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

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

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Executive Summary

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

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

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

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

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Helped 861,390 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:

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.3%, up from 15.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.3%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 14.6%, down from 16.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

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.

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PeterForster

Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

A highly stable and scalable load-balancing software that offers great technical support

My company is really happy with Kemp LoadMaster as a product. My company is also happy with the support we receive from Kemp LoadMaster. I want Kemp LoadMaster to provide users with better reporting capabilities in relation to TCP packets. In general, the connections that are present in the system require improvement. Feature-wise, Kemp LoadMaster has everything that our company's customers require. Kemp LoadMaster also has features that have supported our company's past projects.

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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.

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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

"The setup is pretty easy."

"The most valuable features are DNS, APM, and ASM. Additionally, it is easy to use and you have a lot of flexibility to use the solution within a network."

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

"One of the greatest things about F5 Load Balancer is that it provides additional capability for handling huge workloads and routing them to an SAP or non-SAP application. It is capable of supporting a large amount of user workload and application connectivity workload. This was the main reason why we chose F5."

"Load balancing generally brings high availability and a bigger ability to scale out. In some cases, it brings security, depending on how it is configured."

"The occasion in which we needed technical support, we didn't have problems with them, because they always answered our questions without any trouble."

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

"BIG-IP LTM is completely stable, and its performance is good."

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

"I like that this is a Network Load Balancer that can be used practically with any application in the backend. They have how-to guides on how to set up Kemp NLB with Exchange, but you can use it as well for Sharepoint, RDS, or any other back end server."

"The most valuable feature so far has been the high-availability options that allowed us to add an additional Kemp LoadMaster VLM virtual appliance into our VMware vSphere environment, to provide failover for our existing LoadMaster."

"It has greatly fortified the performance and uptime of our front-door email ingress, simplified and segmented mail routing, and reduced admin overhead for mail issue resolution and troubleshooting."

"The DNS Load Balancer makes it so that I don't have to worry about site failures."

"We are most impressed with the ease of use and great support."

"Using Kemp as a front-facing service appliance, it allows me to have the flexibility of swapping out real servers behind the scenes without any intervention from my network team."

"It has been functional. We don't have any outages."

"It helps with efficiency and reactivity, in case of assistance needs."

More Kemp LoadMaster pros

"It has helped us to increase the resiliency of the application and the performance."

"The solution's technical support is good."

"Scalability is great. One of the best features of NetScaler is that it can scale out."

"Easy, user-friendly setup with content switching and integrated caching features."

"The most valuable features are the VDA Delivery, Gateway Fort, and the load balancing."

"I find all of it to be valuable, because of the flexibility that is built into this product."

"The solution is extremely stable."

"Unified Gateway allows me to provide secure external access to applications for suppliers and customers while requiring Multi-Factor Authentication."

More NetScaler pros

Cons

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

"It is a hardware load balancer, and its installation procedure is more complex than a software load balancer. There are pros and cons of using hardware load balancing. You have to have specific hardware deployed in your data center to activate this load balancer. They never came up with any software-based load balancing solution. It is all hardware-based."

"BIG-IP LTM's sandboxing integration could be improved."

"The one gap I saw was that pure LBN integration is a little tricky. The insertion of F5 in LBN is a little tricky. They need to work on something, on products by which they can insert F5 in any sort of cloud environment."

"F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is sometimes a bit cumbersome to deal with some builds, although that's gotten significantly better over the years."

"Native support for containers should be added to future releases, as this is the future of load balancing."

"The pricing model has caused some frustration. My clients implemented the solution and later wanted to upgrade the features but the pricing structure was complicated. There are other solutions with better pricing models."

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

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

"Several elements of the GUI need work. For example, if you have many content switches, it’s difficult to find the ones you need. And where is the search feature?"

"Third, the password history restriction needs improvement. For example, the password policy will restrict the user to always use a unique password combination. The password should not be reused for a minimum of three generations of passwords."

"There is room for improvement in the stability of the solution."

"It would be nice if the historical metrics were easily exportable from the interface."

"UI is very basic and unattractive."

"Some of the support documentation seems to make assumptions that the person installing or configuring is experienced with the product or concepts."

"Overall, the Kemp LoadMaster has been an all-rounder great product and stable. The free trial and virtual edition make it a breeze for any potential customer to give it a spin before actually deciding to put it on the infrastructure or even talk to the CFO."

