Central solution to control traffic or web applications (besides NG Firewall).
Team Leader Mainframe & Webservices at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
The interface is intuitive and well structured. It is not overloaded with too many gimmicks.
Pros and Cons
- "The BIG-IP’s interface is more intuitive than other GUIs. It is well structured, not overloaded, and does not have too many gimmicks."
- "Initial setup was straightforward. We were up and running in three hours."
- "The ASM administration is quite complex. The topic itself is pretty complex, so it is not easy to provide a nice, clean interface. There are a lot of references and dependencies in-between the different subareas."
How has it helped my organization?
What is most valuable?
- Easy administration
- A lot of features
- Scriptable (iRules and REST API)
I have some experience with other load balancing providers. The BIG-IP’s interface is more intuitive than other GUIs. It is well structured, not overloaded, and does not have too many gimmicks.
What needs improvement?
The ASM administration is quite complex. I am a technical GUI expert (not UI). They did improve the ASM administration in each version, but added new features, too. The topic itself is pretty complex, so it is not easy to provide a nice, clean interface. There are a lot of references and dependencies in-between the different subareas.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not yet encountered any stability issues.
Buyer's Guide
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have not yet encountered any scalability issues.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is good. I have had nothing to complain about up until now.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used a different solution. We switched because the hardware was too old, and the other vendor did not have the same set of features.
How was the initial setup?
Initial setup was straightforward. We were up and running in three hours.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Take a look at the modules that you are going to use. Look into the best bundles for them.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing this product, I compared it with Radware. Cisco was already off the market, and Citrix was not as big as it is today.
What other advice do I have?
Use the community and DevCentral.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Security Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
iRule performs some traffic control and management functions that are not supported out of the box.
What is our primary use case?
We mainly use the following F5 modules
ISP environments:
- CGNAT
- DNS firewall
- Load balancer
- WAF to be sold as a service to their clients
Enterprise environments:
- Web application firewall
- Load balancer
- Application policy manager
- Fraud protection (Web and mobile)
- DDoS (on-premise, and cloud-based)
What is most valuable?
iRule: It's a great feature that helped us multiple times have an advantage over competition (during PoCs) performing some traffic control/management functions that are not supported out of the box. Use Case: One client was deploying a new web app, where video/chat Traffic is configured over the SOCKS protocol. We used iRule to disable the WAF Inspection when a SOCKS protocol packet passed through (because it is not supported), and enable the WAF Inspection for all other URLs on the same Web page. (No other vendor in our region was able to provide that.)
Appliance Performance: One of the main advantages we always have over competition is in hardware performance, where the smallest F5 appliances compete with competitors’ medium to high-end appliances, while high-end devices can sit in the datacenter without risking performance degradation.
What needs improvement?
- Reporting: One of the negative things about F5 is there is no place to generate a summary/executive/detailed report about everything happening on the box, especially for WAF & APM events. The only way to get some kind of report is enable the AVR module, and manually export the data required into PDF/XLS documents.
- GUI interface: F5 appliances lack a standard dashboard page, where it shows a summary for all events on the boxes. (This is usually available with firewalls & IPSs...) In the F5 GUI, we have to perform multiple steps to reach the required info, but there is no simple (and attractive) GUI interface when compared to some other WAF competitors.
- Event notifications
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not encountered any stability issues. It is a very stable product, even in big, high-load deployments. What I mean is that all F5 Hardware appliances are very stable and does not cause any performance degradation or failure when it has a high load (Of course a supported load).
We have deployment for different modules of F5 (LTM, ASM, CGNAT...) in Data Centers and in Telco's Public network, and we have never heard any complaints or of issues from our clients regarding the performance. - no packet drops, delays or disconnections.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We only encountered issues with small appliances, 2000s, when we needed to add more than two modules...
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is great.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Cisco ACE (for load balancing & WAF). We switched because the Cisco ACE solution features were very basic compared to F5. Plus, the solutions line was discontinued several years ago.
