Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) comparison

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

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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

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

14th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

122

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Barracuda Load Balancer ADC is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.7%, up from 15.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)	15.7%
Barracuda Load Balancer ADC	1.7%
Other	82.6%

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

Roni Wijaya

Vice President of It Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

A simple and powerful solution with WAF feature

The solution is simple and powerful. I find the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC's load balancing function most valuable. It balances the traffic well. The security features, like the Web Application Firewall, are also very helpful. I use the SSL offloading feature too. It's very helpful because it prevents overload. Our application runs on HTTP, but we upload HTTPS on the load balancer. This means there are no performance issues. I think it's very helpful.

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Bonieber Orofeo

IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital

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) 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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most useful features in Barracuda Load Balancer are its security capabilities, load balancing efficiency, and scalability."

"The solution is simple and powerful. I find the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC's load balancing function most valuable. It balances the traffic well. The security features, like the Web Application Firewall, are also very helpful."

"The price is very good, and it's not very expensive."

"Barracuda's technical support is good - whenever we have an issue, they immediately connect and resolve it."

"I would rate the stability of Barracuda Load Balancer as a ten out of ten; it has high stability."

"The iRule feature is very useful for inspecting HTTP. Sometimes, we use it for modifying the headers of the HTTP."

"It is an easy way to build application policies (graphical)."

"Secure and scalable traffic management solution for applications. Good for bigger environments."

"Traffic Learning is the most valuable feature."

"iRules are very valuable. In addition to that, the way profiles are depicted by the LTM is also very good."

"If I were to choose one key feature in particular, perhaps it would be the iRule feature. It’s a really versatile tool."

"The product is quite flexible."

"It improves the overall performance of applications by decreasing the burden on servers associated with managing and maintaining applications and network sessions, as well as by performing application-specific tasks."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pros

Cons

"The quality of the solution's performance could be improved."

"There are areas of Barracuda Load Balancer's security that have room for improvement, particularly concerning handling traffic."

"Load Balancer ADC is competitively priced, but it's not feature-rich, and its technology is not that advanced."

"The Barracuda Load Balancer ADC could be improved with more customization features. For example, F5 uses iRules for custom configurations. I haven't found something similar in Barracuda yet. The load balancer and WAF's basic and common features are enough, but we need more customization options."

"There are areas of Barracuda Load Balancer's security that have room for improvement, particularly concerning handling traffic."

"While the licensing is good through the AWS Marketplace, it is more expensive than what you could buy yourself."

"Cloud native integration should be provided."

"This is a very expensive solution."

"We would like to see load balancing between the cloud and the on-premise, a straightforward deployment feature."

"The analytics should provide insight into latency across various traffic routes and virtual servers."

"Right now, there are a lot of products within F5's portfolio. They acquired a couple of companies like NGINX and Volterra. Some features and technologies overlapped when this acquisition occurred. They need to refine it and come up with a single, proper solution. F5 should focus more on zero trust network access (ZTNA).They should be more focused on that framework because the industry is moving towards that. Everyone is talking about SASE and zero trust."

"The ASM administration is quite complex. The topic itself is pretty complex, so it is not easy to provide a nice, clean interface. There are a lot of references and dependencies in-between the different subareas."

"The setup is a little bit complex."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Load Balancer ADC is cost-effective and is about half the price of F5."

"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was very simple. The main reason that we went this way was the simplicity of buying it there. It is maintained and upgraded for us, and this makes it easy to stay current."

"It was probably a one-time purchase and then you have maintenance, but I don't have the details on that. We bought what they called the Best bundle at the time, which pretty much included all of the modules. There was probably no additional cost afterward."

"The price should be reduced because it is expensive when compared to the competition."

"I found F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) an expensive product. The costs would depend on the appliance and infrastructure size. However, my company didn't have to pay extra to use additional features."

"You can buy it on a yearly basis, or you can go for a subscription. For on-premise boxes, it is just the RMA."

"The price is little bit on higher side compared to the cost of NGINX."

"The licensing model of F5 BIG-IP LTM is highly complex. The operation cost of the solution is high. The overall cost is high."

"It is the best solution, but that comes with an increased price."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Retailer

Educational Organization

University

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	62
Midsize Enterprise	31
Large Enterprise	84

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC?

Pricing for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC can be a consideration. However, it offers good value with its cost-saving benefits and efficient operation, balancing the initial financial outlay.

What needs improvement with Barracuda Load Balancer ADC?

There are areas of Barracuda Load Balancer's security that have room for improvement, particularly concerning handling traffic. Also, more could be done to enhance the initial setup, as it can be c...

What is your primary use case for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC?

The typical use case for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC involves managing and distributing network traffic efficiently to maintain system performance. Clients use Barracuda Load Balancer ADC for its a...

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 blocks, as that's perfect. However, it still feels a bit legacy regarding the GU...

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 more than any other product. The load balancing capabilities of F5 BIG-IP Local T...

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)?

The solution is robust and reliable.

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Product Reports

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Download Barracuda Load Balancer ADC product report

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Download F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) product report

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report

Also Known As

Barracuda Load Balancer

F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP

Overview

Barracuda Load Balancer is ideal for organizations looking for a high-performance, yet cost-effective application delivery and security solution. With the broadest range of hardware and virtual models, Barracuda Load Balancer provides maximum flexibility for organizations looking to build highly secure and scalable application infrastructure, whether it's deployed on-premises or in the cloud.

Barracuda Networks

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.

Sample Customers

Fenwal Blood Technologies

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)