F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs IBM Security Verify Access comparison

F5 and IBM are both solutions in the Access Management category. F5 is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.0. F5 holds a 2.0% mindshare in AM, compared to IBM’s 3.4% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...

Read 18 F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) reviews

2,814 Views
619 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

IBM Security Verify Access

Read 8 IBM Security Verify Access reviews

1,924 Views
1,077 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...

IBM Security Verify Access

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

IBM Security Verify Access and F5 BIG-IP APM are robust solutions in access management, with IBM being more cost-effective and F5 praised for its superior feature set, justifying its higher price based on user reviews.

Features: IBM Security Verify Access offers comprehensive authentication methods, seamless integration capabilities, and high versatility. F5 BIG-IP APM provides advanced access policies, robust VPN solutions, and strong application security, making it suitable for complex network environments.

Room for Improvement: Users recommend that IBM Security Verify Access improve mobile compatibility, enhance reporting tools, and increase usability. F5 BIG-IP APM users suggest simplifying policy management, reducing complexity, and making configuration easier.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Security Verify Access is noted for straightforward deployment and strong customer support, despite occasional complexity. F5 BIG-IP APM has extensive documentation and support but faces a more intricate deployment process, offering a comprehensive support experience.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Security Verify Access is viewed as budget-friendly with a good return on investment, especially for smaller to mid-sized enterprises. F5 BIG-IP APM, though more expensive, is seen as worth the investment for users needing enhanced security features.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. IBM Security Verify Access Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. IBM Security Verify Access

December 2025

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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

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...

Ranking in Access Management

9th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (15th), Network Access Control (NAC) (7th), SSL VPN (5th), Remote Access (10th)

IBM Security Verify Access

Ranking in Access Management

13th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Single Sign-On (SSO) (14th), Identity Management (IM) (21st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (15th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 2.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Verify Access is 3.4%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Access Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)	2.0%
IBM Security Verify Access	3.4%
Other	94.6%

Access Management

Featured Reviews

SÜ

SalihUcpinar

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.

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Ateeq Rehman

Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited

Has improved secure user access while managing development through multiple technologies

I have already explained this in my previous call; I don't handle financial terms and commercials. Pricing is generally managed by functional teams and management looking after licensing matters. In Pakistan, vendors such as Oracle and IBM manage account relationships with clients and have tailored pricing models, so I do not have sufficient insights into that aspect.IBM Security Verify Access installation process is not straightforward; it requires underlying specialized knowledge upon which the IBM products are based. The complexity and scalability of the architecture necessitate in-depth technical knowledge and understanding of the system. Thus, installation is not as simple as clicking through; it requires extensive configuration of the underlying application servers, such as IBM WebSphere, where these products are deployed and configured.

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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

"Our organization is small - a college with about 3,500 students. We use F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager to protect our site, especially from the Iranian attacks we faced last year. We restrict access to only inside the country."

"The performance of the solution is valuable."

"Stickiness is the most valuable feature of the product."

"F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) provides excellent WAF and bot defense solutions."

"The portal access was very good."

"The load balancing features are valuable."

"This is a product that is easy to install and integrate, and it is simple to use."

"The product allows us to create customized portals for your users."

More F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) pros

"From the integration point of view, it supports SAML, OIDC, and OAuth. For legacy applications that don't have support for SAML and other new protocols, it provides single sign-on access to end-users. From the integration compatibility point of view, it is highly capable."

"IBM Security Verify Access, formerly known as ISAM, IBM Security Access Manager, now renamed to ISVA, integrates with central directory services for our organization and provides user management functionality."

"It's a good solution for identification and access management."

"Its stability and UI are most valuable."

"I have found this solution to be really practical and when a user wants to log in, it is effortless and runs smooth."

"The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via email or SMS. This ensures secure access to your accounts by providing multiple authentication options."

"The most valuable feature of IBM Security Access Manager, at least for my company, is multi-factor authentication. That's the only feature my company is using. The solution works well and has no glitches. IBM Security Access Manager is a very good solution, so my company is still using it."

"The solution has powerful authentification and authorization. It offers a good way to increase security."

More IBM Security Verify Access pros

Cons

"The main improvement needed for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is to integrate into the cloud-delivered services from F5."

"We do not have knowledgeable support teams locally."

"The price of this product can be improved."

"The solution’s GUI looks very old."

"Integrating identity providers and single sign-on solutions can simplify user authentication and access control."

"F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) does not have a direction for SaaS."

"F5 BIG-IP APM disconnects when you leave it for long enough, but that is natural for IT solutions to do. That's a little bit frustrating."

"The initial setup was complex."

More F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) cons

"The solution could be classified as a hilt system. There are a lot of resources being used and it is suitable for very large enterprises or the public sector."

"What we'd like improved in IBM Security Access Manager is its onboarding process as it's complex, particularly when onboarding new applications. We need to be very, very careful during the onboarding. We have no issues with IBM Security Access Manager because the solution works fine, apart from the onboarding process and IBM's involvement in onboarding issues. If we need support related to the onboarding, we've noticed a pattern where support isn't available, or they don't have much experience, or we're not getting a response from them. We're facing the same issue with IBM Guardium. As we're just focusing on the multi-factor authentication feature of IBM Security Access Manager and we didn't explore any other features, we don't have additional features to suggest for the next release of the solution, but we're in discussion about exploring ID management and access management features, but those are just possibilities because right now, we're focused on exploring our domain."

