F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway compete in the application delivery and management category. F5 BIG-IP appears to have an edge in customizable traffic management and hardware performance. However, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway excels with its seamless cloud integration and scalability.
Features: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager offers a comprehensive set of features with iRules, iApps, and full reverse proxy capabilities, making it ideal for complex application environments. Its hardware performance is noted for competing well against competitors' high-end appliances. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway provides distinct cloud-native features, including ease of use, auto-scaling, and integrated security, making it a choice for businesses focusing on public cloud environments.
Room for Improvement: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is often criticized for high initial costs and deployment complexity, making it less accessible for smaller businesses. Recommended improvements include better logging, pricing flexibility, and support for cloud environments. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway users highlight configuration complexity and limitations in Web Application Firewall features, indicating a need for more robust security options and improved flexibility.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager generally requires more manual configuration and skilled personnel, suiting on-premises and hybrid environments. On the other hand, Azure Application Gateway offers seamless cloud deployment and management, aligning well with public cloud settings. Both products provide responsive customer support, but F5 receives mixed feedback regarding the availability of expertise.
Pricing and ROI: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is perceived as a high-cost solution, justified by its robust features for larger enterprises needing advanced traffic management. Azure Application Gateway's pay-as-you-go pricing model is praised for flexibility, appealing to organizations focusing on cloud-based scalability. While both demonstrate potential ROI through enhanced application performance, Azure's pricing model provides clearer budget predictability for users embracing the cloud.
The major return on investment is the security of our data.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway significantly impacts our cost savings while maintaining higher performance.
We have seen a return on investment in terms of time-saving and cost-saving by not creating our own infrastructure.
I would rate the technical support of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) nine out of ten.
There is room for improvement, specifically in paid support, by providing more direct contact.
I would rate Microsoft support as good because they have a very skilled technical support team in the background
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a very scalable product.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a scalable solution.
The stability is good, and except for a few instances, I don't see the non-availability of Azure Cloud services.
There is room for improvement in terms of support, such as assigning agents directly for more straightforward engagement.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has room for improvement because it offers many features, but its configuration is a bit difficult, at least from the developer point of view.
In future releases of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, I would like to see more AI functionalities and a better dashboard as well as some customizations.
The product is costly.
Azure solutions are quite expensive.
When it comes to pricing for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, I would rate it a seven out of ten.
One of the most beneficial features of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is its ability to identify compromised traffic and its capabilities in authentication.
We are using it for some of the security features for our applications, particularly for securing traffic in transit with SSL.
The Web Application Firewall (WAF) in Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has been very effective in protecting applications from security threats.
To address user load increases during peak times or special events, you can automatically identify these peak scenarios and configure either scaling up or down automatically based on certain parameters.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) | 15.8% |
| Microsoft Azure Application Gateway | 7.2% |
| Other | 77.0% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 62 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 31 |
| Large Enterprise | 84 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 22 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 23 |
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.
Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.
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