No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs Squid Proxy Cache Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.6
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition delivers ROI through cost savings, enhanced performance, security, and operational efficiency with integrated modules.
Sentiment score
3.3
Squid Proxy Cache Server offers mixed ROI perceptions with potential cost savings and efficiency, but lacks uniform financial benefits.
Overall, I can say the ROI includes a twenty-five to thirty percent cost reduction, with some areas achieving forty percent cost reduction in our expenses.
Network Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
There is a significant performance improvement in the website and website speed.
IT consultant at Beginning Solutions IT
With F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, we have not faced any RMAs, which has made a positive operational impact.
Senior Network And Security Engineer at Mobily
I have seen a return on investment with Squid Proxy Cache Server because money is definitely saved.
Owner For Data Center Operations Dns Cache at Proximus S.A.
With Squid Proxy Cache Server, you can save money because you don't need to pay for more bandwidth as you concentrate the web access in Squid Proxy Cache Server.
Cybersecurity Tenure Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Technically, if I think about the implementation cost, the cost of use, of adjustments, over time, and maintenance, it has certainly already paid for itself.
Analista de Segurança Senio at Optanet
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition customer service is praised for professionalism and speed, but concerns exist over response times and costs.
Sentiment score
3.9
Squid Proxy Cache Server requires minimal support due to strong community resources, documentation, and Linux-based user familiarity.
I would rate the customer support on a scale of one to ten as a perfect ten based on all of the experience I have had so far.
Senior Network And Security Engineer at Mobily
I rate customer support a 10 out of 10, as they are knowledgeable and provide straightforward troubleshooting.
Network Engineer at Thryv
Customer support for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is excellent.
IT consultant at Beginning Solutions IT
It would be great to have support similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Security Infrastructure Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
We were managing it on our own, and it was totally open-source.
Microsoft System Administrator at National Bank of Pakistan
There is an open-source community available on the internet, or the manual pages themselves are very helpful.
Dev Ops Technical Lead at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.2
F5 BIG-IP VE efficiently scales in cloud and on-premise, though high-load issues occur, yet remains flexible and reliable.
Sentiment score
5.4
Squid Proxy Cache Server provides robust scalability, efficiently managing traffic, configurable IP ranges, and easy deployment on Linux.
It is the most scalable and reliable system.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Within ten minutes of time, we can scale and boot as many virtual machines as needed in the environment.
Network Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Being a virtual edition, we were able to scale resources such as CPU, memory, and throughput based on our demand without major architectural changes.
Network Security Engineer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Scalability-wise, it is stateless, so it could be scaled.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Scalability of Squid Proxy Cache Server is extremely high.
Analista de Segurança Senio at Optanet
We can increase the number of end users without the limitations found in other proxies, simply by configuring Squid Proxy Cache Server to allow specific users and IP ranges.
Linux System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is stable and reliable, with benefits like enhanced performance and uptime, despite occasional high-load issues.
Sentiment score
8.0
Squid Proxy Cache Server is stable and reliable, with exceptional logging, though users occasionally face crashes and connection issues.
The load balancing module still performed admirably.
Sr network engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
The performance increased significantly and the response times of the application improved.
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The uptime improvements with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition are almost close to 100%, as it only goes down if a failover happens.
Sr. Consutant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Importantly, there has been no major outage in the 10 years I have used Squid Proxy Cache Server.
Linux System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It sometimes crashes, and it cannot handle too many connections.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Squid Proxy Cache Server is stable; I have been using it for twenty years, and it has remained stable throughout that time.
Works at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

F5 BIG-IP VE requires improvements in security, features, integration, and support with better pricing, training, and simplified licensing.
Squid Proxy could enhance usability with a user interface, AI features, better security, and optimized caching for broader adoption.
The primary concern I noted regarding F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is its scalability during high-load situations.
Sr network engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
It is a somewhat expensive solution, and the price needs to be improved based on what our customers have told us.
IT consultant at Beginning Solutions IT
With FortiWeb, we have a dashboard where I can check the policy status with just one click, and everything is easily accessible.
Senior Network And Security Engineer at Mobily
Control of information is needed so that sensitive actions are not cached, which would violate local security laws, such as in Brazil with LGPD, and in other places around the world as well.
Analista de Segurança Senio at Optanet
With the rise of cloud systems and OpenShift, enabling such features in Squid Proxy Cache Server would be very beneficial for customers, allowing for better management.
Linux System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
By default, Squid cannot see inside HTTPS traffic. It only sees the destination domain name, which poses a risk as users can bypass URL filters or download malware over encrypted connections.
System Auxiliary at Base Camp Data Solutions
 

