F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs HAProxy vs NetScaler comparison

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91% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

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91% willing to recommend

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), HAProxy, and NetScaler based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, HAProxy and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC).

To learn more, read our detailed Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Report (Updated: May 2025).

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

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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:

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.4%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 12.4%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 14.4%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

Bonieber Orofeo

Information Security 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) ( /products/f5-big-ip-local-traffic-manager-ltm-reviews ) 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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Bhaskar Rao

Network manager admin at Yamaha

Open-source, simple to install, and reliable

Although HAProxy is essentially open-source, many features are not available. While troubleshooting, we are having some difficulties. There are no issues when it is running; it is stable and very good; however, if there is a troubleshooting issue or an incident occurs, we will have issues because this is open-source. We are only experiencing problems at that time. Otherwise, everything is fine. Because we need to search for a document or some troubleshooting information. That could be beneficial to us. To resolve the troubleshooting issues, additional documentation and troubleshooting are required. The product is satisfactory. However, additional documentation, additional technical documents, and troubleshooting steps are the types of things that can only make this solution better. Also, more clarity on where the package is hitting and where it is stopping is needed.

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DEMİRHAN ÇAVUŞOĞLU

Cloud Consultant at Migros Ticaret A.Ş.

A tool for centralized management including inventory and sales tracking

Citrix ADM has the ability to implement policies to tighten security. For instance, you can restrict access to your network from outsiders or lack necessary security measures such as antivirus programs. Additionally, there's the Delivery Controller, which allows for comprehensive monitoring and management tasks such as remote restarts, maintenance, and registration. Another essential component is the Director, which provides detailed insights into sessions, including identifying session failures, connection issues, user lockouts, etc. It presents a list of problems to address, enabling you to click on them and resolve them efficiently.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its user interface is very easy to use on a day-to-day basis. It is very user-friendly."

"It has helped a lot to protect our organization from external attacks, especially XSS or XSRF types of attacks."

"The most helpful thing is that it's open-source. It's very easy to program and customize."

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

"The tech support we got from F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager directly was pretty good."

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

"It is a stable product from a stable company. Recently, they have been more focused on security as well."

"I have found F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) to be stable."

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

"Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind."

"HAProxy's TCP load balancer is excellent and super stable."

"It has allowed us to evenly distribute the load across a number of servers, and check their health and automatically react to errors."

"The solution is effective in managing our traffic."

"I have found HAProxy very helpful in replicating production environment architecture in a development and testing environment."

"What I like best about the product is its simplicity and speed. When you need to set up a load balancer quickly, HAProxy offers options like sticky sessions and round-robin. It's also fast to configure, including adding SSL for security. While it may have fewer options than other solutions like F5, HAProxy gets the job done for basic load-balancing tasks."

"I can't speak to all of the HAProxy features because we don't use them all, but load balancing is very good."

"It solves a problem for me where I can build files, not based on the health of the check, but rather the speed of the check."

More HAProxy pros

"The GSLB feature allows us to move services between data centers. We can do this in either a planned or unplanned manner. We have experienced service provider outages at our primary data center and GSLB will kick in to automatically modify DNS records to point to a secondary data center (active/passive). We also make use of GeoIP information to point clients to the closest data center for accessing applications."

"It's very easy to configure."

"The most valuable feature for us is the application firewalling in Citrix NetScaler, ensuring only valid traffic enters our environment."

"Content Switching provides flexibility for routing traffic as desired to designated real servers. It also provides good geo capabilities through its GSLB feature."

"The web application firewall which protects our services on the internet, and then of course services like our ability to provide high availability for the services we are offering are the most valuable features."

"I prefer this solution because of its user-friendly interface. I find it simple and close to what I am currently using, which is Citrix Fortiva Access for Multi-Factor Authentication. I appreciate the familiar user interface and troubleshooting tools it offers."

"I like the ease of use. It's easy to manage. I also like it's ease of use with virtualization technologies with applications."

"It is a very stable solution."

More NetScaler pros

Cons

"A more intuitive interface would be helpful."

"In terms of pricing, it could be more competitive."

"The user interface of F5 BIG-IP LTM is old and could improve."

"A lot of functions that are attributed to iRules can actually be simple profile changes. iRules do have a certain performance impact. Therefore, instead of writing simple iRules, they can create certain profiles for classes that will perform the same function."

"The solution could improve the documentation."

"I used GitHub for autoscaling CloudFormation, and I found two bugs and I submitted them. Their implementation in GitHub could be cleaner and allow for a bit more customization."

