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 with the support. The second option is a subscription model on the cloud. When I have a project that will only one year. I purchase a subscription for one year only. It would work for the whole year and after we can shut it down because there is no need for it.
F5 price is higher than the competition but they provide a Swiss army-like tool that is unmatched by their competition.Â
If you purchase the hardware, you only pay one time for the licensing and you can pay maintenance on an annual basis to get software updates. We bought our unit (used on eBay) to save a lot of money. It works well even with the older version of the software.
Head of Presales at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
MSP
Jun 22, 2022
BIG-IP LTM is considered a premium product, so it's quite expensive and isn't affordable for all customers. F5's licensing is based on modules, so there are separate charges depending on which features you want.
Senior Network Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
May 22, 2022
It was probably a one-time purchase and then you have maintenance, but I don't have the details on that. We bought what they called the Best bundle at the time, which pretty much included all of the modules. There was probably no additional cost afterward.
Learn what your peers think about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
Security Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Reseller
Feb 17, 2021
The costs could be lower. In a report, we found that Citrix Solutions are somehow cheaper - including in relation to encryption licensing. I cannot compare as I haven't spoken to Citrix. I don't know if it's easier or has the same (or more features). That said, I wouldn't describe this product as cheap.
System Engineer at PT Nusantara Compnet Integrator
Real User
Jan 22, 2021
The solution is quite expensive if we compare it with the competition. For only load balancer, it is too expensive. The license is subscription-based, except for the security model.
CTO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Jan 12, 2021
The price should be reduced because it is expensive when compared to the competition. Alternatively, bundled packages should be offered. This is an issue that shows up for most of our customers.
Director of Network Strategies and Technologies at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Dec 4, 2020
The cost is quite high. The long-term support in particular is quite high. Customers need to be aware that each feature is licensable, which allows costs to accrue.
Head Of Technology at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Dec 4, 2020
When we purchased additional licenses for our other locations, we received a discount of between 20% and 25%. My understanding is that they matched the competitor's price.
Network Security Specialist at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Nov 11, 2020
F5 pricing is too high, compared to Citrix. If a big sector or a company needs more security and more control over applications and the ADC, F5 is the best choice. But if a company needs only an ADC, without the web application firewall features, Citrix is fine.
When you purchase the virtual edition or the hardware, it comes with the base license. There are additional costs depending on what modules or what functionality is required.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Consultant
Jan 14, 2019
There are three relevant things about purchasing through the AWS Marketplace: * It Increase protection against web attacks. * It integrates with AWS WAF, which makes it easy to deploy without changes to your infrastructure. * F5 manages your AWS WAF rules, so you don't have to. We purchased through the AWS Marketplace because it was a popular way to go, and we were intrigued. The price of this product is not an issue. They have good pricing and licensing.
Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Dec 11, 2018
It is sort of a commodity product. A load balancer is a load balancer. What will be, at the end of the day, the cheapest option or have the best performance, that is what it will come down to. Can it do the necessary performance that we need, and if so, is there a cheaper alternative? If not, then we'll stick with what we have.
We are going to the AWS Marketplace because purchasing there is simple to do. We are looking for the ease it provides. We have tried other providers, but it wasn't as good.
Chief Security Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Dec 11, 2018
Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was good. We chose to go through the AWS Marketplace because everything that we needed was a soft appliance. We needed something to work in Amazon, and this product was available there. We have found the pricing and licensing on AWS to be competitive.
Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was very simple. The main reason that we went this way was the simplicity of buying it there. It is maintained and upgraded for us, and this makes it easy to stay current. While the licensing is good through the AWS Marketplace, it is more expensive than what you could buy yourself. However, the convenience outweighs the price.
