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F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs GoodAccess comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.7
iboss offers significant ROI by saving bandwidth and enhancing security, despite increased costs from cloud migration and device pricing.
Sentiment score
6.8
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager offers cost savings, quick ROI, and enhances security by ensuring crucial access and reducing costs.
Sentiment score
7.3
GoodAccess provides quick ROI, with many users citing essential IT investment and time savings despite higher costs.
With iboss, whenever you turn on your laptop, the iboss agent automatically connects to the iboss cloud, enforcing all security policies. So with respect to the security side, it strengthens measures.
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I have seen some cost effectiveness from iboss; it has reduced certain support requirements, making it a more hands-off solution.
Managing Director
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.8
Iboss support is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, with some concerns about communication but generally favorable reviews.
Sentiment score
6.8
F5 BIG-IP APM customer service receives mixed reviews, with some praising responsiveness and others citing delays and communication issues.
Sentiment score
7.4
GoodAccess provides 24/7 responsive customer support with quick resolutions and effective communication, though occasional delays are noted.
They are very fast, responsive, and knowledgeable.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
The quality of the support is fantastic.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
We had promising discussions about resolving these issues, but no real action followed.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Even if they respond, they don't update me with the process or what's going on.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
Most of the technical support is managed in-house due to our extensive experience with F5 products.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
F5 technical support is responsive and helpful.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Iboss efficiently scales to meet growing resource demands, supporting large user bases with robust support and adaptable infrastructure.
Sentiment score
7.3
F5 BIG-IP APM scales for diverse deployments, offering flexibility and effective tools, though hardware limitations might challenge scalability.
Sentiment score
8.1
GoodAccess is scalable and user-friendly, with adaptable licensing, though some desire improved gateway locations and bandwidth.
They are also able to meet on-demand requirements based on your contract with them, and can easily provide adequate resources and scalability.
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
If I start seeing sluggishness or anything like that, I just reach out to my rep, and they connect with their dev team, typically resolving it the same day.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
The product's flexibility and company culture contribute to resolving these challenges.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
I would rate the scalability of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) between seven and eight.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Iboss is generally stable with reliable support, despite initial deployment challenges, and is often praised for minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
7.9
F5 BIG-IP APM is praised for reliability, performance, and minimal bugs, with minor suggestions for log clarity improvement.
Sentiment score
8.7
GoodAccess offers reliable, stable connectivity with minimal downtime, quick updates, and efficient support ensuring seamless user experiences.
It's been pretty solid; I've never had an outage with them, and if I ever had, it's only been once out of the seven years.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
We've experienced zero downtime.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device despite our ClearPass sending information to the iboss box.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
On a scale from one to ten for stability, I would rate F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) a ten.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
Sometimes, the logs are not quite informational or easy to understand.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Iboss struggles with Mac support, ISP integration in India, and needs improvements in security features and cloud integration.
F5 BIG-IP APM requires improvements in pricing, cloud integration, user interface, documentation, support, and additional features for enhanced performance.
GoodAccess should enhance features, flexibility, and support while addressing connection issues and expanding security measures.
It is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
We also had a problem with a transition when we upgraded from one appliance of theirs to another, but their engineer lost a good deal of our data.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc.
If I could copy and paste objects instead of picking and configuring them from scratch each time, it would be great.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
The main improvement needed for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is to integrate into the cloud-delivered services from F5.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
The ability to run the Anycast feature would be valuable, as the current solution only operates on-premises.
Senior Cyber Security Consultant at KoçSistem
I would like to see more options and more granular controls for users who know what they are doing as an administrator.
Director, Information Technology at Veriheal
 

Setup Cost

Iboss offers competitive, transparent pricing with valuable cloud solutions, appealing to enterprises for predictable budgeting and desired functionality.
F5 BIG-IP APM is costly but valued for high performance, with unpredictable cloud pricing and additional fees for features.
GoodAccess offers competitive pricing with premium features, scalable for varied budgets, advising essential plans and monitoring annual costs.
It offers the same features you would get from a vendor that charges 250,000 British pounds for a fraction of the price.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
The following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern.
Managing Director
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
 

Valuable Features

Iboss provides comprehensive cloud security with advanced features, enhancing data protection and management efficiency for network security.
F5 BIG-IP APM offers secure remote access with SSL VPN, multi-factor authentication, and comprehensive integration and security features.
GoodAccess provides secure, fast VPN services with global gateways, dedicated IPs, and easy administration for enhanced accessibility and collaboration.
The solution's mental health function can detect if someone needs help.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
It's given us a lot more visibility into our computer assets that may be infected with viruses and also shows us people who have unusually large uploads or might be engaging in high-risk activities, such as searches or going to sites not categorized by their web crawler.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
iboss was the best solution for us because, no matter what domain you were in, everything is under a single pane of glass, which is exactly what we wanted.
Managing Director
APM is quite flexible for customers to use, providing secure remote access through various host-checking conditions for both machines and users.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
It provides robust security and offers integration with multi-factor authentication systems, which is crucial for an organization's security policy.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
A lot of features are useful to me, including mostly the authentication, SAML, or SSO, with no sign-on.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
GoodAccess has positively impacted my organization as we have fewer IPs to whitelist and limited access for anybody outside of our organization into our internal systems.
Director, Information Technology at Veriheal
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
19th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (11th), SSL VPN (7th), Remote Access (18th), Access Management (15th)
GoodAccess
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
23rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (22nd), ZTNA (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 1.5%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GoodAccess is 0.9%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.5%
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)1.5%
GoodAccess0.9%
Other94.1%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
Senior Cyber Security Consultant at KoçSistem
Has provided reliable policy controls and secure web access for large enterprises
I consider Cloudflare when evaluating centralized access control features; Cloudflare utilizes multi-factor authentication and full API support, while F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) needs to enhance its API support. I recommend F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) for large companies such as Tüpraş and Ford. Tüpraş is one of the biggest companies in Turkey, along with other customers such as Tofaş, Euroko, Koç Holding, and more. For on-premises deployment, I would rate it a 10. For cloud deployment, I would rate it a seven. I primarily use it on-premises. I rate F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) eight out of ten.
Gytenis Borusas - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Information Technology at Veriheal
Limits outside access and secures internal systems through straightforward setup
The best features GoodAccess offers are that it is very simple to use for users and very simple to set up for administrators.When I say it is simple to set up, I mean it has a simple interface with not many options to explore, and it is very straightforward.GoodAccess has positively impacted my organization as we have fewer IPs to whitelist and limited access for anybody outside of our organization into our internal systems.This has definitely increased security, but I do not have a measurable number to indicate how much it improved in percentage or absolute terms.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Construction Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Healthcare Company
16%
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability, akin to purchas...
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is not user-friendly and operates slowly. Additional features for architecture ...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
I am using F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) along with Bot Management, API Gateway, API Security, and F5 Cloud. ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GoodAccess?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is straightforward; my colleague handled it, but the pricing is...
What needs improvement with GoodAccess?
GoodAccess can be improved by providing more editable options on the admin side.I would like to see more options and ...
What is your primary use case for GoodAccess?
My main use case for GoodAccess is to limit outside IPs, so we whitelist only one IP.I use GoodAccess for all our int...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
F5 Access Policy Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. GoodAccess and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.