How was the initial setup?
Initial setup is straightforward; easy deployment with lots of available online documentation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
F5 Prices are considered higher then competitive solutions, but performance & features are worth the extra money.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Over our year of engagement with F5, we evaluated multiple products from other vendors and competed with many others, and we always found F5 products to be our first and best choice to advise our customers to use, with respect to:
- Performance, protection, stability, scalability
- Being modular based, for a better long term investment
F5 is dedicated to a specific technology line, which makes it the best of breed in the application delivery market. F5's main business is always focused on application delivery, whether in availability, security, or performance.
What other advice do I have?
F5 is a very stable and recommended product, whether needed on the internet edge or inside the data center. It can provide different application delivery solutions, such as:
- Load balancing
- Web application firewall
- Access policy manager
- Web fraud
- DDoS protection.
I rate it nine out of 10 because we are an F5 partner, and we have been selling and deploying different F5 modules for different industry vectors. In any deployment we always had a great customer experience, mainly in the following areas:
- performance stability
- overall stability
- rich features in the appliances, that customers can benefit from.
It's a modular-based appliance. You can double the performance specs by a license upgrade, and regarding features you can add a license for additional modules (E.g.: Web application firewall, application policy manager, fraud, DDoS). In general, for a client doing a proper ROI over five years, F5 appliances become their preferred choice.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Network Security Presales Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Completely stable solution with a perfect multi-data center
Pros and Cons
- "BIG-IP LTM is completely stable, and its performance is good."
- "BIG-IP LTM's sandboxing integration could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
I use BIG-IP LTM for load balancing and WAF.
What is most valuable?
The multi-data center is perfect.
What needs improvement?
BIG-IP LTM's sandboxing integration could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using BIG-IP LTM for two to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
BIG-IP LTM is completely stable, and its performance is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I believe BIG-IP LTM is scalable, but you have to pay for extra expansions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward, and I would rate the ease of the setup process as 4.5 out of five. The ACC deployment took one day, but the WAF tuning took around two weeks because it was a new application and needed tuning.
What about the implementation team?
We used an in-house team.
What was our ROI?
I would rate our ROI as 4.5 out of five.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
BIG-IP LTM isn't a cheap solution - I'd rate its pricing as three out of five.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I evaluated Citrix 40 Web.
What other advice do I have?
You need an expert to set up the policies, as it's not a straightforward process. I would give BIG-IP LTM a rating of nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Head of Data Centers Operations at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
It's stable. They could make the licensing more aligned with the business model.
What needs improvement?
I think the product is a good product. I think where they can improve is in the licensing. It's quite expensive. They could make it more aligned with the business model than with the hardware.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable product but sometimes we have some issues. I have other products that are competitors of F5, and they are also good. The performance of F5 so far is good.
Usually, because we are responsible for providing high availability, we run our architecture with redundancy. Usually, for example, when I have F5, I have a couple of F5s, the active one and the standby one. Today, I had problems. I don't know what happened; it couldn't reload automatically. The other one assumed that I have problems with my infrastructure. That's unfortunately the life of an operations guy.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable and should meet our future requirements.
How is customer service and technical support?
Technical support is OK. Usually, you don't have direct support from the vendor. You have intermediating in the middle.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is not straightforward. To set up this product, you must know how to do it. Otherwise, you can't do it. It's not plug and play.
What other advice do I have?
They could buy it but there are other choices such as Cisco ACE products, as well. We have it. They are also good. F5 are good. Usually, I'm not locked into one vendor.
The reality is our bookkeeping department unfortunately has a problem with them. Because of that, I have had some issues concerning getting services from the vendor.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Hello there
I have a couple of comments on some points:
Stability Issues:
==> We have deployed F5 LTM, ASM, CGNAT, DNS FW in large and heavy use environments (Telcos, ISPs, Data Centers...) and there was never any stability performance issues in either a single appliance performance, or Failover mechanism
Are you sure there is not routing/Connectivity issues between the two Boxes?
