Portnox and F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager compete in the network access control space. Portnox is preferred for its cost-effectiveness and straightforward deployment, while F5 BIG-IP APM is chosen for its comprehensive features and strong integration capabilities.
Features: Portnox offers seamless cloud integration, intuitive remote access management, and simple setup, making it suitable for smaller teams. F5 BIG-IP APM provides extensive access controls, robust threat protection, and flexibility with diverse authentication protocols such as SAML and OAuth.
Room for Improvement: Portnox could enhance its scalability features and expand integration with more diverse IT environments. It might also benefit from more advanced security capabilities. F5 BIG-IP APM could improve its user interface to ease configuration and increase deployment simplicity. It might also offer more budget-friendly options while maintaining its feature-rich offerings.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Portnox offers a cloud-based deployment model, ensuring rapid setup and accessible support. F5 BIG-IP APM, despite its complex deployment due to its extensive features, provides robust long-term customer support and resources for enterprises with advanced IT infrastructures.
Pricing and ROI: Portnox is known for lower upfront costs and quick return on investment, appealing to budget-focused businesses. F5 BIG-IP APM, while requiring higher initial investment, is valued for its long-term benefits and comprehensive security features, seen as a worthwhile expenditure for larger organizations.
If you were moving from a traditional on-premise NAC that was 100% managed by the IT department, there would be great savings in going to a cloud-based NAC with Portnox.
Most of the technical support is managed in-house due to our extensive experience with F5 products.
Even if they respond, they don't update me with the process or what's going on.
F5 technical support is responsive and helpful.
I was seeing weird things, and they were able to explain things to me and help me quickly find a resolution.
They resolved issues quickly and provided clear explanations.
They respond very immediately and provide detailed, amazing support.
The product's flexibility and company culture contribute to resolving these challenges.
I would rate the scalability of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) between seven and eight.
On a scale from one to ten for stability, I would rate F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) a ten.
Sometimes, the logs are not quite informational or easy to understand.
In the four years that I used Portnox, if it crashed or the server crashed, that would not have been more than once.
The product itself is available and its uptime is 100%.
If I could copy and paste objects instead of picking and configuring them from scratch each time, it would be great.
The main improvement needed for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is to integrate into the cloud-delivered services from F5.
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) does not have a direction for SaaS.
Ideally, we should be able to search for any MAC address in the database, regardless of its authentication status, to see all its associated groups and potential conflicts.
It was a seamless integration, but we did experience some difficulties initially where mobile phones were being locked out until we figured out how to set footprints for mobile phones that would be able to connect using Portnox to access the Wi-Fi in the environment.
They don't have much support during Asia Pacific hours.
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability.
The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe.
If you compare Portnox with all other well-known standard products, it is the cheapest.
It is a bit on the high side, but considering the cloud features and how much it costs to run the instance in the cloud, it is not unreasonable.
APM is quite flexible for customers to use, providing secure remote access through various host-checking conditions for both machines and users.
It provides robust security and offers integration with multi-factor authentication systems, which is crucial for an organization's security policy.
A lot of features are useful to me, including mostly the authentication, SAML, or SSO, with no sign-on.
Our IT support team can easily manage daily tasks without being network administrators.
We use Meraki for our switching, making it simple to point all our networks and offices to Portnox.
It is very easy to implement on our current network hardware.
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:
BIG-IP APM Features:
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.
Portnox offers Network Access Control to manage user access based on policy, securing both wired and wireless networks while ensuring compliance. It supports endpoint security and prevents unauthorized access across industries such as banking, IT, and energy distribution.
Designed for both on-premises and cloud deployments through CORE and Clear versions, Portnox delivers a straightforward interface aiding in deployment. It integrates effectively with equipment from multiple vendors and security solutions, enhancing endpoint profiling and ensuring compliance. Portnox provides real-time alerts and network activity insights, bolstered by excellent technical support and scalability. It also automates monitoring, reducing the need for dedicated resources while offering a comprehensive view of network activities.
What are the essential features of Portnox?
What benefits should users focus on in Portnox reviews?
Across industries like banking and IT, organizations rely on Portnox for endpoint profiling and compliance, ensuring remote worker security. Electricity distributors leverage its robust features for managing secure network access. Improvements like better third-party integration, enhanced graphical interface, and expanded support are desired, along with licensing adjustment and expanded use of AI and behavioral analytics.
We monitor all Network Access Control (NAC) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
