F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer comparison

F5 and VMware are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. F5 is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5, while VMware is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.3. F5 holds a 15.3% mindshare in ADC, compared to VMware’s 3.5% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 71% of VMware users who would recommend it.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Read 118 F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) reviews

8,944 Views
7,360 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Read 8 VMWare Avi Load Balancer reviews

2,618 Views
1,687 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and VMWare Avi Load Balancer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer Report (Updated: September 2024).

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer

September 2024

Download the complete report

Helped 801,394 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

118

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

12th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2024, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.3%, down from 16.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMWare Avi Load Balancer is 3.5%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

Mahmoud-Yassin

Head of IT Infrastructure and Security Operations at United Arab Bank

Mar 9, 2023

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

Suliman Saleh

Digital Transformation Management Director at IU

Mar 18, 2024

Simplifies network infrastructure management, but the network analytics and monitoring features are not effective

The solution helped us balance the load of our critical systems The solution has simplified our network infrastructure management. We can use one virtual ID for two services. The tool helped my previous organization a lot. The network analytics and monitoring features are not effective. The…

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 provides first-tier firewalling, for you application. And it provides server load-balancing, it provides optimization, and it provides a proxy feature, where your users cannot directly access your server. It acts as a fully proxy architecture. It has client-side and server-side connections, both, and they're separate."

"Currently, it's distributing the load perfectly, as per my understanding of our requirements."

"The value and impact of using F5 BIG-IP LTM for application delivery control in our organization are significant."

"In my team, we work in a very agile environment and the solutions from BIG-IP, including BIG-IP WAF, suit us well when developing and serving our applications."

"The product is very stable. We put a decent amount of stress on it given our load."

"The support from F5 BIG-IP LTM is good."

"I've worked a little bit with iRules and it is amazing."

"The most valuable feature is the proxy."

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

"What's most valuable in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is its deployment capability, the ability to deploy in a dispersed service, with the service engines that can disperse and have a single control plane that can control the load balancing services across any available platform, wherever needed. The analytics of Avi Networks Software Load Balancer and flexibility of deployment are its most valuable features and the reasons why many people buy it."

"Its visibility and login mechanism are the best parts. In addition to the great visibility it has a great dashboard and an easy to configure graphic user interface, a beautiful GUI."

"The most valuable feature of the solution for my organization is its UI since it allows us to see the clusters while providing a very specific and good overall understanding."

"The interface and software features are the most valuable aspects of this solution."

"The solution has simplified our network infrastructure management."

"The friendly user interface is valuable."

"The solution is stable."

"The WAF - the web application firewall itself - is great."

Cons

"We would like to have integration into encryption and PKI integration with SafeNet. That is probably the key component in using External PKIs, letting people bring their PKIs with them."

"Initial setup is tricky, if you do not understand the design of this product."

"Certificate management needs improvement. I would like automated deployment of new certificates without manual intervention to be in the next release of this product."

"Right now, there are a lot of products within F5's portfolio. They acquired a couple of companies like NGINX and Volterra. Some features and technologies overlapped when this acquisition occurred. They need to refine it and come up with a single, proper solution. F5 should focus more on zero trust network access (ZTNA).They should be more focused on that framework because the industry is moving towards that. Everyone is talking about SASE and zero trust."

"The management interface is unclear, complex, and not concise. I would like a better user interface."

"F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is expensive. Pricing needs to be improved."

"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."

"The license terms for "non-commercial" will are challenging for us."

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

"It doesn't match the development structure or user community of our existing product. It pales in comparison to that."

"The network analytics and monitoring features are not effective."

"In terms of improvement, the pricing and documentation need improvement. We have had problems getting the documents."

"I did not go with it because their APM module is a different product altogether. It's a common thing that companies do. They sell something and then they add on top of it as a different product. It is a type of marketing strategy. But when it comes to the overall management, it takes a lot of time to really look into it."

"The initial setup is a bit complex."

"One struggle with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is its integration with other VMware products. Integration could be improved in the solution so that you have a more unified control plane with it and other data center security and networking products that VMware sells. There has been a bit of a lag on the roadmap of new features that have come out there recently, but better interoperability with the hyperscale environments such as the AWS, Azure, GCPs of the world, and simpler deployment and interoperability with those existing tools, are areas that are receiving attention and could use additional attention today. These are the areas for improvement in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer."

"IDS and IPS sites need to be more progressive."

"Avi Networks Software Load Balancer needs to improve its documentation."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"F5 is more expensive than other solutions, so you have to be sure F5 is the best solution to fit the requirements."

"The solution is more expensive than one of its competitors."