From a cost perspective, I agreed to analyze the standards in terms of load balancing. However, the cost that they have with AWS are almost prohibitive. I'm being forced to use F5 WAF. I would not simply use it based on cost. I agree that they have some great features, but for me, cost is key in terms of AWS. This applies to buying in the AWS Marketplace. If you go to a simple WAF doing 25 megabits, and I'm paying for the instance cost as well, it is over a dollar an hour. You can add that up and ask for some discounts, but relative to other players, they are significantly more expensive. We will need a lot of these, and it can be a real negative driver in terms of spend and how we will be able to move forward. Purchasing though the AWS Marketplace was easy; it was a piece of cake. You go right in, and the options are there. It was nice you can pick the different kind of group you wanted and what type of security you wanted. It did put in a lot of information that would build a lot of the initial infrastructure for me in terms of supporting my load balancer and creating security. Granted, I destroyed it all, but it was nice and it was there. It gave me the ability to level set what I should create versus what they put in place. I could see what they're doing here and I can match it to my own criteria. What they put in the AWS Marketplace and came through with the license, it worked well. We chose to go through the AWS Marketplace because you can do almost anything you are going to launch there. The first time you launch, you always grab from the market, particularly for PoCs, as it's just easier. There's no reason why I wouldn't go through the AWS Marketplace, because they've already have F5 WAF. It's exactly what I want and it's exactly what I needed, so I can go from there.
Security should be involved in any base license. When you bring on F5, you only have default license. Then, the ASM product license has to be purchased. It would be great if F5 could include the ASM in the base license.
We only use a fraction of the capabilities of F5. There are different modules that we have heard others speak highly of, but we don't want to use them locally. It's an on-premise server. For example, there is a WAF (web application firewall) model and others that we don't use. It's not a cheap product, but there are no other replacements for what we do with it.
Unless the price difference is large, this is not the primary concern for the product. The performance and product-related issues (secure for VPN, multi-function for network device, etc.) are the keys.
Director Technology Solutions with 11-50 employees
Reseller
Sep 7, 2017
It is the best solution, but that comes with an increased price. Try to negotiate all the software features that you require upfront. E.g., if you need three different software features and a web application firewall, then try to log the prices initially when you are buying the initial solution, even if you are not buying some of the software but at least log the prices for features.
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...
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 with the support. The second option is a subscription model on the cloud. When I have a project that will only one year. I purchase a subscription for one year only. It would work for the whole year and after we can shut it down because there is no need for it.
F5 price is higher than the competition but they provide a Swiss army-like tool that is unmatched by their competition.Â
If you purchase the hardware, you only pay one time for the licensing and you can pay maintenance on an annual basis to get software updates. We bought our unit (used on eBay) to save a lot of money. It works well even with the older version of the software.
BIG-IP LTM is considered a premium product, so it's quite expensive and isn't affordable for all customers. F5's licensing is based on modules, so there are separate charges depending on which features you want.
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is an expensive product. However, the only additional cost we have with it is the yearly support cost.
The price is little bit on higher side, compared to the cost of NGINX.
It was probably a one-time purchase and then you have maintenance, but I don't have the details on that. We bought what they called the Best bundle at the time, which pretty much included all of the modules. There was probably no additional cost afterward.
The price of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is too high.
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is a high-priced tool. We pay for its license yearly.
We are on an annual license to use the solution.
It is a little pricey. I wish the pricing was cheaper, but I wish the pricing was cheaper for everything.
F5 pricing base on Modules, etc..    Citrix ADC includes everything and only divided into 3 Editions
Standard, Enterprise, Premium no need to purchase anything else
(Except additional SSL VPN license Included Standard(500), Enterprise(1,000) (Premium unlimited))
When you buy it you have a license bundle which I think you have to renew every year or every couple of years.
The pricing is pretty high. It's not the least expensive option. That said, we're willing to pay for the premium security on offer.
The solution could work at lowering its prices a bit. The licensing needs to be a bit more flexible. We pay our licensing fees on a yearly basis.
Compared to using open-source products, the prices are not cheap.
The costs could be lower. In a report, we found that Citrix Solutions are somehow cheaper - including in relation to encryption licensing. I cannot compare as I haven't spoken to Citrix. I don't know if it's easier or has the same (or more features). That said, I wouldn't describe this product as cheap.
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 solution is quite expensive if we compare it with the competition. For only load balancer, it is too expensive. The license is subscription-based, except for the security model.
The price should be reduced because it is expensive when compared to the competition. Alternatively, bundled packages should be offered. This is an issue that shows up for most of our customers.
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.
The cost is quite high. The long-term support in particular is quite high. Customers need to be aware that each feature is licensable, which allows costs to accrue.
When we purchased additional licenses for our other locations, we received a discount of between 20% and 25%. My understanding is that they matched the competitor's price.