"For integration with other AWS environments, we do some tie-ins with some autoscaling groups. This has been challenging for us. We have had issues, where when autoscaling groups scale up, there are some instances which are not showing up in the proper size. Then, those IPs would get registered with F5, but never get released. Therefore, we are ending up with a whole bunch of ghosted IPs."

"The solution's hardware quality needs improvement."

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

"The reconfigurability in terms of the tooling could be improved and maybe an editor plugin can be added."

"They should introduce one feature that I know many people, including me, are waiting for: HAProxy should have provide hot-swipe for back-end servers. Also, they need a more detailed GUI for monitoring and configuration."

"Improving the documentation with multiple examples and scenarios would be beneficial. Most users encounter similar situations, so having a variety of scenarios readily available on the tool's website would be helpful. For instance, if I were part of the HAProxy team, I'd create a webpage with different scenarios and provide files for each scenario. This way, users wouldn't have to start from scratch every time."

"HAProxy could improve by making the dashboards easier to use, and better reports and administration tickets."

"The basic clustering is not usable in our very specific setup. The clustering is mainly a configuration replication and is great in a case of active-passive usage. In the case of an active-active (or with more than two nodes) where the configuration is not fully identical, it cannot be used as-is."

"While troubleshooting, we are having some difficulties. There are no issues when it is running; it is stable and very good; however, if there is a troubleshooting issue or an incident occurs, we will have issues because this is open-source."

"The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs."

"I would like to evaluate load-balancing algorithms other than round robin and SSL offloading. Also, it would be helpful if I could logically divide the HAProxy load-balancing into multiple entities so that I would install one HA Proxy LB application which could be used for different Web servers for different applications. I am not sure if these features are available."

More HAProxy cons

"An area for improvement in Citrix Web App and API Protection is for it to give real-time notifications and alerts. It would be practical if the solution warns you if there's an attack or if the load or traffic volume increases or decreases. An additional feature I'd like to see in Citrix Web App and API Protection is a prediction or artificial intelligence on what is happening, for example, attacks."

"They need to make the solution a little more familiar with easy study guides, learning videos, etc."

"I think there is always room for improvement in this type of solutions. For example, I think the GUI should be easy to understand."

"Needs configuration processes like disabling LB VIPs, automatically disabling the IPs used."

"The configuration is complex, and only one or two people know how to assist when problems arise."

"Citrix should improve the documentation. It is not really clear how to set up many features to our advantage. When we setup Citrix NetScaler ADC, we have to figure it out by ourselves without a lot of documentation."

"Deployment is complicated."

"There are some drawbacks, such as using EUG for specific configurations. It could be improved."

More NetScaler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Try to negotiate all the software features that you require upfront."

"It is a bit expensive product. Kemp Loadmaster is much cheaper than F5. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. It can be for one year or three years."

"F5 pricing is too high, compared to Citrix."

"It is cheaper than the average on the market."

"F5 BIG-IP is a stable solution. It is quite mature and does not have many concerns."

"There are additional costs depending on what modules or what functionality is required."

"They are expensive."

"It is a little pricey. I wish the pricing was cheaper, but I wish the pricing was cheaper for everything."

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

"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."

"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."

"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."

"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."

"We use NGINX as well. However, because the health checks are a paid feature, I like to avoid it whenever possible."

"HAProxy is free software. There are optional paid products (support/appliances)."

"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."

"The tool is open-source."

More HAProxy pricing and cost advice

"Regarding pricing, while it's expensive, I can't comment on the exact ROI without a budget analysis. However, in terms of service quality, it's worth the price."

"Citrix ADC could improve the price and make it less expensive, other competitors have a better prices. This would allow Citrix ADC to keep dominating the market."

"Licensing is adequate. I wanted to have a more prominent license, but until I do they don't give enough support. The additional cost would be too much."

"It's an expensive product but it works well."

"We are quite happy with price. It's not too high."

"It all depends on the features that will be used and the number of accesses."

"I do not have any experience with the pricing of the product."

"Costly product and complicated licensing."

More NetScaler pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?

The price needs improvement as it is quite costly.

What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?

We're using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) ( /products/f5-big-ip-local-traffic-manager-ltm-reviews ) for our a...

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

The solution is robust and reliable.

Do you recommend HAProxy?

I do recommend HAProxy for more simple applications or for companies with a low budget, since HAProxy is a free, open...

What do you like most about HAProxy?

The solution is effective in managing our traffic.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HAProxy?

HAProxy is an open-source solution.

What do you like most about Citrix ADC?