"The licensing strategy for F5 is good."

"Our company pays for the licensing cost on a yearly basis. Also, there are no extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"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."

"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."

"F5 is expensive."

"This product is costly from a licensing perspective considering its competitors."

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

"I rate the solution price a four to five on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high, since it is an affordable tool."

"The tool is expensive."

"With Avi Networks, you can buy a 10-Gig license and, if your primary data center goes down, in the flick of a switch you can move that license to your backup data center and it will generate the traffic... there are a lot of cost-effective measures."

"The licensing costs for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer are really variable. The product can be sold from a bandwidth utilization perspective. It can be sold from a per CPU perspective, depending on if you're looking at on-premises or hyperscale environments. Licensing costs vary quite a bit if you're familiar with the AWS Calculator, where you can see that it can widely vary per licensing model. On a scale of one to five, with one being not very good value for the money and five being great, I would rate the pricing for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer a five because its pricing is extremely competitive. Not all features are included with the license, for example, there's single licensing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP?

The support from F5 BIG-IP LTM is good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP?

There are a few licensing options available for F5 BIG-IP LTM. You can have a perpetual license which is a lifetime license. You then only need to renew the support, if you choose to open a ticket ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?

The solution has simplified our network infrastructure management.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?

The tool is expensive. It is not cheap. The product must be cheaper.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?

The network analytics and monitoring features are not effective. The product does not provide deep troubleshooting features. The solution must provide public IP features. F5 provides such features.

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 17% of the time

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

Compared 14% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway 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

F5 Advanced WAF vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 6% of the time

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

NetScaler vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Compared 31% of the time

HAProxy vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Compared 9% of the time

NGINX Plus vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Compared 8% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Compared 5% of the time

Radware Alteon vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Compared 4% of the time

More VMWare Avi Load Balancer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

September 2024

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report

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

Buyer's Guide

VMWare Avi Load Balancer

August 2024

Download VMWare Avi Load Balancer 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

Avi Software Load Balancer

Learn More

VMware

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.

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is an application delivery controller (ADC) platform. The solution provides scalable application delivery across any infrastructure and allows your organization to deliver multi-cloud application services, such as load balancing, autoscaling, application security, container networking, and web application firewall. It is designed with 100% software load balancing to ensure a fast and secure application experience. Additionally, Avi Networks Software Load Balancer offers elasticity and delivers intelligence across any environment.

The Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is unique because

It can scale from 0 to 1 million SSL transactions per second in minutes.
It can achieve 90% faster provisioning and 50% lower TCO than a traditional appliance-based approach.

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer Product Highlights

Troubleshoots application issues in less than a minute.
Alerts you of potential risks with SSL certificates and TLS versions used.
End-to-end timing for each transaction to help solve end-user experience issues.

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer Features

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Automated application delivery
Seamless integration with the CI/CD
Built-in analytics
End-to-end visibility
Actionable insights
Security
“Network DVR”-like capability to record and replay specific transactions
Google-like search filters transactions based on device, location, errors, etc.

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Avi Networks Software Load Balancer. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Multi-cloud application services: Avi Networks Software Load Balancer provides consistent, enterprise-grade application services, including load balancing, WAF, and container networking across heterogeneous environments. The multi-cloud application services can be deployed on bare metal, VMs, or containers in any data center or public cloud environments.

Faster application provisioning: With this solution, you gain automation with 100% REST APIs and self-service like public cloud.

Better business decisions: Avi Networks Software Load Balancer uses analytics to deliver application insights and help you drive more intelligent decisions.

Containerized applications: Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is a proven solution to deploy container-based workloads in production environments using Kubernetes/OpenShift/Tanzu clusters. It includes multi-cluster, multi-site support for containerized applications.

Lower TCO: The solution is 100% software, and does not require any proprietary hardware. In addition, because it offers on-demand autoscaling, there is no over-provisioning. Lastly, point-and-click application troubleshooting means there is no need for a black box.

Software-defined architecture: Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is designed with a software-defined architecture with a centralized control plane (Avi Controller) and distributed data plane (Avi Service Engine). Because of this, elastic autoscaling is made easy.

Better end-user visibility: The solution gives you granular visibility into end-user experiences and server response in real time. It also empowers application owners with end-user stats to optimize and improve apps.

Application health score: Avi Networks Software Load Balancer summarizes analytics information into a helpful health score that provides a quick snapshot of the overall applications. The health score it provides is determined by server response time, resource usage, anomalous traffic, and security posture.

Sample Customers

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

Palo Alto Networks, DGDean, Swisslos

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer

September 2024

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.

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