What users are saying about

Akamai vs BIG-IP

Akamai
41 Ratings
BIG-IP
41 Ratings

Akamai

41 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>
Score 8 out of 100

Based on 41 reviews and ratings

BIG-IP

41 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>
Score 8.6 out of 100

Based on 41 reviews and ratings

Likelihood to Recommend

Akamai

Akamai is a well-established brand name with a great product. It meets and many time exceeds the needs for global content delivery and security management layer at the edge. Fine grain security tuning seems cumbersome as the definition of the app keeps changing. It also requires an investment of time for the setup which doesn't necessarily make sense for smaller scale scenarios. Some products offered by AWS, Azure or the Google Cloud can be more tightly integrated with cloud provider offerings thus easier to configure.

Read full review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 12 answers on this topic

BIG-IP

The BIG-IP is definitely well suited to scale up for demanding and/or complex enterprise traffic management. Although currently, we're only scratching the surface of its capabilities it has not been too complex or difficult to implement and manage. Having said that, I don't know that it would be the best fit for smaller-scale deployments, as it would probably be overkill unless you needed several of the modules they offer. Although we are only using one module, we are making extensive use of it. Similar to products like the Check Point firewall, there are so many options and features available that the limiting factor is more likely to be administrator time or knowledge than the BIP-IP itself. The good thing is there are always more features and options to grow into if needed without having to find additional solutions.

Read full review

Paul Luchini | TrustRadius Reviewer
Paul Luchini
View all 9 answers on this topic

Pros

Akamai

  • Content offloading - once rules are set up within Akamai you don't need to even think about how many images or large JavaScript or CSS files (for example) are being served from your own estate, Akamai takes care of it all via rules that are quick, easy and flexible.
  • Page caching - for pages that don't change very often Akamai allows you to set up rules, quickly and easily, to serve up your page content for you, which takes even more load away from your origin servers.
  • Quick rollback - the Akamai system allows easy testing of rules and changes via a staging system, and also offers a quick rollback option, which is perfect for the rare occasions when something has been set up incorrectly.

Read full review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 12 answers on this topic

BIG-IP

  • Easy connection: you can connect to your corporate network with two clicks.
  • IP restriction: F5 has a list of possible insecure IP numbers, if someone tries to connect using one of these numbers, F5 BIG-IP won't connect.
  • Always on feature: Very handy feature, if you install always on, you won't need to click connect.

Read full review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 9 answers on this topic

Cons

Akamai

  • The interface in their control centre could be a bit more user-friendly with some of the settings in places that you wouldn't expect them to be. The search offsets this problem to an extent but it's still sometimes slower than you'd like to find what you are looking for.

Read full review

Adam Rooney | TrustRadius Reviewer
Adam Rooney
View all 12 answers on this topic

BIG-IP

  • Occasionally, it fails to connect and gives me very little feedback to help me correct the problem.
  • The interface is simple, but a bit dated.

Read full review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 9 answers on this topic

Usability

Akamai

No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

BIG-IP

BIG-IP 9.0
Based on 1 answer
Great customization and easy to use help reference menus

Read full review

Alan Matson, CCNA:S, MCP | TrustRadius Reviewer
Alan Matson, CCNA:S, MCP
View all 1 answers on this topic

Support Rating

Akamai

Akamai 8.5
Based on 4 answers
Their support documents are excellent and provide a lot of useful information for all their services. The only reason I didn't give them a 10 is that the time it takes for them to respond to an issue could be slightly faster.

Read full review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 4 answers on this topic

BIG-IP

BIG-IP 8.2
Based on 7 answers
I was pleasantly surprised by F5 support, with my experience being the best of all the network vendors. I was not speaking to someone across the world, the engineer fully took ownership and followed through to solution without me having to keep calling. The support engineer also was able to resolve an unusual situation, in which most other vendors' engineers would simply give up.

Read full review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 7 answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

Akamai

We've used -- and considered -- a whole number of CDN offerings. The good news is that almost all of the CDN products on the market are terrific, and will pay for themselves via increased customer satisfaction and lower monthly hosting bills. For some cases, we're still more likely to suggest CloudFlare (which has a free tier) or an integrated offering from a cloud provider, like Cloudfront.

Read full review

Joshua Dickson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Joshua Dickson
View all 12 answers on this topic

BIG-IP

Netscaler and F5 Big-IP are very similar. I liked the Netscaler GUI a little better, but they both basically serve the same purpose quite well. Both are more advanced than the cheap/free software-based alternatives out there. Both can be clustered to avoid having a single point of failure at the load balancer level. Both can be programmed with custom rules to handle traffic routing.

Read full review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 9 answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Akamai

  • Akamai RoI improved over a period of times since it comes with heavy costs, however global deliveries in over 100 counties and global web platforms usage helps improve RoI
  • With the complex UI challenges, ROI could be impacted negatively when you have to invest in operations and time.

Read full review

Vaibhav Choksi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Vaibhav Choksi
View all 12 answers on this topic

BIG-IP

  • Less issues with our load balancers means better availability for our clients and less penalties from our SLAs.
  • Easy for newer network engineers to learn means less time spent training them.

Read full review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 9 answers on this topic

Pricing Details

Akamai

General

Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—
Entry-level set up fee?
No

BIG-IP

General

Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—
Entry-level set up fee?
No

Add comparison