F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs Fortinet FortiADC comparison

F5 and Fortinet are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. F5 is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.8, while Fortinet is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.0. F5 holds a 0.5% mindshare in ADC, compared to Fortinet’s 9.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition

Read 7 F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition reviews

1,600 Views
80 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiADC

Read 25 Fortinet FortiADC reviews

3,896 Views
2,883 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition

Fortinet FortiADC

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition and Fortinet FortiADC 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 Virtual Edition vs. Fortinet FortiADC Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs. Fortinet FortiADC

December 2025

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Helped 879,853 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 Virtual Edition

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

11th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Fortinet FortiADC

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is 0.5%. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiADC is 9.8%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiADC	9.8%
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition	0.5%
Other	89.7%

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2716224

System Administrator at a non-tech company with 501-1,000 employees

Focuses on securing application access with dependable integration

I do not use the load balancing and traffic management features of F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition. I use other container orchestration platforms, but they are not relevant to F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition. I have utilized F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition's ability to integrate with cloud platforms including AWS, Azure, GCP, and Salesforce. I have no idea how this integration has helped my organization manage hybrid or multi-cloud environments. The seamless integration of F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition with existing F5 technologies is not important to me as I do not use other technologies from F5. Financially, we require F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition because we need the product. We don't have anything else that performs the same functions, so we use it without trying alternatives. I just use and manage F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, though I didn't handle its deployment. I would recommend F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition as a solution to others. I would rate F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition an eight out of ten overall.

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GANESAN K

Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited

Has supported load balancing for medical applications and could benefit from more custom configuration options

Some customers need custom management for handling their applications across the servers. Instead of having a predefined solution, if we had space for custom-based algorithms to load balance the traffic, it would be better. We have faced such cases with A10, where we can leverage many custom scripts and do much more. Even though A10 primarily focuses on SMBs, they have also ventured into the enterprise market. Fortinet has been a pioneer for enterprise solutions, such as firewalls, SASE, ZTNA, and SD-WAN solutions, and they are in a leader quadrant. Therefore, they should have more options. From a pricing perspective, it is expensive.

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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

"It's easy to use, and they have good support."

"The features that I like include LTM and Global Traffic Manager (GTM)."

"The advanced web application firewall protection and SSL offloading capabilities of F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition have been utilized in my organization; these features are contributing to our application security and compliance posture."

"The integration capabilities of the product are easy to use, and there is no complexity involved in it."

"It has DoS layer 7 protection, which not many vendors have."

"I have a specific issue with the network interface connector, the NIC. We're limited to a maximum of two NICs in a virtualized environment. It's a limitation of the tool."

"The tool's investment is less than a physical device."

"Because ADC is the intermediary between the servers and the end-user application, it gives thorough information about the traffic, what the problem is."

"The main feature that we use is GSLB (Global Server Load Balancing). GSLB makes the customer's network more reliable by scaling applications across multiple datacenters. GSLB as a disaster recovery solution can direct traffic based on site availability."

"I use load balancing technology like Round Robin or low weight to maintain session-based connections. This ensures that clients can connect to their applications without interruption."

"Key features include SSL Offloading, VM availability, and L7 load balancing."

"FortiADC provides load-balancing capabilities needed for integration with other Fortinet platforms."

"The product has flexible and interesting licensing options."

"Fortinet FortiADC is a good product because each and every piece of content is monitored by it."

"Customer service is excellent."

More Fortinet FortiADC pros

Cons

"The tool has limitations with respect to code and RAM."

"F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is a heavy system that needs a lot of CPU, memory, and hard disk."

"It's expensive and could be cheaper."

"I have a specific issue with the network interface connector, the NIC. We're limited to a maximum of two NICs in a virtualized environment. It's a limitation of the tool."

"BIG-IP could improve in supporting microservices, for example, in Docker and Kubernetes environments."

"On-the-go upgrades are an option that the tool currently lacks, making it an area where improvements are required."

"Fortinet has some drawbacks, and it can be a bit challenging to scale."

"The configuration is relatively complex."

"It would be good if they built in a fully functional web application firewall."

"The solution needs to integrate sFlow. sFlow provides better visualization of the bandwidth and types of traffic passing through the device. When used in the traffic path, this information can be really useful."

"I think it would be helpful if Fortinet put more video examples on their cookbook site."

"I had a terrible experience with Fortinet support. I only used support once when I bought the solution. I got no response for two days. However, I believe that it's no longer the case. Fortinet solutions have problems when they're launched. For example, we had issues with Fortinet's authenticator when it came out. We also had trouble with FortiNAC in the beginning."

"Issues with SSL and encrypted traffic."

"Technical support and documentation could both be improved."

More Fortinet FortiADC cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company's customers need to make payments for the licensing charges attached to the product. It is an expensive product."

"The pricing is standard."

"F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is an expensive solution, but it's worth the price."

"I would rate the pricing a three out of ten, with ten being expensive."

"The product has average pricing. I rate its pricing a five out of ten."

"I rate Fortinet FortiADC's pricing one out of ten. It is fixed."

"The solution's pricing is an issue and should be improved."

"They offer a perpetual license."

"The product has affordable pricing."