"There are a lot of areas that can be improved, but the main area is the lack of customization. You cannot easily customize anything in the product. It is not easy to tweak the functionality. It is challenging to change the out-of-the-box functionality."

"IBM Security Verify Access installation process is not straightforward; it requires underlying specialized knowledge upon which the IBM products are based."

"The user interface needs to be simplified, it's complex and not user-friendly."

"The user interface for users and administrators could be improved to make it easier. Automating some functions could also be beneficial."

"IBM Security Verify Access installation process is not straightforward; it requires underlying specialized knowledge upon which the IBM products are based."

"They can improve the single sign-on configuration for OIDC and OAuth. That is not very mature in this product, and they can improve it in this particular area. OIDC is a third-party integration that we do with the cloud platforms, and OAuth is an authorization mechanism for allowing a user having an account with Google or any other provider to access an application. Organizations these days are looking for just-in-time provisioning use cases, but IBM Security Access Manager is not very mature for such use cases. There are only a few applications that can be integrated, and this is where this product is lagging. However, in terms of configuration and single sign-on mechanisms, it is a great product."

More IBM Security Verify Access cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Recently, they have simplified the licensing"

"The tool is a little bit expensive."

"The product is very expensive."

"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The product is not expensive. It depends on the number of users."

"The license and costs depend on the amount range of users you have. For just approximately 2,000 users, the price is practical and fair. However, when you have 20,000 users, it starts to become really expensive, and the discount per user is not attractive enough to go ahead and purchase."

"It costs about 300K AED for a year. Its pricing is a bit on the higher end, but in comparison to other products in the market, its price is still better. There are lots of other products that are very costly."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Insurance Company

13%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	9

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?

In my opinion, the GUI is perfect with the configuration options provided. F5 BIG-IP has given customization options and policy configuration tools in the GUI. It's good and good enough to work.

See all answers

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 purchasing a Bentley as opposed to an Audi.

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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 such as Anycast would be beneficial. The ability to run the Anycast feature woul...

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What do you like most about IBM Security Access Manager?

The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via ema...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Security Access Manager?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Security Access Manager?

We are still using the IBM BPM platform to automate the processes for our organization.I generally use Microsoft Project for project planning and schedule management, especially in relation to Orac...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

Compared 5% of the time

Citrix Gateway vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

Compared 4% of the time

TeamViewer Business vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

Compared 4% of the time

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Microsoft Entra ID vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 13% of the time

Okta Platform vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 11% of the time

IBM Cloud Identity Service vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 8% of the time

Ping Identity Platform vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 7% of the time

Auth0 Platform vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM Security Verify Access Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

January 2026

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) report

Download F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Security Verify Access

January 2026

Download IBM Security Verify Access product report

Also Known As

F5 Access Policy Manager

IBM Security Verify Access (SVA), IBM Security Access Manager, ISAM

Overview

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is an access management proxy solution for managing global access to the enterprise networks, cloud providers, applications, and application programming interfaces (APIs). Through a single management interface, BIG-IP APM consolidates remote, mobile, network, virtual, and web access.

BIG-IP APM can also serve as a bridge between modern and classic authentication and authorization protocols and methods. For applications which are unable to support modern authentication and authorization protocols, like SAML and OAuth with OIDC, but which do support classic authentication methods, BIG-IP APM converts user credentials to the appropriate authentication standard supported by the application.

BIG-IP APM Benefits:

Ease of use
Flexibility
Ability to integrate with other systems
Security features
Granular access control
Responsive and helpful support team

BIG-IP APM Features:

Support for Identity Aware Proxy (IAP) enabling Zero Trust application access
Context-based authorization with dynamic L4/L7 ACLs
Integration with third-party MFA solutions
DTLS 2.0 mode for delivering and securing applications
SAML 2.0 identity federation support
Support for OAuth 2.0 authorization protocol
SSO support for classic authentication (Kerberos, header- based, etc.), credential caching, OAuth 2.0, SAML 2.0, and FIDO2 (U2F)
AAA server authentication and high-availability
Integration with leading IAM vendor products (Microsoft, Okta, Ping Identity)
BIG IP Edge Client and F5 Access integrate with VMware Horizon ONE (AirWatch), Microsoft Intune and IBM MaaS360
Risk-based access leveraging third-party UEBA and risk engines (HTTP Connector)

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by BIG-IP APM users.

Mahmmoud Rabie, Senior Site Reliability Engineer, writes that BIG-IP APM is "A highly stable solution for load balancing, but the initial setup is complex."

Clyde Livingston, Senior Process Specialist at Telstra, says that BIG-IP APM is "Easy to use, useful access remotely, but lacking stability."

Chris Lam, Senior Solution Consultant at Macroview Telecom Limited, states that BIG-IP APM is "Useful for remote access VPN and VPI integration with VMware.

IBM Security Verify Access is a complete authorization and network security policy management solution. It provides end-to-end protection of resources over geographically dispersed intranets and extranets.Provides a wide range of built-in authenticators and supports external authenticators.Provides permit and deny decisions for protected resources requests in the secure domain through the authorization API.Manages secure access to private internal network-based resources by using the public Internet's broad connectivity and ease of use with a corporate firewall system.

IBM

Sample Customers

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office

POST Luxembourg

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. IBM Security Verify Access

December 2025

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. IBM Security Verify Access

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