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A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs LoadBalancer Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is 4.9%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.7%, up from 15.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LoadBalancer Enterprise is 3.9%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

RonaldoDE Melo - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects connection and servers from direct access with control access feature
The initial setup is very simple. The issue is that it achieves high output across all its features, specifically the output ports. This affects the customer's solution because sometimes, the customer is even aware of the user's activity on certain servers. If you have all the necessary information, we can quickly deploy the solution within two to three days. The size of the Thunder ADC depends on its configuration. For example, the cache converter typically includes more than two rack units, often requiring at least three rack units for adequate space. I rate it a ten out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.
Bonieber  Orofeo - PeerSpot reviewer
Identifying compromised traffic and securing data has been a significant advantage
One of the most beneficial features of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) ( /products/f5-big-ip-local-traffic-manager-ltm-reviews ) is its ability to identify compromised traffic and its capabilities in authentication. Additionally, the security aspect of it provides a significant advantage as it helps us secure our data, which is a major investment and benefit for us. Before using this system, we had difficulties in storing our data and managing the traffic that comes in and out.
Roger Seelaender - PeerSpot reviewer
Great WAF - low-maintenance solution that performs as advertised
The solution can be improved with the development of a SIP engine because it is difficult to manage SBCs. All SBCs are really tough to write rules for. If we could put this in front of an SBC to have the right rules to possibly block the traffic, that would be very helpful. The solution can also improve the relationship between Loadbalancer.org and Metaswitch, or now, Microsoft because Metaswitch was purchased by Microsoft. They both position themselves as certified but don't always talk to each other. I wish there would be closer integration between the solution and the vendors when either release new upgrades to their product line. Often we find issues on either end post upgrades.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very useful to have a simple dashboard where you can login and look into what your traffic patterns are, then look and see what times of day you're experiencing the heaviest traffic. You can quickly identify if you are possibly having a security issue or security breach. It makes it very easy to use the box."
"A10 explained why the latency dropped significantly on a site that we have."
"A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution."
"The solution is stable."
"The SLB and GSLB load balancing are the most valuable features. They meet our need to do server-side load balancing and global site load balancing so we can distribute traffic, not only intra-data center, but inter-data center."
"Compared to F5, which I used about six years ago, the A10 is much easier when routing. You don't have to use the wildcard bits to route it between the different segments. It's much less troublesome to configure."
"The Deterministic CGNAT feature is valuable for us."
"Being a public entity and having a public website which is highly visible with a lot of traffic, we are a target for DDoS. Within the last year, we have had a couple of DDoS attacks which could have affected our web traffic and taken down certain parts of our website. This did not happen because the A10 was able to mitigate the attacks using rate limiting that can be configured for DDoS mitigation on the box."
"It is an easy way to build application policies (graphical)."
"It is a scalable solution."
"There were a lot of good features. The most beneficial for maintaining server health included the algorithms for the virtual IP, which segment traffic between servers, authentication profiles, and many other things."
"Load balancing generally brings high availability and a bigger ability to scale out. In some cases, it brings security, depending on how it is configured."
"I think F5's tech support may be better than Citrix's because they mainly focus on the ADC product, but Citrix support covers Hypervisor, XenMobile, FAS, and ADC. And from my experience, sometimes, we face some issues that Citrix cannot handle."
"Users can see a remarkable performance difference from a qualitative sense."
"The solution is robust and reliable."
"NetFlow balancing and traffic balancing are good features."
"Loadbalancer is easy to use. It performs well, with low latency."
"We have about 30,000 connections going through at any one time and it's fine, it doesn't seem to sweat. It doesn't get overloaded."
"The user interface precludes need to be well versed with Linux IPVS command line. This make it easy for junior team members to participate in managing load balancing needs."
"The SSL Layer 7 load balancing is valuable."
"The features I find valuable in this solution are the ease of managing the logs on the WAFs, the ease to identify break-in attempts into the network, the front-end firewall, and a more specific firewall."
"Loadbalancer.org is less complex than Citrix."
"We now get notifications when pool members go down, and we eliminate our downtime by not sending traffic to downed pool members.​"
"The load balancers have an easy installation and a relatively simple, easy user interface to use."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the GUI. I just migrated from the 2.7 software train to the 4.1, and there are still people on 2.7. The latter is a very old GUI if you compare it to F5. It's not as easy to use and a lot of things are missing. They've made a lot of improvements in the 4.1 step, but compared to the ease of use of F5, it's still quite difficult. For people who haven't got a lot of experience, the GUI can be quite challenging."
"The user interface is not as pretty as it could be."
"It scaled well for our numbers, up to 3 million subscribers for our most crowded region but I would like to see the same scalability numbers for the virtualized version as well."
"There are competitors that have more features."
"In my opinion, they need to improve their cloud support. There is support for cloud, but not all functions are there, such as high-availability."
"Traffic flow issues are very difficult, as there's no means for us to analyze the traffic coming in or out of the appliance without technical support."
"The tool's load-balancing feature should improve."