Setup Cost

F5 BIG-IP VE offers valuable scalability and security despite high licensing costs, comparing favorably to alternatives like FortiWeb.
Squid Proxy Cache Server is open-source, offering cost savings with support through Red Hat or community resources.
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition's pricing structure was significantly more advantageous and aligned with our budgetary considerations.
Sr network engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
My experience with pricing and setup costs for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition was mixed, as they do not have an option for 10 gig licensing, which was costly for us.
Analyst at Accenture
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition solves a very significant problem of high availability and performance.
IT consultant at Beginning Solutions IT
The costs are low because it is open-source software.
Works at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I have seen a cost saving since implementing Squid Proxy Cache Server because then I don't have to really go for something such as a Blue Coat proxy.
Owner For Data Center Operations Dns Cache at Proximus S.A.
For our environment, we are using the free open source Squid Proxy Cache Server, so there is no licensing cost.
Security Infrastructure Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition offers scalable load balancing, SSL offloading, and security features, enhancing performance, uptime, and cost-efficiency.
Squid Proxy Cache Server is valued for its easy installation, open-source nature, compatibility, and comprehensive caching, security, and management features.
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition helped our customers increase the high availability and performance of their applications, specifically their web applications.
IT consultant at Beginning Solutions IT
If ten thousand, fifty thousand, or even a million people want to access the application simultaneously, we have configured auto-scalability.
Network Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition has impacted my organization positively with cost savings by saving public IP addresses, and its performance and stability, which give almost 100% uptime for the application because we have high availability.
Sr. Consutant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Squid Proxy Cache Server is very good in hiding your IP address and exposing the IP address list that it has, which is very good for the scraping use case.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Squid Proxy Cache Server has positively impacted my organization because I can filter internet access, which protects my company from users accessing malicious sites.
Data Engineer at Ericsson
Squid Proxy Cache Server has had a considerable positive impact on my organization, since a large part of internet traffic needs to be filtered to remain within the company's policies, as well as to reduce the amount of necessary traffic.
Analista de Segurança Senio at Optanet
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (4th)
Squid Proxy Cache Server
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition and Squid Proxy Cache Server aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is designed for Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) and holds a mindshare of 1.8%.
Squid Proxy Cache Server, on the other hand, focuses on Application Infrastructure, holds 0.0% mindshare.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition1.8%
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)12.2%
NetScaler11.5%
Other74.5%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Squid Proxy Cache Server0.0%
NGINX Plus8.0%
Apache Web Server7.3%
Other84.7%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2800392 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cloud deployment has simplified traffic distribution and now supports flexible multi-zone DR
Regarding F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition's improvement areas, the current dashboard is very useful, but I believe the registration process should be simplified in the virtual edition. Especially in the Azure environment, many features are not currently aligned and working with Azure. We need to make efforts to ensure it is well integrated with Azure. Currently, if we want to integrate route tables with the virtual F5 edition, we need to deploy scripting inside the virtual F5 instances, and then that script performs the virtual IP route table changes in the Azure environment. This feature should be auto-configured, and efforts are needed to ensure the virtual edition is very much aligned with the Azure environment. I am expecting this improvement in the next edition. The failover capability is also not as good as it should be. We have tested the failover functionality, and sometimes we have observed that failover fails. F5 does not successfully fail over to other instances perfectly, so that also needs to be improved. Security should also be enhanced, as in the past I have seen some security loopholes. Tightening of security should be included in the new software. These improvements should be present in near future editions.
Mayashankar Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner For Data Center Operations Dns Cache at Proximus S.A.
Caching and reverse proxy have boosted performance and improved secure web and mail access
I think Squid Proxy Cache Server can be improved by having a nice front-end, one similar to Blue Coat for access management, view management, and direct configuration instead of doing it all through the CLI. It's best to have everything done through the GUI, which is what I think can improve the product. I don't want to implement third-party GUIs on Squid Proxy Cache Server. So that's what would be on my wish list—that Squid Proxy Cache Server by itself provides a GUI, which will give more confidence to users. I haven't actually used AI with Squid Proxy Cache Server, but I think it might be very interesting to have the AI capability built-in. However, I do think we need some GPU or something to boost the performance on Squid Proxy Cache Server as natively running. I think we need to add some GPU cards so that it works more natively with AI. I don't have experience using AI features yet, but I think it would be great if it could do some live scanning of the websites that are getting blocked on a daily basis and perform some sampling analysis. Especially in the case of reverse proxy, if there are any attacks happening, it would be beneficial if it scrapes through its own log files and provides some nice dashboards showing where the attacks are coming from. That would be really great to have as a handy troubleshooting tool. One more feature I would ask for is if AI can provide the best possible configuration and do a review of Squid Proxy Cache Server just to make sure that no other ports or anything by default are missed in configuration. It would also be great if the proxy server acts as a load balancer in a cluster mode that shares the cache, and the configuration is best set.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.
909,153 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
Sometimes customers assume vulnerability points in F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition represent actual vulnerabilities, but they are false positives in that particular environment. In customer scans where m...
What advice do you have for others considering F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
I am currently working on different types of projects. I am handling SSL Orchestrator in a bank project and mainly handling load balancing in telecom projects. The value of my experience depends on...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that I think it is expensive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Squid Proxy Cache Server?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing involves using an open-source Squid Proxy product, so the costs are low because it is open-source software.
What needs improvement with Squid Proxy Cache Server?
I believe that Squid Proxy Cache Server could see improvements with updates to incorporate the latest kernel. Nowadays, there are many competitors available, but I want to emphasize that Squid Prox...
What is your primary use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server?
My main use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server is that it's an open source application implementation, with a frontend being an Apache server and a backend using MySQL databases. Squid Proxy Cache S...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about F5, HAProxy, Radware and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC). Updated: August 2026.
909,153 professionals have used our research since 2012.