F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Kemp LoadMaster based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Kemp LoadMaster Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"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.""The BIG-IP’s interface is more intuitive than other GUIs. It is well structured, not overloaded, and does not have too many gimmicks.""The solution's stability is pretty good.""Initial setup is easy and pretty standard.""We're able to do load balancing and global load balancing. When you marry those two products together, you can do a lot more. We're able to deliver our applications more securely and faster. It has improved our deliverability where we have more service across the shared data centers. We can intelligently reach all of those client connections across all of the servers and do it fairly quickly. It has helped improve our application delivery and performance.""Currently, it's distributing the load perfectly, as per my understanding of our requirements.""It is a stable product from a stable company. Recently, they have been more focused on security as well."

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"Using Kemp as a front-facing service appliance, it allows me to have the flexibility of swapping out real servers behind the scenes without any intervention from my network team.""I like that this is a Network Load Balancer that can be used practically with any application in the backend. They have how-to guides on how to set up Kemp NLB with Exchange, but you can use it as well for Sharepoint, RDS, or any other back end server.""The base feature of Kemp LoadMaster load balancing ticks all the boxes but the most valuable features would be the security features Intrusion Prevention (IPS) and Web Application Firewall (WAF).""The DNS Load Balancer makes it so that I don't have to worry about site failures.""The Global WAF has saved us more than one time from unwanted traffic.""Mitigates content security policy issues.""It helps with efficiency and reactivity, in case of assistance needs.""The pricing of the solution is valuable."

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Cons
"The cost of the solution is pretty high. It would be ideal if it was more reasonable.""An expensive solution for the minimal features we use.""Lacking in free training to help users understand the product more, so they would know how to correctly use it. Like other vendors and their products, becoming more proactive is an area for improvement.""F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is expensive. Pricing needs to be improved.""It requires a particular skill or training before being able to manage it.""Not everything is intuitive.""The solution's hardware quality needs improvement.""I would like to see F-5 implement a regular routing like in other Linux-based devices. When we try and integrate in some complex networks, we have to use some additional routing scenarios from a Layer 3 perspective, then we have some problems. It would be great if this were fixed somehow."

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"It would be nice if the historical metrics were easily exportable from the interface.""I want to have the ability to pull a particular server. The DevOps portion was challenging for me, like if I needed to redirect from one IP to another URL. I needed to look that up, and the knowledge base is not well organized. When I look for information about Kemp on the Internet, I don't find many articles or something like that.""Certificate installations could be simplified and modernized, and allowed to be monitored for expirations/issues.""The cost of the GEO upgrade is not cost-prohibitive but it's something that would be a nice add-in, out of the box.""The auth website of ESP is really lacking. It’s not responsive (mobile friendly) and the procedure of changing the website is difficult. We tend to avoid using pre-auth for that reason.""If you want logging for SMTP traffic, you have to enable ESP, which requires you to define allowed IP addresses. That’s irritating, to say the least.""Third, the password history restriction needs improvement. For example, the password policy will restrict the user to always use a unique password combination. The password should not be reused for a minimum of three generations of passwords.""Some documentation is out of date versus the new version, and things have been moved​."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Though functionality is high, its cost can be considered slightly higher than its competitors​."
  • "The licensing pricing seems relatively easy enough to get your head around. I would advise anyone to ensure that you have a conversation with an F5 consultant before purchasing, as you would with most products."
  • "Take a look at the modules that you are going to use. Look into the best bundles for them."
  • "The only area that has room for improvement would be pricing, so its competitors do not have a say."
  • "If your IT budget is good, go for it."
  • "This product is costly from a licensing perspective considering its competitors."
  • "Check other vendors like Cisco, Citrix or A10 Networks. There are plenty in the market with which you can achieve same thing."
  • "Great product for the money. But they can get really expensive, so get what meets your needs."
  • More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Download Kemp's VLM trial and take it for a test drive; you will be impressed."
  • "It has a very attractive ratio of price/performance."
  • "​I have control on the licensing and all the prices since I work for a partner.​"
  • "KEMP gives away free trials for 30 days. This can be stretched if you want. During the test, you will have access to KEMP support.​"
  • "It has a great price for the solution they offer."
  • "The license varies according to the number of megabits."
  • "Licensing is yearly and I am going to guess that it is CAN $2000.00."
  • "Any decent product will cost money and if you want great support and a great product, then you will want to spend the money on it."
  • More Kemp LoadMaster Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The support from F5 BIG-IP LTM is good.
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:The pricing must be more flexible. We get billed for firewalls based on the usage. It will be helpful if the solution provides such flexibility.
    Top Answer:Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial setup of Kemp LoadMaster is very simple.
    Top Answer:LoadMaster is cheaper than some other solutions. It has a perpetual license, so it's a one-time cost.
    Top Answer:My company is really happy with Kemp LoadMaster as a product. My company is also happy with the support we receive from Kemp LoadMaster. I want Kemp LoadMaster to provide users with better reporting… more »
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    9.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP
    LoadMaster Load Balancer
    Learn More
    Overview

    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 servers and delivers SSL performance and visibility for inbound and outbound traffic, to protect the user experience by encrypting everything from the client to the server.

    BIG-IP LTM provides enterprise-class Application Delivery Controller (ADC). You get granular layer 7 control, SSL offloading and acceleration capabilities, and advanced scaling technologies that deliver performance and reliability on-demand. The highly optimized TCP/IP stack combines TCP/IP techniques and improvements in the latest RFCs with extensions to minimize the effect of congestion and packet loss and recovery. Independent testing tools and customer experiences show LTM's TCP stack delivers up to a 2x performance gain for users and a 4x increase in bandwidth efficiency.

    Kemp LoadMaster is a powerful load balancing solution that also serves as a web application firewall. Its primary use case is load balancing and application load balancing, making it an ideal solution for organizations that must distribute traffic across multiple servers. Kemp's integration with an active directory for ESP usage, hosting/deployment of SSL certificates, and pricing are some of its most valuable features. 

    Using Kemp has helped organizations mitigate cross-scripting vulnerabilities, cookie-related issues, and content security policy issues. It has also allowed them to handle everything with Kemp instead of working on each application individually.

    Sample Customers
    Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
    Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT€ Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider20%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Media Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government9%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company27%
    Energy/Utilities Company10%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Transportation Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization57%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Government4%
    Comms Service Provider4%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise68%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business45%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise29%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise64%
    Large Enterprise24%
    Buyer's Guide
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Kemp LoadMaster
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Kemp LoadMaster and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is ranked 1st in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 116 reviews while Kemp LoadMaster is ranked 6th in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 48 reviews. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is rated 8.2, while Kemp LoadMaster is rated 9.4. 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 Kemp LoadMaster writes "Reliable, easy to set up, and can increase your security score". F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is most compared with Citrix NetScaler, Fortinet FortiADC, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, NGINX Plus and Fortinet FortiWeb, whereas Kemp LoadMaster is most compared with HAProxy, NGINX Plus, Fortinet FortiADC, Citrix NetScaler and A10 Networks Thunder ADC. See our F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Kemp LoadMaster report.

    See our list of best Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) vendors.

    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.