"The only thing that I miss is that the TMG server was giving me live information about who is connected and what is the request about."

More Kemp LoadMaster cons

"Currently, the support team's responsiveness is lacking, and the technical personnel on calls often seem unfamiliar with the issues or inadequately trained."

"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."

"The tool needs to add a feature where we can access the network policy access manager."

"We are looking for some in-depth monitoring and analytics and more information that Citrix Director doesn't provide. ControlUp has insights that not only give you an overview but also allow you to do some drill-down troubleshooting for what's going on in your environment. We are looking for some more analytical and monitoring data to be able to monitor the environment better, not only from an application standpoint but also from the standpoint of the infrastructure to everything it sits on. They can provide more data to the administrators about what's going on within the application. They can provide data not only on the application side but also about what the application sits on. They're making strides with Citrix Analytics in regards to that."

"Too many bugs in the software and it's always difficult when you need to update."

"The configuration for its web application firewall is complicated."

"We would like the licensing model for this product to be improved, as it isn't currently very transparent. There isn't a standard package available, and each extra feature creates an additional cost."

"The security is okay, but the monitoring and reporting need improvement."

More NetScaler cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our company pays for the licensing cost on a yearly basis. Also, there are no extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"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."

"The price of the solution is sometimes expensive."

"This is a high-priced tool. We pay for its license yearly."

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was good. We chose to go through the AWS Marketplace because everything that we needed was a soft appliance. We needed something to work in Amazon, and this product was available there."

"F5 BIG-IP can be expensive, although there are trial versions available which are helpful to find out if the solution is right for your company."

"There are a few licensing options available for F5 BIG-IP LTM. You can have a perpetual license which is a lifetime license. You then only need to renew the support, if you choose to open a ticket with the support."

"I would recommend that the cost be lowered."

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

"It is well-priced and licensing is very flexible."

"It has a very attractive ratio of price/performance."

"The product definitely provides what the organization needs and its cost is reasonable considering the value it brings."

"From a cost perspective, Kemp is very competitive and is not hard to justify by any means."

"The price of the solution is cheap."

"The price is great and the value is definitely there."

"I have control on the licensing and all the prices since I work for a partner."

"The pricing is alright and we pay a monthly licensing fee"

More Kemp LoadMaster pricing and cost advice

"Price-wise, I feel that the solution is a little bit expensive."

"You can do CapEx and then a yearly monthly fee, or you can do a subscription model, whether that's one month, month-to-month, or three-year subscription model."

"It's not for startups or SOHO."

"Citrix ADM costs us approximately $5000 per month."

"When compared to other solutions, the cost is high."

"NetScaler does the same thing as an F5 and it's cheaper."

"The licensing costs for this solution vary depending on which model is being used."

"The solution's pricing is very high compared to its competitors."

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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861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

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.

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.

What do you like most about Kemp LoadMaster?

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?

LoadMaster is cheaper than some other solutions. It has a perpetual license, so it's a one-time cost.

What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?

There are some challenges with updates on certain models that don't have a few features. The support team often takes...

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 19% of the time

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

Compared 8% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer 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

Loadbalancer.org vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 3% of the time

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

HAProxy vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 19% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 15% of the time

NGINX Plus vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 8% of the time

Loadbalancer.org vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 6% of the time

More Kemp LoadMaster Competitors

HAProxy vs NetScaler

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NetScaler

Compared 10% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs NetScaler

Compared 9% of the time

NGINX Plus vs NetScaler

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon Elastic Load Balancing vs NetScaler

Compared 3% of the time

More NetScaler Competitors

Product Reports

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

July 2025

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report

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

Kemp LoadMaster

Download Kemp LoadMaster product report

Download NetScaler 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

LoadMaster Load Balancer

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.

Kemp LoadMaster is a powerful load balancing solution that also serves as a web application firewall. Its primary use case is load balancing and application load balancing, making it an ideal solution for organizations that must distribute traffic across multiple servers. Kemp's integration with an active directory for ESP usage, hosting/deployment of SSL certificates, and pricing are some of its most valuable features.

Using Kemp has helped organizations mitigate cross-scripting vulnerabilities, cookie-related issues, and content security policy issues. It has also allowed them to handle everything with Kemp instead of working on each application individually.

Progress Software

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.

Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank

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

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)