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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
6.8
Number of Reviews
124
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (1st)
Rapid7 AppSpider
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (30th)
 

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 12.4%, down 15.3% compared to last year.
Rapid7 AppSpider, on the other hand, focuses on Static Application Security Testing (SAST), holds 0.8% mindshare, up 0.5% since last year.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)12.4%
NetScaler11.5%
Fortinet FortiADC8.4%
Other67.7%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Rapid7 AppSpider0.8%
SonarQube14.2%
Checkmarx One9.1%
Other75.9%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

edshyaa - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at Stryker
Load balancing has improved traffic distribution and currently supports high availability upgrades
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) offers effective load balancing methods that help distribute traffic across our servers, whether we have two or several. This load balancing feature stands out as it is the fundamental work we do with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). While I recognize there are many features, such as iRules, which I have not explored yet, we primarily work on VIPs, pool members, and traffic distribution. The load balancing algorithms' flexibility makes them very useful for our team, enabling us to choose different servers and manage load effectively. We use various methods based on user or application requirements, making the algorithms set up by F5 in the backend quite helpful. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) positively impacts our organization primarily through its load balancing capabilities. We avoid traffic overload on individual servers by placing backend servers behind F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) VIP. This load balancing helps us manage traffic effectively. Since the configuration of the I-series, we have had smooth performance, and with the recent migration to the R-series, it is working faster than before, providing positive outcomes for our operations. Since moving to the R-series, I notice improved performance; it is user-friendly and handles traffic efficiently. The upgrading process is different as we create tenants and a main host. R-series has better CPU and memory, leading to higher throughput with minimal downtime, making it a significant improvement over the I-series.
HW
Marketing Expert at J's communication
Clients benefit from broad authentication and effective crawling but need localization improvements
Our clients use AppSpider to address security concerns for their websites. It is particularly used by customers who require security assessments One of the most valuable features of AppSpider is its broad range of authentication identification, which is a key reason for its utilization.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have Big-IP change and control manager, which give me the roll back option. Therefore, I can view the last things which happened on the device."
"LTM."
"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."
"I like that F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is a product that comes with valuable features, but what stands out from all features is load balancing."
"It is a stable product but sometimes we have some issues."
"I have never faced any stability issues with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)."
"If I were to choose one key feature in particular, perhaps it would be the iRule feature. It’s a really versatile tool."
"When I put F5 into my network, it works better."
"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 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."
"When it is set up properly, it can do scanning on web apps with multiple engines automatically."
"This solution is a leader in the industry."
"The solution is highly stable, rated at ten out of ten."
"The setup is usually straightforward."
"It does a scan that performs about 100 checks on web applications and produces a clear report on all of the vulnerabilities that are found."
"I like the ability the product has to detect vulnerabilities quickly, when it has been released in our environment, then displaying them to us."
 

Cons

"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"
"Reporting could be improved and configuration made easier."
"The initial setup was straightforward, but it took some time to complete."
"The price of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is too high."
"Technical support could be faster. It's something I'd like to see them work on in the future."
"F5 has another solution to load balance servers on the cloud, which they got after the purchase of NGINX. It is deployed as Kubernetes or something like that, but the problem now is that they have two solutions for two situations. They should make F5 deployable on the cloud."
"I'm not very sure about the security with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). We have our own private data center, but we are going to migrate our private data center into the Azure cloud environment. Security will then be a major concern when we migrate our own whole infrastructure to the public cloud."
"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."
"For Japanese customers, localization is needed. The product should offer a GUI in Japanese and provide Japanese reports for end-users."
"This price of this solution is a little bit expensive."
"Integration could be better."
"Implementing Rapid7 AppSpider requires scanning and self-identification mechanisms. You can add different types of authentication to each scan."
"The documentation about integration with AppSpider is bad news and some integrations are quite difficult to do right now."
"AppSpider has some problems with the RAM needed while scanning."
"Support response times are slow and can be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is inclusive of many features."
"I use a yearly subscription, which is the most expensive one now compared to its competitors."
"It is a bit expensive product. Kemp Loadmaster is much cheaper than F5. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It can be for one year or three years."
"The price is high."
"This product is costly from a licensing perspective considering its competitors."
"BIG-IP LTM isn't a cheap solution - I'd rate its pricing as three out of five."
"You can buy it on a yearly basis, or you can go for a subscription. For on-premise boxes, it is just the RMA."
"BIG-IP LTM is considered a premium product, so it's quite expensive and isn't affordable for all customers."
"The licensing cost depends on the number of users."
"AppSpider is closed-source software and you need to acquire a license in order to use it."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise86
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) could improve file upload speeds when opening cases and attaching files; sometimes, downloading files like QKView takes time, depending on size. I expect faste...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?
My main use case for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is placing our applications on F5 and the backend servers on the pool. We also regularly renew SSL certificates before they expire, usuall...
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.
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.
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.
 

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

 

Sample Customers

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