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.
"It integrates with AWS WAF, which makes it easy to deploy without changes to your infrastructure."
"Valuable features include Link Controller and Server Load Balancer."
"In terms of stability, it is stable."
"I have Big-IP change and control manager, which give me the roll back option. Therefore, I can view the last things which happened on the device."
"Its user interface is very easy to use on a day-to-day basis. It is very user-friendly."
"This is a solution that does what it's supposed to do at the price point."
"The F5 interface is easy to use."
"It can determine if the system is going down, then route the traffic somewhere else."
"It has a filter available, although we are not currently using it because it is not part of our requirements. But it is a good option and when it becomes part of our requirements we will definitely use it."
"We can control what rules should be used and what should be disabled."
"The solution has built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure."
"It is a scalable solution...The installation phase of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is very easy."
"Using policies to link and manage these URL-based routing configurations is also valuable."
"Good customization; able to report and take action on alerts."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the web application firewall (WAF)."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is traffic management."
"I think the logging could be improved."
"I would like to see improvement in the manageability and easier setup."
"If we decide to migrate to the cloud, I don't think that BIG-IP is a good solution and we probably won't use it."
"Technical support is somewhat slow and could be improved."
"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."
"It reaches a point where scaling is no longer possible."
"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."
"F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is sometimes a bit cumbersome to deal with some builds, although that's gotten significantly better over the years."
"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."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway could improve by allowing features to use more third-party tools."
"The product's performance should be better."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's first deployment is complex. It needs to improve its pricing."
"The pricing of the solution is a bit high. The solution should offer different pricing systems."
"The solution doesn’t support wildcard-based and regular expression-based rules."
"The monitoring on the solution could be better."
"It could be more stable, and support could be better. It would also be better if they offered more features. For example, it lacks security features. Before we used another English solution, and we realized that some of the rules were not set up correctly and passed through the Application Gateway's English controllers. But the problem, in this case, is if you send ten rules, for example, six rules hit some issues. IP address blocking could be better. The rules, for example, don't work properly. If you have one issue, one rule or another rule will not work. This sounds like total madness to me."
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.