F5 pricing is too high, compared to Citrix. If a big sector or a company needs more security and more control over applications and the ADC, F5 is the best choice. But if a company needs only an ADC, without the web application firewall features, Citrix is fine.
When you purchase the virtual edition or the hardware, it comes with the base license. There are additional costs depending on what modules or what functionality is required.
Everything is included in the license fee but it's a very expensive solution.
They are expensive.
5 BIG-IP is too expensive at the current licensing costs.
There are three relevant things about purchasing through the AWS Marketplace: * It Increase protection against web attacks. * It integrates with AWS WAF, which makes it easy to deploy without changes to your infrastructure. * F5 manages your AWS WAF rules, so you don't have to. We purchased through the AWS Marketplace because it was a popular way to go, and we were intrigued. The price of this product is not an issue. They have good pricing and licensing.
The price is high.
It is sort of a commodity product. A load balancer is a load balancer. What will be, at the end of the day, the cheapest option or have the best performance, that is what it will come down to. Can it do the necessary performance that we need, and if so, is there a cheaper alternative? If not, then we'll stick with what we have.
We are going to the AWS Marketplace because purchasing there is simple to do. We are looking for the ease it provides. We have tried other providers, but it wasn't as good.
Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was good. We chose to go through the AWS Marketplace because everything that we needed was a soft appliance. We needed something to work in Amazon, and this product was available there. We have found the pricing and licensing on AWS to be competitive.
Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was very simple. The main reason that we went this way was the simplicity of buying it there. It is maintained and upgraded for us, and this makes it easy to stay current. While the licensing is good through the AWS Marketplace, it is more expensive than what you could buy yourself. However, the convenience outweighs the price.
From a cost perspective, I agreed to analyze the standards in terms of load balancing. However, the cost that they have with AWS are almost prohibitive. I'm being forced to use F5 WAF. I would not simply use it based on cost. I agree that they have some great features, but for me, cost is key in terms of AWS. This applies to buying in the AWS Marketplace. If you go to a simple WAF doing 25 megabits, and I'm paying for the instance cost as well, it is over a dollar an hour. You can add that up and ask for some discounts, but relative to other players, they are significantly more expensive. We will need a lot of these, and it can be a real negative driver in terms of spend and how we will be able to move forward. Purchasing though the AWS Marketplace was easy; it was a piece of cake. You go right in, and the options are there. It was nice you can pick the different kind of group you wanted and what type of security you wanted. It did put in a lot of information that would build a lot of the initial infrastructure for me in terms of supporting my load balancer and creating security. Granted, I destroyed it all, but it was nice and it was there. It gave me the ability to level set what I should create versus what they put in place. I could see what they're doing here and I can match it to my own criteria. What they put in the AWS Marketplace and came through with the license, it worked well. We chose to go through the AWS Marketplace because you can do almost anything you are going to launch there. The first time you launch, you always grab from the market, particularly for PoCs, as it's just easier. There's no reason why I wouldn't go through the AWS Marketplace, because they've already have F5 WAF. It's exactly what I want and it's exactly what I needed, so I can go from there.
It could be priced a little less, especially on the virtual side. It gets a bit expensive, but you get what you pay.
The pricing is inclusive of many features.
It's fair, it's not too expensive. Maybe just a little high.
Security should be involved in any base license. When you bring on F5, you only have default license. Then, the ASM product license has to be purchased. It would be great if F5 could include the ASM in the base license.
We only use a fraction of the capabilities of F5. There are different modules that we have heard others speak highly of, but we don't want to use them locally. It's an on-premise server. For example, there is a WAF (web application firewall) model and others that we don't use. It's not a cheap product, but there are no other replacements for what we do with it.
The licensing strategy for F5 is good.
If you are planning to use security features, better to go for strong hardware and the best bundle license, which is great for web security.
Unless the price difference is large, this is not the primary concern for the product. The performance and product-related issues (secure for VPN, multi-function for network device, etc.) are the keys.
It is the best solution, but that comes with an increased price. Try to negotiate all the software features that you require upfront. E.g., if you need three different software features and a web application firewall, then try to log the prices initially when you are buying the initial solution, even if you are not buying some of the software but at least log the prices for features.