Was the HA tested well upon deployment? maybe there is some mis-configuration that led to this failure in
Initial Setup:
The setup is not straightforward. To set up this product, you must know how to do it. Otherwise, you can't do it. It's not plug and play.
--> Am not sure if you have worked on other reverse proxy solutions or not, but it can never get easier or simpler (or less Steps) from what F5 is providing, on the contrary, configure a new Setup on F5 BIG-IP is considered a straight-forward and fast configuration feature.
I hope you take my comments positively, it's just that i was surprised reading about your bad experience with it, as we've been working with F5 products for more then 5-6 years, and we have a very successful and positive experience, specially in the points you have focused on.
Vice President of It Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Stable solution with good security features
Pros and Cons
- "It is a scalable solution."
- "The solution's hardware quality needs improvement."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for its load balancing and web application firewall features.
What is most valuable?
The solution's valuable features are flexibility, stability, security, and performance.
What needs improvement?
The solution's hardware quality needs improvement. Also, its cloud-based anti-DDoS has limitations. It could be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution. I rate its stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution. I rate its scalability an eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The solution's technical support is good in some areas. Although, it could be faster.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In comparison with Barracuda, the solution has better performance.
How was the initial setup?
The solution is easy to install. It takes a day to configure and requires three engineers to execute the process. Also, it requires one executive to maintain it.
What was our ROI?
The solution is good in terms of investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is more expensive than Barracuda. We pay yearly for its support services. There are no additional costs involved apart from the standard license.
What other advice do I have?
One must check the performance capacity of internal applications while using the solution, as wrong configurations lead to failure in accessing them.
I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solution Architect at Softcell Technologies Limited
Is a stable product from a stable company that is focusing more on security
Pros and Cons
- "It is a stable product from a stable company. Recently, they have been more focused on security as well."
- "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."
What is most valuable?
It is a stable product from a stable company. Recently, they have been more focused on security as well.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've worked with this solution for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
In my experience, I have received excellent support from F5 for any technical issues that I or my customers have faced. I have had no issues with technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is little bit on higher side, compared to the cost of NGINX.
What other advice do I have?
If you are a partner, then I would recommend that you go through the partner portal videos because they have very good training videos that help you to learn the product and technology when it comes to implementation. It helps a lot with implementation, and they have detailed documentation that explains the implementation process step by step. Once you go through that, you'll definitely have a clear understanding of the implementation process. Without that, it may be a little bit tricky for you to complete the implementation in a smooth manner.
I would rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) at eight on a scale from one to ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Sr. SAP Portfolio Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Capable of handling huge workloads, good stability, and good scalability
Pros and Cons
- "One of the greatest things about F5 Load Balancer is that it provides additional capability for handling huge workloads and routing them to an SAP or non-SAP application. It is capable of supporting a large amount of user workload and application connectivity workload. This was the main reason why we chose F5."
- "It is a hardware load balancer, and its installation procedure is more complex than a software load balancer. There are pros and cons of using hardware load balancing. You have to have specific hardware deployed in your data center to activate this load balancer. They never came up with any software-based load balancing solution. It is all hardware-based."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for load balancing any kind of HTTP and HTTPS traffic coming from users or other systems.
What is most valuable?
One of the greatest things about F5 Load Balancer is that it provides additional capability for handling huge workloads and routing them to an SAP or non-SAP application. It is capable of supporting a large amount of user workload and application connectivity workload. This was the main reason why we chose F5.
What needs improvement?
It is a hardware load balancer, and its installation procedure is more complex than a software load balancer. There are pros and cons of using hardware load balancing. You have to have specific hardware deployed in your data center to activate this load balancer. They never came up with any software-based load balancing solution. It is all hardware-based.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Its stability is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. We have around 2,000 plus users.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support is fine.