The most valuable feature for us is the application firewalling in Citrix NetScaler, ensuring only valid traffic ente...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix ADC?

After deployment, Citrix Netscaler shifted to a subscription-based license scheme for support, which is slightly more...

What needs improvement with Citrix ADC?

Citrix NetScaler is a robust product, but mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexi...

Fortinet FortiADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Comparisons

Compared 20% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

Radware Alteon vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 6% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 6% of the time

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

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs HAProxy

Compared 14% of the time

Istio vs HAProxy

Compared 12% of the time

NGINX Plus vs HAProxy

Compared 10% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs HAProxy

Compared 9% of the time

Envoy vs HAProxy

Compared 9% of the time

More HAProxy Competitors

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NetScaler

Compared 11% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs NetScaler

Compared 9% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs NetScaler

Compared 8% of the time

NGINX Plus vs NetScaler

Compared 7% of the time

Radware Alteon vs NetScaler

Compared 6% of the time

More NetScaler Competitors

Product Reports

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

Download HAProxy product report

Download NetScaler product report

April 2025

Also Known As

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

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE

Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall

Overview

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.

HAProxy is considered by many in the industry to be one of the fastest and most popular and trusted software load balancer products in the marketplace today. Organizations are able to immediately deploy HAProxy solutions to enable websites and applications to optimize performance, security, and observability. HAProxy solutions are available to scale to any environment.

HAProxy is an open-source product and has a robust, active, reliable community. The solutions are continually tested and improved on by the community. HAProxy offers a dynamic design to support the most modern architectures, microservices, and deployment environments (appliances, containers, virtual, and cloud).

HAProxy utilizes a cloud-native protocol, which makes it a complete solution for cloud services such as Red Hat OpenShift, OVH, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more. It also can be used as the reference load balancer in OpenStack.

HAProxy Products

HAProxy One: This is a next-gen end-to-end application delivery platform created to secure and streamline modern application architectures. It offers a complete suite of solutions, such as application delivery software, turnkey, and appliance services observed and administered through a central control plane. The product supplies application acceleration, CDN, DDoS, bot management, WAF capabilities, and load balancing.

HAProxy Fusion Control Plane: This product enables organizations to streamline workflows, arrange traffic routing and security protocols, enhance the speed of delivery, and scale out of the organization’s applications. HAProxy Fusion Control Plane offers an intuitive user interface to observe and control the complete product lineup and API for administering numerous fleets of HAProxy Enterprise servers, either in the cloud or on premises.

HAProxy Edge: This product offering is an application delivery network (ADN) that provides a broad array of turnkey application services with amazing scale and complete visibility. Services include application and content acceleration, advanced security, and load balancing.

HAProxy ALOHA Hardware or Virtual Load Balancer: This product is a virtual load balancer or plug-and-play hardware constructed upon HAProxy Enterprise that is designed to support proxying at Layer 4 and Layer 7. It has a user-friendly GUI, simple deployment, and no limit on backend servers, making it a complete product for organizations desiring a reliable system to provide high-end load distribution for critical services.

HAProxy Enterprise Kubernetes Ingress Controller: This product is designed to facilitate smooth traffic flow into a Kubernetes cluster. It is able to automatically discover anomalies and changes in an organization's Kubernetes infrastructure and provide precise distribution of traffic to healthy pods, with no downtime caused by poor pod health or scaling changes. The product comes with an embedded WAF to optimize the security of an organization’s applications running in Kubernetes.

HAProxy Enterprise: This product is the enterprise-class edition of HAProxy offering a dynamic and sturdy code base with next-generation features, an enterprise suite of add-ons, professional services, and trusted support.
- Cluster-wide tracking and rate limiting
- Advanced DDoS and bot management
- Web application firewall
- Reliable expert support
- High performance modules
- Device detection and geolocation
- Real-time dashboard

Reviews from Real Users

“Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind.” - Nathanel S., Platform Architect at SES

“I use HAProxy for individuals who can not buy low balancers. I built NFV in a box and send individuals a pathway into an HAProxy VM. The setup was not difficult; it usually takes a day to complete for a VPC. When it comes to pricing, HAProxy is free.” - Nasir O., Network & Cloud Architect at Koala Compute Inc.

One platform for a consistent application delivery and security experience because nobody has time to learn multiple systems to manage ADC deployments. NetScaler is built with a single code base using a software-based architecture, so no matter which ADC form factor you choose — hardware, virtual machine, bare metal, or container — the behavior will be the same.

Sample Customers

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

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp

ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)