No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey 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:
 

ROI

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
5.1
OpenVPN Community Edition offers quick, cost-effective secure network access with no licensing fees, reducing risk compared to commercial solutions.
Having a centralized interface that combines user management, live session visibility, and route monitoring would drastically reduce administrator overhead.
Professional Services Engineer at Next7 IT
Our internal dashboard, admin panels, and servers are no longer directly exposed to the internet.
Founder at Cipheroot Cybersecurity Solutions
It is effective because within five to ten minutes you can configure it from the marketplace, and you are all set up to let your development and users access the environment in a secure manner.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
 

Customer Service

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
5.7
TurnKey's OpenVPN Community Edition receives high praise for effective, responsive support and well-maintained documentation, despite limited interactions.
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
Customer support for OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey is fantastic.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
Customer support for OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey is really good, and the portal documentation is very well maintained.
Angular Developer at Flourish Software
 

Scalability Issues

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
5.9
TurnKey's OpenVPN Community Edition scales efficiently for small to medium environments, ensuring secure remote access and smooth vertical expansion.
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
If you want to opt for a certain number of concurrent connections, we always have to look forward to a vertical scaling of OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey server.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
No matter the number of concurrent connections that need to be made, if one follows those recommendations of compute and memory configuration for OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey server deployment, it is really quick and efficient.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
For small and medium-sized enterprise organizations, it is very helpful and scalable.
Angular Developer at Flourish Software
 

Stability Issues

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
8.4
OpenVPN Community Edition is stable and reliable, supporting 20-25 connections with minimal downtime, impressing users with its performance.
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
We are able to ensure around 20 to 25 concurrent connections, and they are stable enough while connecting to the public cloud.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
With the configuration recommendation given by OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey, if you follow it, it is really scalable and redundant.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
It is an extremely stable solution.
Analista de Infraestrutura de TI at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
 

Room For Improvement

F5 BIG-IP APM requires improvements in pricing, cloud integration, user interface, documentation, support, and additional features for enhanced performance.
OpenVPN Community Edition needs improved management, setup, user interface, performance, integration, and configuration to aid new users and administrators.
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
Performance is a key point for improvement.
Analista de Infraestrutura de TI at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Security-wise, OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey is one of the strongest areas, supporting strong encryption and authentication mechanisms, ensuring that everything is encrypted and authorized each time, which increases security.
Senior Lead Analytics Engineer at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
I would like to see an improvement in OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey by adding a feature that shows user activity after connecting to the VPN.
Senior Information Technology Security Consultant at Mideast Data Systems
 

Setup Cost

F5 BIG-IP APM is costly but valued for high performance, with unpredictable cloud pricing and additional fees for features.
OpenVPN Community Edition offers cost-effective, secure VPN solutions with minimal setup, appealing to enterprises despite complex administration needs.
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is really minimal.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is really efficient and not on the higher side.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
For regular engineers or help desk staff, the workflow is usually simple: launch the VPN client, select the client profile, authenticate the credentials or MFA, connect, and verify access.
Professional Services Engineer at Next7 IT
 

Valuable Features

F5 BIG-IP APM offers secure remote access with SSL VPN, multi-factor authentication, and comprehensive integration and security features.
OpenVPN Community Edition offers secure, scalable, and cost-effective cross-platform connectivity with strong encryption and simple configuration for remote work.
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
OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey has measurably reduced our timelines and effectively given secure access to our clients' development resources with quick and efficient service.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
The features we use the most include secure encrypted remote access, cross-platform compatibility, client profile configuration, certificate-based authentication, stability and reliability, vendor-neutral deployment, flexible routing and subnet access, and logging and troubleshooting visibility.
Professional Services Engineer at Next7 IT
The best features OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey offers include strong encryption and flexibility in deployment, along with useful cross-platform support and extensive configuration options that enhance our organization's security.
Senior Lead Analytics Engineer at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...
Ranking in SSL VPN
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (18th), Network Access Control (NAC) (11th), Remote Access (18th), Access Management (14th)
OpenVPN Community Edition -...
Ranking in SSL VPN
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the SSL VPN category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 4.6%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey is 2.9%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
SSL VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey2.9%
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)4.6%
Other92.5%
SSL VPN
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Abhishek Saini - PeerSpot reviewer
Professional Services Engineer at Next7 IT
Standardized remote access has boosted secure client support and improved team coordination
OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey is very flexible, but there are features that would significantly improve day-to-day operations, especially in MSPs. The biggest improvement I would see is better centralized management, easier routing and network virtualization, more advanced built-in monitoring and reporting, simplified certificate lifecycle management, and stronger integrations with identity providers. One thing we often wish for is something similar to enterprise VPN dashboards where we can instantly see who is connected, which routes are active, failed authentication attempts, and tunnel health. Overall, the core VPN engine itself is solid, but most frustrations are really around management, visibility, scalability, and operational convenience rather than the tunnel functionality itself. The biggest friction point with OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey is usually around configuration complexity and troubleshooting, especially in more complex client networks. I encounter issues whenever there are routing and subnet issues, DNS resolution problems, certificates and client configuration management challenges, limited centralized management in the community edition, or documentation dependency.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which SSL VPN solutions are best for your needs.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Construction Company
7%
Construction Company
25%
Comms Service Provider
17%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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...
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. I am using F5 Advanced WAF, but I switch between ZTNA solutions such as FortiSAS...
What needs improvement with OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey?
I would like to see an improvement in OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey by adding a feature that shows user activity after connecting to the VPN. Currently, OpenVPN Community Edition -...
What advice do you have for others considering OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey?
I purchased OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey through the AWS Marketplace. My advice for others looking into using OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey is that if you really ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey?
OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey is completely free. There is no pricing, no setup cost, and no licensing. OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey is not mainly an AI-based pla...
 

Also Known As

F5 Access Policy Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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. OpenVPN Community Edition - powered by TurnKey and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.