We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: F5 BIG-IP comes out on top in this comparison. It is powerful and flexible with a proven ROI. Azure Application Gateway does come out on top in the pricing and ease of deployment categories, however.
"The combination of ADC and WAN is the most valuable feature."
"Good application firewall."
"The solution has good load balancing capabilities."
"Secure and scalable traffic management solution for applications. Good for bigger environments."
"It provides first-tier firewalling, for you application. And it provides server load-balancing, it provides optimization, and it provides a proxy feature, where your users cannot directly access your server. It acts as a fully proxy architecture. It has client-side and server-side connections, both, and they're separate."
"We like is how they integrate nicely with the Oracle PeopleSoft application."
"The stability is excellent."
"BIG-IP can do anything. It's like a Swiss Army knife."
"Azure Application Gateway's most valuable feature is ease of use. The configuration is straightforward. It isn't difficult to adjust the size of your instances in the settings. You can do that with a few clicks, and the configuration file is the same way. You can also set rules and policies with minimal time and effort."
"I rate Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's scalability a ten out of ten. My company has more than 1000 users who use it daily."
"I find Application Gateway’s WAF module valuable because it helps prevent layer 7 attacks."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is its ease of use."
"It is a scalable solution...The installation phase of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is very easy."
"I find Application Gateway’s WAF module valuable because it helps prevent layer 7 attacks."
"The solution provides great automation and it is easy to upgrade service."
"We use the product in front-end and back-end applications to do the load balancing smartly."
"We need best-practice information. They have something called DevCentral and a blog. But we want something from F5 itself regarding how to tackle the false-positive configurations. If you go into detail with so many configurations it will find so many false positives from the moment it is enabled that it will quickly impact your applications, and it will not work."
"In terms of native integrations, there is a lot of instability. Also, integration is not robust with F5."
"The management interface is unclear, complex, and not concise. I would like a better user interface."
"The user interface could be improved in F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager."
"Not everything is intuitive."
"The pricing model has caused some frustration. My clients implemented the solution and later wanted to upgrade the features but the pricing structure was complicated. There are other solutions with better pricing models."
"LTM would be improved with the inclusion of signature-based blocking."
"F5 could improve the rule-setting capabilities in the GUI, and they need to simplify web management. For example, the menus in the Citrix GUI are easier to navigate, with a clean structure and layout."
"The security of the product could be adjusted."
"It does not have the flexibility for using public IPs in version 2."
"I want the solution's support to improve. The tool is also expensive."
"The support provided for the solution has certain shortcomings that need improvement, especially when it comes to the response time from the support team."
"It could be easier to change servicing."
"The increased security that we are considering is because of some of the things that the security team has brought to our attention. They have pointed out that we would most likely require a better web application firewall than Azure Application Gateway."
"It is a bit tricky to configure. You've got to have a very specific format to configure it. They should make it a little bit easier to configure. Mapping the certificates into it isn't easy, and it could be better. Currently, you've to write a bit of automation to pull certificates directly to HTTPS."
"The solution could improve by increasing the performance when doing updates. For example, if I change the certificate it can take 30 minutes. Other vendors do not have this type of problem."
More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Pricing and Cost Advice →
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is ranked 1st in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 116 reviews while Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is ranked 4th in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 38 reviews. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is rated 8.2, while Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is rated 7.2. The top reviewer of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) writes "Helps deliver applications to users in a reliable, secure, and optimized way". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway writes "High stability with built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure". F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is most compared with Citrix NetScaler, Fortinet FortiADC, NGINX Plus, HAProxy and A10 Networks Thunder ADC, whereas Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is most compared with Azure Front Door, Citrix NetScaler, F5 Advanced WAF, AWS WAF and Imperva Web Application Firewall. See our F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report.
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We monitor all Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