How was the initial setup?
It is a hardware load balancer, so its installation procedure is more complex than a software load balancer. You need specific hardware to install this load balancer.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We had evaluated a few SAP solutions, but we found F5 to be more suitable at that time.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. We have been using it for such a long time, and we are quite happy with it as an organization. It is awesome, and we plan to keep using it till we are on-prem. It has been good for our on-prem setup.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. I am quite satisfied with this solution.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Network Presales Manager at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Alert notification window notifies of any issues and will then resolve them
Pros and Cons
- "F5 BIG-IP is used with good applications and functions as an application firewall with additional features. We will not use any feature or any service unless there is a business case and there is a need for implementation."
- "There are issues with F5 BIG-IP but they are minor issues not affecting production and services. Sometimes the operations and the facility systems fail. However, there is an alert action from the windows. An ordeal for the manager."
What is our primary use case?
We use F5 BIG-IP with LTM burst, SM burst, and ETM burst. We use it in our cloud service and all our service centers. We even offer F5 BIG-IP to our partners.
How has it helped my organization?
As a firm, we use F5 BIG-IP to provide load balancing over many to increase one of the hardware appliances that carries loads over the throughput they are providing.
Ultimately, the service has not affected our customers. However, there was a failure in one of the nodes that became infected.
F5 BIG-IP did not sense that the virus was there. The security didn't function.
What is most valuable?
F5 BIG-IP is used with good applications and functions as an application firewall with additional features.
I've been building F5 BIG-IP. We will not use any feature or any service unless there is a business case and there is a need for business implementation.
What needs improvement?
The products are great and easy to upgrade from time to time to improve functionality. F5 BIG-IP is working fine. We use it more in production and operations.
There are issues with F5 BIG-IP but they are minor issues, not big ones. This does not affect production and services.
Sometimes the operations and the facility systems fail. However, there is an alert action from the windows.
Related to the groups, when it comes to cost, rates are regulated. When the market is not good, then we will consider doing the increase.
In general, there are more features that could be provided with F5 BIG-IP if it were not so costly.
From application to application to customer respects, you can't always customize software based on customer requirements. If you don't consider that, you can't deliver.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP has good scalability. We have a team managing the product. The team consists of three specialists, but they do not manage that many customers, they manage customers.
How are customer service and technical support?
We're beginning to align well with F5 BIG-IP. I've been in contact with customer service.
I have notifications from the alert window and all of the issues would be resolved.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not straightforward. You can consider F5 BIG-IP as a standard. It is not complex. In the end, the product itself is serving the business and services.
What about the implementation team?
For deployment, we used one engineer only. The main point to consider is the client's position. We have to respect the client's business requirements.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
5 BIG-IP is too expensive at the current licensing costs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate other options but chose 5 BIG-IP on basis of merit.
What other advice do I have?
We use F5 BIG-IP a lot in production right now. The product is indispensable to us.
I would rate the product an overall nine out of ten. Most of the benefits of F5 BIG-IP are cyclical because of the licensing costs.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
Product Categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)Popular Comparisons
Cisco Umbrella
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform
OpenVPN Access Server
F5 Advanced WAF
Fortinet FortiWeb
Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect)
Imperva Web Application Firewall
Check Point Remote Access VPN
Buyer's Guide
Download our free F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
- F5 vs. Imperva WAF?
- F5 BIG-IP vs. Radware Alteon Comparison
- What is the performance parameter of Imperva X10K versus BIG-IP i2600?
- What are your daily F5 BIG-IP LTM use cases?
- What are the pros and cons of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway for a large construction company?
- When evaluating Application Delivery Controllers, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
- Comparison Between Kemp LoadMaster and Load Balancer.org
- Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?
- What are your daily F5 BIG-IP LTM use cases?
- Why do I need an ADC solution?
Its easy to administer and a an excellent product for load balancing.