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

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AF5 states that the "brain" of the BIG-IP platform, Local Traffic Manager (LTM) intelligently manages network traffic so applications are always fast, available, and secure.N/A

    Kemp LoadMaster

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/ALoadMaster from Kemp Technologies in New York is an application delivery controller.

    $1,720

    per year

    Pricing
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Kemp LoadMaster
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    VLM-500
    1,720
    per year
    VLM-500
    2,000
    perpetual license
    VLM-3000
    3,050
    per year
    VLM-3000
    4,000
    perpetual license
    VLM-MAX
    7,610
    per year
    VLM-MAX
    10,000
    perpetual license
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Kemp LoadMaster
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Kemp LoadMaster
    Considered Both Products
    F5
    Chose F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) has more features, cost is higher in some scenarios, lower in others
    Incentivized
    Kemp Technologies
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    31 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    61 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    27 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    60 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    29 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    61 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    22 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    52 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    25 Answers
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    58 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Kemp LoadMaster
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Azure Application Gateway
    Score8.8 out of 10
    F5 BIG-IP
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    NetScaler
    Score8.7 out of 10
    F5 BIG-IP
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Kemp LoadMaster
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (21 ratings)
    9.0
    (64 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (26 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.8
    (28 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Kemp LoadMaster
    Likelihood to Recommend
    F5
    I mean the only reason we changed away from it was price and it just simply had to do with the licensing that Citrix was offering on the NetScalers. They had basically an all you can eat consumption license that we were easily inside of with all of our VDI usage, whereas with F5 we had to buy the hardware and we had to license the software. Any place you need to actually do traffic balancing at scale, it's a fantastic product. I couldn't recommend it highly enough. There's just some things that hardware SSL offload and hardware load balancing just simply can't be equal that I don't know if there's a better product on the market for that.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kemp Technologies
    Loadmaster is very powerful and flexible load balancer. Variety of options allows to create a complex network of rules and routes. During our website rollout Loadmaster allowed us to run multiple generations of the website simultaneously and seamlessly by doing the content switching on the fly. Powerful API allows easy integration into any development lifecycle.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    F5
    • Sure. It does load balancing fantastically. I mean, it's an industry standard product for that. We also use it for TLS offload for applications. Those are the two main use cases for that. We do also use some of the I rules for traffic filtering. We've used that in some of the external facing services. It does a really nice job with that. It's a little bit complicated sometimes and some of the Cipher Suite stuff is interesting.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kemp Technologies
    • Where the LoadBalancer excels is the multiple levels at which you can load balance servers. We currently use layer 7 LB, but others are available as well.
    • I particularly like the ability for the LB to know when servers are down, and if all are offline then you can create a redirect to a static HTML page or some other destination that is more informative.
    • The ease in which a service can be created and deployed using already pre-canned templates makes it a very convenient setup process.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    F5
    • Some of the stuff you have to dive into the CLI to really use, I'm going to reach back to the previous employer for this. So I had a much greater degree of involvement with it at that point in time for, I was the crypto guy at the company and I had to design all the cipher suites that we actually implemented on our front end banking products. So in order to do that, I had to dive into it, download all the Cipher suites, figure out the actual order of operation for them, how they were selected because I wanted to design the Cipher Suites to actually provide a specific customer experience for the types of connections that our customers were likely to initiate. Getting at that information was a giant PITA. It was poorly documented at the time. I'm not sure if it's documented any better now. Every time the software changed or got upgraded, made your version, I'd have to do it all over again because the upgrades to the stack, which looked like it was based on open SSL, but it was heavily modified with a different syntax. Oh yay. That's fun too. So I had to write giant documents describing all of the ciphers that I was designing for this because it just kept changing all the time. So I didn't care for that aspect of it. Traffic management does a great job for that.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kemp Technologies
    • Ability to 'clone' existing Virtual Services for rapid deployment of similar ones.
    • A better API for ease of automation.
    • Simplification of Certificate management.
    • Better explanations of Kemp implementations of industry standard protocols like VRRP (or CARP)
    • More control over device factory reset configuration and forcibly breaking HA pairs at boot time
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    F5
    F5 has always been one of the best products we have in the data center. We had few issues with the BUG and Code upgrades but the main use cases for F5 was always top notch. From High availability to Globally load balancing applications across multiple data centers and muti cloud environments.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kemp Technologies
    I'm very pleased with the support I've received as well as the quality of the product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    F5
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is very easy to use. Building each application is straightforward forward and the help function and now with the new AI assistant soon to be available, it is going to be easier than ever to be able to understand and implement each application.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kemp Technologies
    Kemp makes it very easy to setup, configure and manage the LoadMaster without needing a lot of help from their engineers. The interface is very easy to understand and intuitive to use. We like how it is not complicated - I can easily have one of my techs login and they can figure out how to setup/configure virtual services for load balancing without needing a manual or tech support.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    F5
    Good after sales support if one purchased direct support from F5.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kemp Technologies
    Support has been easy to deal with; I have only need[ed] to contact them a few times during setup. Once its been in place and operational, we have not need[ed] to mess with the system [which] is a huge advantage. I like system[s] that do not break and require constant attention in a production environment.
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    Implementation Rating
    F5
    Easy to implement if one had attended F5 Training for Local Traffic Manager (LTM).
    Incentivized
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    Kemp Technologies
    The installation was straight forward. Once i installed it, their technical support team helped me with configuration
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    F5
    F5 is doing its specialized function. There is no other product that can beat them. We are extremely happy with the product. Especially on load balancing, traffic redirecting TLS encryption, and SNI modification. We will continue to explore F5's product, especially on the public cloud side. e.g. NGINX.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kemp Technologies
    We chose Kemp LoadMaster because it is 1/10 the price of the competition and MUCH easier to deploy and configure and WORKS. We have had ZERO issues with the product since installation. Their engineers and their sales team have both reached out post-install to check in and see if everything is working as expected.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    F5
    • The F5 LTMs have had a very positive impact on our business objectives. Are websites are very heavily utilized with users all over the globe.
    • The F5 LTMs have provided a mechanism for making difficult applications work with our current infrastructure like MS teams.
    • The F5 LTMs are very good at customizing irules to deal with everyday issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kemp Technologies
    • We used Kemp LoadMaster for many projects. For a lot of customers, load balancers were too expensive or too complicated before we introduced Kemp products.
    • It's not a overly complicated product, so we were able to train many engineers on it and have them get a certification.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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