F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Imperva Web Application Firewall comparison

The compared F5 and Imperva solutions aren't in the same category. F5 is ranked #2 in ADC , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 15.3% mindshare in the category. Imperva is ranked #7 in WAF , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Imperva users who would recommend it.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Read 121 F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) reviews

6,102 Views
4,938 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Read 52 Imperva Web Application Firewall reviews

4,789 Views
2,294 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Imperva Web Application Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall Report (Updated: September 2020).

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

September 2020

Download the complete report

Helped 856,873 peers since 2012

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 Local Traffic Man...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

121

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd)

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Application Firewall (WAF) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Imperva Web Application Firewall aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is designed for Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) and holds a mindshare of 15.3%, down 15.6% compared to last year.
Imperva Web Application Firewall, on the other hand, focuses on Web Application Firewall (WAF), holds 5.8% mindshare, down 6.7% since last year.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Bonieber Orofeo

IT 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.

Read full review

Mitesh D Patel

Senior Technical Consultant- Cyber Security at Ivalue Infosolution

Effectively defends against threats like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and others

It does bring value. For example, consider a BFSI customer. Their application is critical and represents their brand. Without a WAF, an attack could take their application down, harming their reputation. It leads to hampering the customer's workflow. With an Imperva WAF, they protect against attacks like DDoS or SQL injection, ensuring their application remains available and customers are happy. That's the main benefit for both the customer and the organization. The impact depends on the customer's use case. If their business primarily operates online, a CDN is beneficial for traffic optimization. Moreover, the integration options depend on the specific use case of our customers. Generally, integration capabilities are good with SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) parts.

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

"It is stable."

"The load balancing function, the monitors that you can create, and iRules programmability are most valuable."

"The main reason that we suggest this product to our clients is the great integration with other security tools, such as IBM Guardium."

"The solution is easy to install. It's a straightforward process."

"Good application firewall."

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

"Features such as SSL offloading, various balancing methods, and the ability to work with HTTP, HTTPS, or TCP protocols are beneficial."

"We are fond of the load balancing feature for DNS and servers."

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

"The configurability of the tools and the ease of operation to be the most valuable feature of Imperva."

"I am impressed with the product's scalability, availability, easy management, and security. We were able to integrate the product with Azure and Sentinel."

"The solution is very scalable. It is one of the most important features. You can also expand resources and features as well."

"It mitigates all of the availabilities of risks around web applications."

"Imperva is a Gartner leader, so its scalability, performance, and features are excellent."

"The solution has been quite stable. I have not seen any bugs at all."

"There are many features. There is ease of deployment. You can deploy the Imperva Web Application Firewall in two to three minutes. After that, you have to set the policies. For setting policies, you have toggle buttons. You can turn something on or off."

"The solution can scale."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pros

Cons

"They need to improve the interface and some of the functionalities."

"Lacking in free training to help users understand the product more, so they would know how to correctly use it. Like other vendors and their products, becoming more proactive is an area for improvement."

"The initial setup can be complex - it's quite flexible in terms of configuration, but the person configuring it needs to understand the application side, the network side, and the server."

"If one virtual portion is unavailable, it can cause issues."

"Performance: Using the product, applications are jittery."

"The user interface could be improved in F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager."

"Cloud native integration should be provided."

"I would like F5 to incorporate the ability to create your own custom roles and customised permissions within the product set. I have seen many customers wanting to give a certain level of access for the purposes of out-of-hours servicing to out-of-hours staff or teams that fulfill an operations type role."

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

"Support is one thing I wish Imperva could improve."

"Sometimes, support tickets don't get addressed quickly."

"One potential improvement for Imperva is enhancing its alert system."

"The support for the on-premises version needs improvement."

"The Imperva Web Application Firewall automations are good, but there is still room for improvement with them."

"The signature updates could be faster. Sometimes we have to upload signatures to the Imperva portal for checking and analysis before we can use them."

"It would be nice to have more security control over mobile applications so I would suggest adding more mobile security features. It would also be beneficial to see improvements in regards to interface bandwidth performance, CPU time, and RAM size. Learning capability of the device is quite weak."

"In the past, I have bugs on the WAF. I've contacted Imperva about them. Future releases should be less buggy."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have found the pricing and licensing on AWS to be competitive."

"The cost is high for this product, so it's not suitable for small customers, e.g. those with small environments."

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

"The cost that they have with AWS are almost prohibitive. I'm being forced to use F5 WAF. I would not simply use it based on cost. I agree that they have some great features, but for me, cost is key in terms of AWS."

"The only area that has room for improvement would be pricing, so its competitors do not have a say."

"The price should be reduced because it is expensive when compared to the competition."

"Unless the price difference is large, this is not the primary concern for the product. The performance and product-related issues (secure for VPN, multi-function for network device, etc.) are the keys."

"LTM is a good product, but it's expensive. They should make it more competitive because cloud providers offer free load balancing. Cloud providers can't cover all the security aspects of F5, but you get a decent amount of security. Cloud environments are becoming the norm across the IT industry. Many of the larger companies that previously used on-prem infrastructure are switching to the cloud, so companies like Fortinet and Palo Alto are reducing their prices. Otherwise, they can't compete in the cloud."

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

"Everybody complains about the price of this solution."

"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."

"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."

"It is a very affordable solution."

"The pricing is somewhat expensive. It is actually a huge investment when compared to other countries."

"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."

"There is a license for this solution and we purchase the license annually with no additional fees."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall 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.

See recommendations

856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

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.

See all answers

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 applications and for managing our incoming and outgoing traffic.

See all answers

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

The solution is robust and reliable.

See all answers

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

My recommendation is Imperva.

See all answers

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?

For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.

See all answers

DDoS solutions: Any other solutions to consider aside from Radware DDoS Protection Service and F5 Silverline DDoS Protection?

You can have a look to Imperva Cloud WAF, the anti-DDoS mitigation is under 1s and works very well. I observed a lot of DDoS attacks that were well managed (even not seen by the customer) by Imperv...

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 19% 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

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

Compared 8% of the time

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

Compared 7% of the time

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

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 15% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 2% of the time

More Imperva Web Application Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

June 2025

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report

Download F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall

June 2025

Download Imperva Web Application Firewall product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

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.

Imperva Web Application Firewall is a versatile solution that protects web applications and databases from various attacks, including DDoS, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection attacks. It offers data security, availability, and access control and can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud.

The solution has good security against web attacks and offers advanced bot protection, API security, and mitigation features. Imperva WAF is easy to configure and deploy; it has good customer service and an excellent user interface.

Imperva

Sample Customers

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

BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

September 2020

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: September 2020.

DOWNLOAD NOW

856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall report.

We monitor all Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) 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.