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F5 BIG-IQ vs vCenter Orchestrator 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IQ
Ranking in Process Automation
27th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
vCenter Orchestrator
Ranking in Process Automation
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IQ is 0.2%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCenter Orchestrator is 0.2%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

AshutoshMalik - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless migration enhances user management for data center administrators
The product is excellent. It is easily manageable and user-friendly for administrators working on both the GUI and CLI. The best part is the seamless migration of the configuration from one box to another, even when hardware changes. This is particularly beneficial during migrations from old boxes to new ones. While other vendors might have issues, F5 BIG-IQ ( /products/f5-big-iq-reviews ) provides a smooth transition.
David Villota - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides automatic monitoring capabilities that save time for users
In my company's IT environment, we use the tool to deploy production environments for products, including live manufacturing systems. The product improves my company's IT automation processes since we can use fewer resources currently. In my company, we need to spend less time considering that vCenter Orchestrator monitors everything. In general, we don't have to be present in our company to do active monitoring. Automatic monitoring is available for everything with vCenter Orchestrator, so we have proactive alerts in our company. The most valuable feature of the product in streamlining our company's workflow stems from the fact that we need to spend fewer resources and less time in general. Our company can spend time on more effective tasks like working with the plans to improve processes and so on, instead of taking care of the systems. The benefits of the product's integration capabilities were useful for HPE. My company has HPE infrastructure, and we are keen to integrate everything into the host, VMware ESXi. It is really important to have an easy integration method that allows for everything to be installed easily in a matter of minutes. I was not involved in the product's setup process. My colleague took care of the product's setup process. From what I know, I can say that the product's setup phase was straightforward. Some custom setups were to be done manually in the tool, but everything was well documented. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. One of the benefits of the product is that it is a low-cost and stable solution that offers a lot of resources. I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is quite good in a large environment where I have multiple devices; it is easy to manage the devices."
"The best aspect of the solution is that we can have everything integrated with a rather large capacity in order to personalize and configure specific rules."
"Features like AFM, the gateway, and Global DNS are the coolest features that save work for us."
"We use this solution on a daily basis, and it is very stable."
"The reporting feature is quite good."
"F5 BIG-IQ reduces the propensity for error."
"The product is excellent."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a central management system for the BIG-IP."
"The most valuable feature is affinity rules."
"Communication with technical support is very good. It has a repository of knowledge base articles which we can access which are very helpful."
"The solution was easy to install."
"The most valuable feature for us is the performance stability of vCenter Orchestrator, especially in complex situations, making it excellent for managing virtual machines."
"The solution is pretty stable and reliable."
"The tool is very beneficial for automating workflow."
"Because of the central management, the scripting engine and workflow engine are integrated with VMware without any burden to integrate different products."
"What I like best about vCenter Orchestrator is that it makes life easier through automation. People can request to automate all processes with vCenter Orchestrator, such as adding storage, creating VMs, removing VMs, and extending VMs."
 

Cons

"I had trouble with high availability deployment in my environment."
"The solution's rSeries has been made free, and iSeries should be made free as well."
"A bug caused me to lose all the configuration."
"The solution should improve pricing. It's expensive in comparison to other American solutions."
"They could use YAML or JSON if they wanted to make it a little bit easier for us."
"Sometimes the solution does not work."
"The shell, kernel, or Linux has something like a delay, especially with the Virtual Edition, when you are trying to implement it in the cloud and you want to access it remotely with web management. It would be great if they could improve their kernel. It was difficult for me, especially when I got started with BIG-IP. I was struggling to find which commands work with it. If you want to work with it, you have to be a Linux guy."
"F5 BIG-IQ should improve by being a complete certificate management solution because currently, it is only for Venafi. Other automation platforms, should be added."
"This is an expensive solution."
"There can be compatibility issues."
"VMware tools would benefit from more automation. When installing our devices and servers, we often need to install the VMware tools manually. This process should be automated during the VM installation process."
"We would like more flexibility in sizing data storage and virtual machines, as the current options aren't very adaptable."
"The interface could be improved to bring greater user-friendliness and ease of use."
"The cost of the solution is high."
"It could be integrated with third-party hypervisors."
"I liked the previous client better than the current web client of vCenter Orchestrator, though my colleagues like the client now. The technical support for vCenter Orchestrator needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"F5 BIG-IQ is a cheap solution."
"There is only one licensing fee for F5 BIG-IQ and everything is included in the price."
"I would like the product to be cheaper."
"Users have to pay an annual subscription fee for the solution's iSeries."
"vCenter Orchestrator is an expensive solution."
"We pay a yearly fee, based on our entries."
"The concept of hyper-convergence is smart. I don't know if it can be applied with less cost to be more affordable for small or medium-sized companies. The cost is a very important factor for it. We are currently depending on SAN storage. However, the hyper-converged solutions are depending on the storage within the hosts, such as vSAN in the VMware. It is a smart solution."
"We provide the VMware solution to our clients, for which they pay a perpetual license."
"Our licensing is on a yearly basis. We pay for the license and then we pay the support every year."
"The licensing cost is manageable because they have different versions available, standard, essential, and advanced."
"I rate the product price a seven to eight out of ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"My organization didn't have to pay extra for vCenter Orchestrator. It was already included, so it's basically free. Even VMware regular support is included."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IQ?
F5 BIG-IQ is a central management system for the BIG-IP.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IQ?
The product is really good with no significant downsides. However, better and simpler integration with ACI could improve the product.
What do you like most about vCenter Orchestrator?
The stability of the product is very good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vCenter Orchestrator?
We're running a low-profile budget. This is not our main focus on investment technology, so we're trying to reduce costs due to the change from perpetual to subscription licenses.
What needs improvement with vCenter Orchestrator?
After the change from perpetual licensing to subscriptions, the cost model changed. We are considering alternatives since we lost the perpetual aspect, and support is changing.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Beiersdorf Shared Services
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IQ vs. vCenter Orchestrator and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.