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F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
CDN (10th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (21st), API Security (7th)
Kemp LoadMaster
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (9th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (20th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (16th)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
FM
Protects web applications with comprehensive security features
All features are valuable. In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation. This is a comprehensive package for web application security. The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.
IshtiaqKhalil - PeerSpot reviewer
Displays flexible, user-friendly interface with minor licensing challenges
The product could be improved with a more intuitive interface for complex configurations and more advanced analytics. Additionally, enhanced security features, like a more robust Web Application Firewall, and stronger APIs for better automation would be beneficial. Overall, the main areas for improvement are in strengthening the advanced features to better meet the demands of large-scale enterprise environments. key features for the next release should focus on three areas. First, an enhanced, next-generation security suite with a more powerful Web Application Firewall (WAF) and integrated bot protection. Second, more advanced and customizable analytics dashboards to provide deeper insights into application performance. Finally, greater support for modern, cloud-native environments, including better APIs for automation and seamless hybrid-cloud traffic management

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"The technical support is good."
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is external DNS. It is also very secure. They have their own main server and once you configure it, the product takes care of everything. There are no issues in resolving IPs and low latency is also present."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."
"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."
"It is an easy-to-use, user-friendly interface, and you can set up a new VIP in a couple of minutes."
"With Kemp 360 Central, our customers get a nice overview of their Kemp products and an easy way to upgrade firmware on all devices from a single interface."
"From my personal experience, many firewalls provide Load Balancing functionalities, but Kemp Loadmaster has a lot of features and functionalities like what you can configure. So there are a lot of features but we use only five percent of it."
"Mitigates content security policy issues."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial setup of Kemp LoadMaster is very simple."
"The Global WAF has saved us more than one time from unwanted traffic."
"We really like the performance of this solution."
"Managing and maintaining multiple servers is done in a single place."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."
"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."
"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."
"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."
"It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market."
"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."
"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."
"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."
"It would be helpful if there were a way to incorporate tooltips on the fields so that we don't have to dig through documentation."
"They were still in the process of development, and for example, we set it up in a cluster. So it was one logistical unit built out of two physical devices. And the expected behavior, which I know from other devices, will be formed into a logic cluster. It's that you configure one unit. Then you bring the second unit into this cluster with the already configured primary unit. So the secondary box pulls all the configured ones from its neighbor, does everything automatically, and then synchronizes with this primary neighbor. And then it works, like, one logical unit. And this didn't work with the Kemp's initially, where they caused a lot of issues when building up a cluster, so there were some specials on how to set this up. When we built or set them up for the first time and the months afterward with no new software releases, there were a couple of problems, but in the end, they worked fine. So, they developed a lot and learned from what they've responded to, what we responded to them, and what needs fixing."
"There are some challenges with updates on certain models that don't have a few features."
"The ability to see live traffic is not great and can be improved."
"The GUI is rather technical and complex, so it could be improved by making it simpler and more user-friendly."
"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."
"The auth website of ESP is really lacking. It’s not responsive (mobile friendly) and the procedure of changing the website is difficult. We tend to avoid using pre-auth for that reason."
"It lacks an officially supported, well-written SCOM Management Pack."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"The price is reasonable."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
Information not available
"The price is great and the value is definitely there."
"It has a very attractive ratio of price/performance."
"The Kemp LoadMaster is a tremendous value."
"The license varies according to the number of megabits."
"Licensing is yearly and I am going to guess that it is CAN $2000.00."
"The price is lower than other options."
"Setup is easy, the cost is affordable, and the licensing is quick and simple."
"At $2,500 USD, this is absolutely a fantastic buy for the money!"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four...
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
It's a long way to be perfect, of course, as with all solutions. The main issue is integration with other parts or pr...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
There are two main use cases for Distributed Call Services: DDoS or Distributed attacks protection and WAF web applic...
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?
My primary advice is to carefully analyze your total cost of ownership (TCO) rather than just the initial purchase pr...
What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?
The product could be improved with a more intuitive interface for complex configurations and more advanced analytics....
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
LoadMaster Load Balancer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Information Not Available
Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT€ Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Kemp LoadMaster and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.