, integrations, and user-friendliness.
Radware Alteon requires UI updates, enhanced automation, proactive support, and improved integration for better user satisfaction and scalability.
Other OEMs offer free courses and hands-on labs on new technologies and features, which we find useful.
They keep integrating new features that sometimes break our production, but we use clustered systems, so we can test those software releases.
 

Setup Cost

F5 BIG-IP LTM is expensive but valued for robust security, performance, with potential savings through strategic bundling and negotiation.
Radware Alteon is cost-effective, competes with F5, offers flexible licensing, and combines hardware and support with good performance.
The product is costly.
For our solution, it was right in the middle of price performance.
The cost of the Radware solution is reasonable and stable.
 

Valuable Features

F5 BIG-IP LTM enhances application performance with load balancing, iRules, SSL offloading, and customizable, intuitive interface for complex environments.
Radware Alteon offers robust security, intuitive GUI, automation, and durable hardware for superior application performance and high service availability.
One of the most beneficial features of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is its ability to identify compromised traffic and its capabilities in authentication.
The product allows us to manage multiple networks and VLANs into a single box and add numerous web services and farms efficiently.
I find the best features to be the flexibility and ease of use.
 

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
121
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 March 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.7%, up from 15.7% 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
 

Featured Reviews

Bonieber  Orofeo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.
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Answers from the Community

HG
Dec 4, 2020
Dec 4, 2020
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.
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. 
 

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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
 

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

 

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Convergys
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Radware Alteon and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
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