"The setup depends on certain situations. In certain scenarios, it may be more complex than others. For example, while the initial configuration may be easy, the environment itself may be complex and that may limit the ease of deployment. It is easy for those who understand their environment."
"The web interface could be better."
"The synchronization does works fairly well. However, if I were to make changes, I would make it easier to start the sync process."
"Certificate management needs improvement. I would like automated deployment of new certificates without manual intervention to be in the next release of this product."
"If one virtual portion is unavailable, it can cause issues."
"The solution's initial setup process was quite complex. I"
"Performance: Using the product, applications are jittery.​"
"F5 has another solution to load balance servers on the cloud, which they got after the purchase of NGINX. It is deployed as Kubernetes or something like that, but the problem now is that they have two solutions for two situations. They should make F5 deployable on the cloud."
"Its scalability and deployment should be better. It should be more scalable, and it should be easier to deploy."
"​The automatic refresh of the System Overview webpage: It sometimes has an extra webpage reload (after a change) before you see it is executed. This can be confusing."
"I would like it if Loadbalancer had the ability to make rules for specific shared bots."
"You can run into an issue when one engineer passes the case over to another engineer after their shift and they don't know what the first engineer worked on up to that point."
"Compared to the physical products, the solution's throughput is a little less."
"Possibly a more graphical overview page (with colors) to give a two second overview to see if everything is working fine."
"An area for improvement in Loadbalancer.org is that sometimes it works fine, but sometimes, it has issues. The setup for Loadbalancer.org is also complex, so that's another area for improvement."
"If I have to say something, I suppose they could add an automated configuration backup to an FTP location (or something similar) so you don’t have to manually do it. I don’t see this as a problem, of course, as the configuration rarely changes and we only need one backup, but maybe for other users that feature would be handy."
"There are many features you can set in the backend of Loadbalancer. They should simplify the configuration. The administrator should be able to configure it more simply. How it is now, you can only configure it if you have a lot of experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is a third of the price of the F5 competition."
"As for the initial investment in the hardware, F5 and A10 are quite similar now. For the current A10 solution, the initial cost was about $36,000. As for annual support, the F5 solution would be between $10,000 and $12,000, while the A10 is $2,200 a year for support."
"The price is good they are very comparative."
"We did try out the solution’s Harmony analytics and visibility controller for its one-year trial. Due to the cost, we chose not to keep it onsite."
"It is $7000 per unit for the support annually."
"The solution costs less than its competitors."
"The price of the maintenance support is too expensive."
"We just pay for support in addition to our licensing."
"The cost is high for this product, so it's not suitable for small customers, e.g. those with small environments."
"F5 is expensive."
"BIG-IP LTM is considered a premium product, so it's quite expensive and isn't affordable for all customers."
"The tool is a bit expensive."
"F5 pricing is too high, compared to Citrix."
"Unless the price difference is large, this is not the primary concern for the product. The performance and product-related issues (secure for VPN, multi-function for network device, etc.) are the keys."
"The pricing is inclusive of many features."
"There are no additional fees to the standard licensing fee; everything is paid once."
"The costs associated with Loadbalancer.org depends on the technology. For some, we need to pay, but others are open, so they're free."
"I’m not entirely sure about the rating since I'm not very technical. I haven't thoroughly compared the ratings. So, if you're asking for my impression so far, I would rate it around five out of 10."
"I think it’s very affordable."
"We've got an unlimited license, which doesn't costs that much compared to other vendors, and we don't have to buy it again."
"These guys make their pricing scheme really easy.​"
"It was easy to upgrade the license for unlimited clusters and servers. Pricing is fair."
"The solution requires an annual support license of $2,780 for four systems or $695 a year per unit for support not including the units."
"For now, it's stable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
6%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
I would recommend A10 Networks due that it delivers high performance in a small form factor to reduce OPEX with signi...
Do you recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC?
I do recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC. It's very user-friendly, easy to configure, and flexible. It is a very usefu...
What do you like most about A10 Networks Thunder ADC?
A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?
The GUI of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) could be improved. It's not something regarding how it processes or ...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is a perfect product for load balancing and WAF, and I would recommend it far m...
Do you recommend Loadbalancer.org?
Since Loadbalancer.org is an open-source solution, I would recommend this solution for smaller businesses that don’t ...
What do you like most about Loadbalancer.org?
Existing customers are trying to migrate from the physical F5 load balancer to the AVI load balancer because it is sc...
 

Also Known As

Thunder ADC, AX Series
F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

123inkt.nl, Bentley University, Box, Brainshark, Buienradar, Capgemini, CGN/LSN & NAT64, Chengdu Telecom, Club One, Code Ready, CRC Health Group, Cyso, Deutsche Telekom, Earth Class Mail, Excite, FFF Enterprises, Florence County, Framingham State University, From30
Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Vodafone, NASA, Mercedes, NBC, Siemens, AT&T, Barclays, Zurich, Penn State University, Fiserv, Canon, Toyota, University of Cambridge, US Army, US Navy, Ocean Spray, ASOS, Pfizer, BBC, Bacardi, Monsoon, River Island, U.S Air Force, King's College London, NHS, Ricoh, Philips, Santander, TATA Communications, Ericcson, Ross Video, Evertz, TalkTalk TV, Giacom, Rapid Host.
Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, Microsoft and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC). Updated: July 2025.
864,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.