We compared F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Citrix NetScaler based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
The F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is praised for its efficient traffic distribution and excellent customer service, with users highlighting the product's positive return on investment. In contrast, Citrix NetScaler stands out for its robust load balancing capabilities, security features, and scalability. Users also appreciate the competitive pricing and responsiveness of the support team. Enhancements desired for F5 BIG-IP LTM include improved documentation and user interfaces, while Citrix NetScaler users seek improved scalability and compatibility with applications.
Features: F5 BIG-IP LTM excels in efficiently distributing traffic, managing load, enhancing application performance, and ensuring high availability. Citrix NetScaler stands out with robust load balancing, security features against DDoS attacks, secure remote access, and seamless scalability.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is described as easy and straightforward, without any complications. It offers flexible and customizable licensing options. Citrix NetScaler also has a straightforward and easy setup cost, with users mentioning its cost-effectiveness. It offers competitive and reasonable pricing and flexible licensing options., F5 BIG-IP LTM and Citrix NetScaler both offer favorable ROI according to user feedback. F5 LTM is valued for its contribution to business success, while Citrix NetScaler delivers positive outcomes and benefits for users.
Room for Improvement: The F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) could benefit from better documentation, more intuitive user interfaces, streamlined workflows, improved ease of use, more responsive customer support, and timely updates. In comparison, users of Citrix NetScaler desire improved scalability, more intuitive interfaces, enhanced documentation and support, and resolution of compatibility issues with certain applications.
Deployment and customer support: The user feedback for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) indicates varying durations for establishing a new tech solution, with some users mentioning three months for deployment and an additional week for setup, while others mention a week for both. Citrix NetScaler users mention different timeframes for deployment and setup, emphasizing that both should be considered or that they may refer to the same period., The customer service for F5 BIG-IP LTM is highly commendable, with knowledgeable and responsive representatives. Users appreciate the prompt resolution of issues and professional support. Citrix NetScaler also provides satisfactory customer service with a helpful and responsive support team, offering effective solutions.
The summary above is based on 60 interviews we conducted recently with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Citrix NetScaler users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The web application firewall is one feature I found valuable in the solution."
"It has helped us to increase the resiliency of the application and the performance."
"The solution is very stable."
"Citrix NetScaler offers robust security features, including SmartAccess and customizable policies, making it a reliable choice for safeguarding user data."
"My clients use it for load balancing."
"The solution is very stable. We don't have any downtime or issues of that nature."
"I like app flows and custom flows. They integrate with multiple flows."
"I would say the rewriting and redirection functions are must-have's for us."
"The most valuable features are DNS, APM, and ASM. Additionally, it is easy to use and you have a lot of flexibility to use the solution within a network."
"It also has an AVR feature: application, visibility, and recording. It's good for customers looking for what is actually happening in their network and where the latency is."
"The BIG-IP’s interface is more intuitive than other GUIs. It is well structured, not overloaded, and does not have too many gimmicks."
"Secure and scalable traffic management solution for applications. Good for bigger environments."
"The solution is very easy to use and easy to understand. It's quite an intuitive system."
"What we like best about this solution is its stability. It is extremely stable."
"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."
"The combination of ADC and WAN is the most valuable feature."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Technical support sometimes takes a little longer because of the multilevel ticket priority."
"If one device or switch fails, the failover to another device is not seamless which is painful."
"In every release - and it doesn't matter if it's a minor release or a major release - they keep moving things around and they keep changing the mechanism. So certain things can work in one version one way, and everything works really well, then when you upgrade it to the next version, it breaks everything because they have a new way of doing it."
"We have issues with the certificates. All authorization processes need certificates, however, every three months we needed to change certificates. This process iss complicated for us because Citrix does not have a not user-friendly interface and does not off user-friendly services. This needs a lot of improvement."
"The solution is a bit more expensive than some of the available solutions in this region. One solution in particular that I noticed was cheaper was Kemp."
"The only thing customers told me that could be improved is that they would like to be able to purchase and receive the products in one box, rather than two boxes. This is something related to marketing, though."
"The security is okay, but the monitoring and reporting need improvement."
"There is a challenge in Pakistan. This is when there is a hardware failure. Sometimes, it takes more time to get a replacement because it is sent out from the U.S. or some other regional outpost. Thus, it takes two to three days to receive a replacement."
"I think the logging could be improved."
"There are some aspects of F5 BIG-IP that could be improved, the main one being virtual machine support. We have seen that even with the virtual editions, there are some things that we would like to do that are currently not possible with virtual machines."
"The deployment can take some time because you can do a lot of configuring to meet the needs of the use cases for clients."
"They need to develop the reporting tools further."
"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."
"The license terms for "non-commercial" will be a challenge for us."
"BIG-IP LTM is taking a long time to mature in cloud environments. They plan to improve cloud integration in the next version, but it isn't out yet. It's essential because more companies are moving to the cloud these days and using things like Kubernetes or microservices. F5 needs to improve in that direction, and they are."
More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Citrix NetScaler is ranked 2nd in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 85 reviews while F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is ranked 1st in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 116 reviews. Citrix NetScaler is rated 8.4, while F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Citrix NetScaler writes "Optimizing application delivery and ensuring robust network performance with its excellent stability and comprehensive load-balancing capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) writes "Helps deliver applications to users in a reliable, secure, and optimized way". Citrix NetScaler is most compared with Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, Fortinet FortiADC, HAProxy, Loadbalancer.org and A10 Networks Thunder ADC, whereas F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is most compared with Fortinet FortiADC, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, NGINX Plus, A10 Networks Thunder ADC and HAProxy. See our Citrix NetScaler vs. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report.
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