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A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

A10 Networks Lightning ADC
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
18th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Application...
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
4th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Lightning ADC is 1.1%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is 6.6%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway6.6%
A10 Networks Lightning ADC1.1%
Other92.3%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

RONALDO DE MELO - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Account Executive at l8
Efficient application security while optimizing connections
The initial setup is simple; it is not complex. The configuration itself is simple and can be done in a couple of hours. However, the migration of the system to A10 Networks takes longer due to critical applications. Clients prefer to move them one by one, which is why it takes a significant amount of time. The configuration itself is simple, especially for this application.
SS
Cloud Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Mutual TLS has secured our web services and now needs broader protocol support
The most valuable feature we have found in Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is mutual TLS. We find mutual TLS valuable because we can verify the client securely by setting up the trust certificate of the client, and also if we do it at the client side as well. This successfully develops mutual trust, ensuring that we know the client who is calling our service is a legitimate client. That is a very nice feature.Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has helped manage our traffic efficiently because we have many web services that we can put behind the same URL, and we can have different URLs with the same Application Gateway with a limited number of listeners. We can do host-based routing as well as URL-based routing or path-based routing. It supports both, so we can have even a single URL supporting many applications, or we can have different URLs for different applications respectively. We have both use cases.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Our clients appreciate that this is a security enabled solution."
"It allows you to secure the application while balancing the connections for many other customers, reducing CPU usage and server load."
"What I like about Lightning ADC, is that instead of having a big appliance sitting in front of the Kubernetes cluster, Lightning can pretty much go inside of Kubernetes."
"The load balancing features are valuable."
"The simplicity of the solution and its ability to integrate easily with others are its most valuable aspects."
"Good customization; able to report and take action on alerts."
"Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it."
"The solution's integration is very good."
"Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is traffic management."
"We chose this solution in the first place because it has access to Layer 7. I can control the requests and the content, which I can access on my network if I want to even if it's forbidden access to other external resources. If I want to monitor, for example, traffic, and apply this rule on Layer 7, I can do so. This was our main goal when implementing this application. We wanted to take advantage of the Gateway capabilities."
 

Cons

"We would like to see some improvement in the rapidity with which we can customize security facts within the solution."
"A10 documentation is not as open and accessible as AWS and Azure documentation is."
"The support from A10 should be improved."
"The solution has many limitations. You cannot upgrade the VPN to the application gateway. So I started with version one, which has limited capabilities, and they provided version two. And unfortunately, I cannot upgrade from v one to v two like other services. So I have to decommission the version one and create a new one with version two. Also the version one was complex with the certificates uploading the SQL certificates."
"The user interface could be better."
"I want the solution's support to improve. The tool is also expensive."
"The solution doesn’t support wildcard-based and regular expression-based rules."
"In future releases of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, I would to see more AI functionalities and a better dashboard as well as some customizations."
"Application Gateway’s limitation is that the private and the public endpoint cannot use the same port."
"The pricing of the solution is a bit high. The solution should offer different pricing systems."
"The configuration is very specific right now and needs to be much more flexible."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I rate the price of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway an eight out of ten."
"Between v1 and v2, there is a lot of change in the pricing. It is very costly compared to AWS."
"The product is not expensive."
"The solution is fairly priced."
"It is an expensive solution. We have an enterprise agreement, it is monthly."
"The tool's pricing model is pay-as-you-go."
"There is a need to pay a fixed price per month to use the product. There are no additional payments to be made to Microsoft apart from the charges paid towards the monthly licensing costs attached to the solution."
"The pricing is based on how much you use the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

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What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?
We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...
How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft Azure Application Gateway web application firewall software was the better fit ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it.
 

Also Known As

Lightning ADS
Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Handle Financial
Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.