"The solution could be more cost-effective."

"The solution is less expensive than F5 or Imperva and is the most reasonably priced option available."

"Compared to F5, FortiADC pricing is better."

More Fortinet FortiADC pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	2

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?

The integration capabilities of the product are easy to use, and there is no complexity involved in it.

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?

I believe F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition can be improved because the 25 megabits throughput cap is small.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?

My advice for others looking into using F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is to be aware of the throughput cap and how complex it can be. I would rate this product a 9 overall.

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

Do you recommend Fortinet FortiADC?

I recommend Fortinet FortiADC. My experience with Fortinet has been very positive. Our company has been using it for around five years. We mainly use FortiADC for the load balancing of application ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiADC?

The user interface is very easy and integrates with Sandbox easily.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 22% of the time

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition

Compared 20% of the time

SOCKS5 Proxy Server with Web Panel vs F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition

Compared 17% of the time

UBIKA WAAP Cloud vs F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition

Compared 17% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition

Compared 13% of the time

More F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition Competitors

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

Compared 36% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 14% of the time

NetScaler vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 13% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 6% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiADC Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition

January 2026

Download F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiADC

January 2026

Download Fortinet FortiADC product report

Also Known As

No data available

FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC

Overview

When you need to move faster than hardware allows, BIG-IP Virtual Editions (VEs) deliver the application services you need in a more agile and flexible form factor. Get the scalability, security, and automatability BIG-IP products are known for—all in software designed for use in single-, hybrid-, or multi-cloud architectures.

Fortinet FortiADC is a robust application delivery controller (ADC) that delivers application optimization, application security, and application availability. FortiADC is a valued offering from Fortinet, which is widely recognized as a trusted supplier of dynamic security solutions worldwide. FortiADC offers dynamic security functions (AV, DDoS, and WAF) in addition to advanced application connectors for a simplified deployment and complete transparency to an organization's networks and applications. FortiADC offers three primary deployment options: physical machine, virtual machine, (VM) and cloud solution options.

Fortinet FortiADC Benefits

FortiADC security protocol: FortiADC integrates with FortiSandbox to improve the overall antivirus security protections where every file is scanned for known and unknown malicious risks. If a file is identified as malicious or problematic, it will be blocked in the future.
SSL protocol: FortiADC securely uses the most up-to-date cryptography to provide exceptional encryption and decryption using a hardware-based SSL ASIC. FortiADC offers complete transparency to inspect all traffic for threats, improves server response time, and reduces backend server load, SSL inspection and SSL offloading. FortiADC integrates seamlessly with Gemalto’s SafeNet Hardware Security Module (HSM).
FortiADC connectors: FortiADC Fabric Connectors offer open API-based integration and coordination with numerous software-defined networks (SDNs), third-party partners, and cloud management providers. Fortinet Fabric Connectors provide deep open and turnkey integration with recognized third-party vendors such as AWS, K8s, OCI, and SAP, in multi-vendor solutions, improving scalability, simplified management, and automation.
Business stability: FortiADC load balancing for on-premise global server load balancing (GSBL) and in the cloud (FortiGSBL Cloud) will ensure users can maintain a reliable and available network by improving the ability of scaling applications throughout numerous data centers to reduce application response times and enhance disaster recovery. Users are able to define protocols based on network latency concerns, overall data performance, and site availability.

Fortinet FortiADC Features

Application availability
- 4-7 application load balancing: DNS, HTTPS, RTMP, RADIUS, MySQL and more
- External fabric connectors: Splunk Integration, AWS/OCI Connector, Kubernetes Service.
- Security fabric connectors: FortiSIEM, Fortigate BanIP Integration, FortiAnalyzer, and more.
- Deployment modes: High availability (AA/AP Failover), Router mode, transparent mode (switch), one-arm mode (proxy with X-forwarded for support.
Web application firewall (WAF)
- Security services: Captcha support, cookie support, HTTP header security, XML/SOAP/JSON validation, CSRF protection, API gateway, and more.
- Application security: Web attack signature, bot detection, web vulnerability scanner, OWASP Top-10 Wizard, API protection and more.

Application enhancement
- HTTP and TCP improvement: TCP buffering, HTTP compressions/decompression, HTTP caching (dynamic and static objects), Bandwidth monitoring using quality of service (QoS), TCP buffering, and more.
- Authentication offloading: Two-factor authentication (Fortitoken/Fortitoken Cloud and Google Authentication), NTLM, AUTH2.0, SAML 2.0 (SP and Idp) RADIUS, LDAP, Kerbos, and local.
- Networking: Integration with Ansible, Cisco ACI, OpenStack and Nutanix, NVGRE and VXLAN support, VLAN and port trunking support, IPv6 Support (SLB, firewall, routing and interfaces), Dynamic NAT, Hide NAT, Static NAT for added scalability and flexibility.
- Management: Syslog support, SNMP using private MIBs with threshold-based traps. REST APIs, VDOMS, data analytics, real-time monitoring graphs, role-based monitoring, intuitive reporting, FortiView integration, and more.

Fortinet

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs. Fortinet FortiADC

December 2025

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs. Fortinet FortiADC

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs. Fortinet FortiADC and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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