Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services 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 Virtual Edition
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (7th)
F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
CDN (10th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (20th), API Security (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition and F5 Distributed Cloud Services aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is designed for Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) and holds a mindshare of 0.9%.
F5 Distributed Cloud Services, on the other hand, focuses on CDN, holds 2.4% mindshare, up 1.0% since last year.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition0.9%
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)14.3%
NetScaler12.7%
Other72.1%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Distributed Cloud Services2.4%
Cloudflare18.7%
Akamai14.4%
Other64.5%
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2800392 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cloud deployment has simplified traffic distribution and now supports flexible multi-zone DR
Regarding F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition's improvement areas, the current dashboard is very useful, but I believe the registration process should be simplified in the virtual edition. Especially in the Azure environment, many features are not currently aligned and working with Azure. We need to make efforts to ensure it is well integrated with Azure. Currently, if we want to integrate route tables with the virtual F5 edition, we need to deploy scripting inside the virtual F5 instances, and then that script performs the virtual IP route table changes in the Azure environment. This feature should be auto-configured, and efforts are needed to ensure the virtual edition is very much aligned with the Azure environment. I am expecting this improvement in the next edition. The failover capability is also not as good as it should be. We have tested the failover functionality, and sometimes we have observed that failover fails. F5 does not successfully fail over to other instances perfectly, so that also needs to be improved. Security should also be enhanced, as in the past I have seen some security loopholes. Tightening of security should be included in the new software. These improvements should be present in near future editions.
Mohan Janarthanan - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Centralized security has protected APIs and optimized multi‑cloud traffic management
F5 Distributed Cloud Services has been used for two years for DDoS protection, and there is a particular feature called API protection. Within API protection, there is malicious user mitigation, which is one particular technology that has been implemented. This is a kind of advanced bot attack prevention. Malicious user mitigation is an AI/ML-based technology that was introduced by the F5 team, and this particular MUG protects rate limiting. If some users are having anomaly detection or someone is trying to do a bot attack, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge for that particular user alone and not for all users. For example, if someone is trying to act as a rogue, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge in the backend system on that particular system, so they cannot try again and again at the same time. It is for a concurrent session, and it will give the CAPTCHA challenge. This MUG, malicious user mitigation, prevents bot attacks. F5 Distributed Cloud Services includes the real-time intelligence feature, which helps with threat response strategies from a threat intelligence perspective. For example, if there are geo-restrictions or geo-based restrictions, sometimes people may come in through proxy-based servers, and it will prevent that. The load balancing feature optimizes application performance. Observability is the basic piece where F5 got introduced. This observability piece provides end-to-end visibility on the application performance. It gives complete end-to-end visibility across network latency and application performance issues. Sometimes when it is getting more than 200 pages, it throws errors such as 300, 400, or whatever has been configured, including 500 errors. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has helped improve traffic management efficiency. Most applications are hosted in the Check Point and F5 firewall, F5 web application firewall, where applications and traffic management can be accessed in a single dashboard. Automated threat detection is a basic feature of F5 Distributed Cloud Services meant for that purpose. There are two scenarios with automated threat detection, which is provided by F5. It is a completely machine learning solution that came from the bot defense, and it automatically protects against sophisticated attacks.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My advice to others looking into using F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is to definitely go with the full potential of F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition LTM, as it is a great product that will make your life easier and reduce costs, and they provide great support with a TAC team that is there whenever needed."
"Using F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, specifically the LTM, has significantly reduced downtime."
"I would advise others considering F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition that it is the best instrument for load balancing."
"F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition has positively impacted my organization by simplifying management, as we previously had to manage hardware boxes, and now with the virtual edition it is easy to use and reliable, and we have been working with it for the last three to four years without a single issue reported, making it a very reliable and stable product."
"It has DoS layer 7 protection, which not many vendors have."
"I truly appreciate the power of F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition compared to any other vendor we have used, and we have seen more use cases coming in, proving it to be better than other products."
"F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition has helped me complete tasks faster with fewer errors, and it makes onboarding easier for new users because its well-designed graphical user interface that freshers can easily adopt."
"Overall, the application stability and performance are all at par."
"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."
"Technical support from F5 is good compared to Cisco and HP."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well."
 

Cons

"My experience with pricing and setup costs for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition was mixed, as they do not have an option for 10 gig licensing, which was costly for us."
"A downside of F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is that to capture TCP dump, in Palo Alto, we can do it within the UI itself. However, here, to capture the TCP dump, we need to log in into the CLI and be familiar with the commands."
"As per my understanding, there is a need to improve support. Sometimes it is very critical to get support for that."
"The improvement points I can suggest are that F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition tends to be highly resource-intensive, as we often encounter issues with high CPU, RAM, and storage utilization, particularly with ASM and LTM modules."
"It's expensive and could be cheaper."
"Improvements for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition should include training for newcomers."
"On-the-go upgrades are an option that the tool currently lacks, making it an area where improvements are required."
"BIG-IP could improve in supporting microservices, for example, in Docker and Kubernetes environments."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."
"For small players, it is completely not worth it."
"Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed."
"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."
"For small players, it is completely not worth it."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is standard."
"My company's customers need to make payments for the licensing charges attached to the product. It is an expensive product."
"I would rate the pricing a three out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is an expensive solution, but it's worth the price."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.
884,266 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
The integration capabilities of the product are easy to use, and there is no complexity involved in it.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
Improvements for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition should include training for newcomers. If they are not aware, it can be beneficial for them to learn. In authentication, there is currently a single metho...
What advice do you have for others considering F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
I would definitely recommend F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition to others so they can opt for this option.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four out of ten since it is not a cheap product.
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed. Since 30 minutes of downtime is huge for applications, maintenance, it impa...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
F5 Distributed Cloud Services is being used for web application firewall along with API security, bot protection, and DDoS protection. There are two scenarios involving web applications and mobile ...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
884,266 professionals have used our research since 2012.