F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Rapid7 AppSpider comparison

The compared F5 and Rapid7 solutions aren't in the same category. F5 is ranked #2 in ADC , with an average rating of 8.9, and holds a 15.3% mindshare in the category. Rapid7 is ranked #32 in SAST , and holds a 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Rapid7 users who would recommend it.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Read 122 F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) reviews

7,891 Views
5,760 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Rapid7 AppSpider

Read 14 Rapid7 AppSpider reviews

1,538 Views
846 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Rapid7 AppSpider

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Rapid7 AppSpider based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

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

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Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

June 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

122

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd)

Rapid7 AppSpider

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (32nd)

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Rapid7 AppSpider 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 15.3%, up 15.4% compared to last year.
Rapid7 AppSpider, on the other hand, focuses on Static Application Security Testing (SAST), holds 0.5% mindshare, down 0.5% since last year.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

Bonieber Orofeo

IT 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.

Read full review

Rizwan-Alam

Head Information Security at Akhtar Fuiou Technologies

Easy automated web app scanning, but gives many false positives and isn't always stable

One of the challenges I have with AppSpider is that it gives you a lot of false positives, especially when compared to other solutions. This is the main aspect that I hope to see Rapid7 improve on. Beyond reducing false positives, I would also like to see them implement better reporting features, particularly in the executive summary type of reports which need to be user-friendly and easily understood by non-technical people. The recommendations and solutions on these reports could always be improved to make them more relevant, too. Lastly, the stability isn't that great, and sometimes it becomes non-responsive. I feel like the stability of the application is very average and currently needs more work.

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 helps us recognize sessions from certain IPs that are authorized to manage the application. This is a function we haven't found anywhere else."

"Good application firewall."

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

"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."

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

"It is a scalable solution."

"The setup is pretty easy."

"It integrates with AWS WAF, which makes it easy to deploy without changes to your infrastructure."

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

"Rapid7 AppSpider is good at managing different applications. It uses applets and generates reports to cover the PCA/GDPR compliance requirements."

"AppSpider's most valuable feature is reporting - everything is stored in the local database so it can be sent to other machines."

"The most valuable feature is the reporting, which is compliant with international standards."

"I would say that it is stable, as I am not aware of any major issues."

"The most valuable feature of Rapid7 AppSpider is the vulnerability reporting data. Additionally, the data is reported in a convenient way rather than seeing them as a PDF. We are able to generate all the reports exactly what we want in a flexible way."

"It is really accurate and the rate of false positives is very low."

"When it is set up properly, it can do scanning on web apps with multiple engines automatically."

"One of the most valuable features of AppSpider is its broad range of authentication identification, which is a key reason for its utilization."

More Rapid7 AppSpider pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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."

"The deployment can take some time because you can do a lot of configuring to meet the needs of the use cases for clients."

"In the LTM solution, it would be beneficial to have more algorithms for traffic segmentation or the ability to create user-defined algorithms rather than being restricted to predefined ones."

"The initial setup can be complex - it's quite flexible in terms of configuration, but the person configuring it needs to understand the application side, the network side, and the server."

"I used GitHub for autoscaling CloudFormation, and I found two bugs and I submitted them. Their implementation in GitHub could be cleaner and allow for a bit more customization."

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

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

"The solution is too slow. It could take a full day to scan. Competitors are much faster."

"One of the challenges I have with AppSpider is that it gives you a lot of false positives, especially when compared to other solutions."

"Implementing Rapid7 AppSpider requires scanning and self-identification mechanisms. You can add different types of authentication to each scan."

"There are some glitches with stability, and it is an area for improvement."

"The enterprise interface is too simple. It should be more customizable."

"For Japanese customers, localization is needed. The product should offer a GUI in Japanese and provide Japanese reports for end-users."

"The product needs to be able to scale for large companies, like ours. We have millions of IP addresses that need to be scanned, and the scalability is not great."

"It needs better integration with mobile applications."

More Rapid7 AppSpider cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Security should be involved in any base license. When you bring on F5, you only have default license. Then, the ASM product license has to be purchased. It would be great if F5 could include the ASM in the base license."

"I found F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) an expensive product. The costs would depend on the appliance and infrastructure size. However, my company didn't have to pay extra to use additional features."

"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."

"It is quite expensive as a product. Because it is very stable, it is also expensive."

"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."

"I would recommend that the cost be lowered."

"If your IT budget is good, go for it."

"It is a little pricey. I wish the pricing was cheaper, but I wish the pricing was cheaper for everything."

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

"The price is pretty fair."

"It is expensive if you want to buy the Enterprise version that is able to scan multiple applications at once."

"The licensing cost depends on the number of users."

"The price of Rapid7 AppSpider cost 9,000 annually but there is limited usage. Large companies are able to negotiate a better price or a better deal for the usage with the vendor."

"AppSpider is closed-source software and you need to acquire a license in order to use it."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 AppSpider?

The price is not high, but for Japanese customers, localization may incur additional costs.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Rapid7 AppSpider?

For Japanese customers, localization is needed. The product should offer a GUI in Japanese and provide Japanese reports for end-users.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Rapid7 AppSpider?

Our clients use AppSpider to address security concerns for their websites. It is particularly used by customers who require security assessments.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 19% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer 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

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

Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 42% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

Invicti vs Rapid7 AppSpider

Compared 7% of the time

OWASP Zap vs Rapid7 AppSpider

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

July 2025

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report

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

Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 AppSpider

June 2025

Download Rapid7 AppSpider 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

AppSpider

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.

SPAs, APIs, mobile—the evolution of application technology is measured in months, not years. Is your web application security testing tool designed to keep up? AppSpider lets you collect all the information needed to test all the apps so that you aren’t left with gaping application risks.

Our dynamic application security testing (DAST) solution crawls to the deepest, darkest corners of even the most modern and complex apps to effectively test for risk and get you the insight you need to remediate faster. With AppSpider on your side (or, rather, all of your sides), you’ll be able to scan all the apps today and always be ready for whatever comes next.

Rapid7

Sample Customers

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

Microsoft

Buyer's Guide

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

June 2025

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