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Amazon Elastic Load Balancing vs. Cisco Application Control Engine vs. F5 BIG-IP

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Elastic Load Balancing

    Score9.9 out of 10
    N/AAmazon's Elastic Load Balancing automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets, such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, IP addresses, and Lambda functions. It can handle the varying load of your application traffic in a single Availability Zone or across multiple Availability Zones. Elastic Load Balancing offers three types of load balancers with the vendor states all feature the high availability, automatic scaling, and robust security necessary to make…

    $0.01

    Partial Hour

    Cisco Application Control Engine

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AThe Cisco Application Control Engine is... an application delivery controller.N/A

    F5 BIG-IP

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AF5 BIG-IP software from Seattle-based F5 Networks is a load balancing and application protection solution suite available on cloud or via virtual editions, on a subscription or perpetual licensing basis.N/A
    Pricing
    Elastic Load BalancingCisco Application Control EngineF5 BIG-IP
    Editions & Modules
    Gateway
    $0.0125
    Partial Hour
    Application
    $0.0225
    Partial Hour
    Network
    $0.025
    Partial Hour
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Elastic Load BalancingCisco Application Control EngineF5 BIG-IP
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Elastic Load BalancingCisco Application Control EngineF5 BIG-IP
    Considered Multiple Products
    Amazon AWS
    Chose Elastic Load Balancing
    Again as noted we're still in the trial process seeing if we want to migrate over but the biggest benefit of elb is its interconnectivity with other Amazon web services hosted applications that our company is using and the in-house support from AWS. This is very attractive when …
    Incentivized
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    F5
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    99%
    Would buy again
    258 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    215 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    255 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    95%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    179 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    196 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Elastic Load BalancingCisco Application Control EngineF5 BIG-IP
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Azure Application Gateway
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Azure Application Gateway
    Score8.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    NetScaler
    Score8 out of 10
    NetScaler
    Score8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Elastic Load BalancingCisco Application Control EngineF5 BIG-IP
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (265 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (12 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.7
    (140 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.7
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.7
    (12 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (3 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Elastic Load BalancingCisco Application Control EngineF5 BIG-IP
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Amazon AWS
    We use Amazon Elastic Load Balancers to serve mobile applications and websites. It works really well. We have not had any problems until now. Last year we integrated the AWS ELB with the EC2 Auto Scaling and now we have a fully working elastic solution. We increase/decrease EC2s instances based on traffic over our load balancers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    LTM's scope of action goes beyond load balancing. Tools for control, governance, and application enhancement, as well as APIs like iRULE, are very important for day-to-day operations. Furthermore, the F5 BIG-IP WAF offers exceptional security. Advanced firewall and routing functionalities are helpful in more complex environments. O LTM possui um escopo de atuacao que vai alem do balanceamento. Ferramentas para controle, governanca e aprimoramento de aplicacoes e API como iRULE sao muito iportantes para o dia a dia a operacao. Alem disso o WAF do F5 BIG-IP tem uma qualidade de seguranca exceptional. As funcionalidades avancadas de firewall e roteamento ajudam em ambientes mais complexos. This review was originally written in Portuguese and has been translated into English using a third-party translation tool. While we strive for accuracy, some nuances or meanings may not be perfectly captured.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Amazon AWS
    • Most obviously it works great for routing traffic between components hosted on Amazon web services
    • The ability to dynamically spin up connections is fantastic.
    • In general the ease of use and configuration is a selling point.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    • My company is kind of like it's a safe thing if you log in and you provide another second login to get the code to log in, confirm that it's a correct that you are logged into the account and it just provides more for the company
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Amazon AWS
    • Occasionally we have a huge number of users using our network at once, and Amazon ELB isn't quite fast enough to scale effectively when that occurs. But this doesn't happen very often as our usage is usually quite stable
    • If we want to add another application to our learning suite, we would have to add another load balancer, which would incur additional cost
    • The setup was not easy and could really only be handled by one person on our team with the technical background to do so
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    • I think a couple of challenges. One, I mean the cost, it's not an inexpensive product, but I think it's probably parity with value, maybe a little on the pricey side of things.
    • As far as features and what we'd like to see more cloud native type experiences like where NGINX and F5 kind of come together, we're moving more of the cloud just like everybody else, and it's a little clunky right now.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    Stability of product and easy way to have account manager contact. F5 support team is also always available to help with major issues. Last year during the major OS upgrade F5 team and F5 leadership always shared clear information and F5 team was dedicated to help us to have it closed in record time
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Amazon AWS
    AWS Elastic Load Balancing has this trick. First, you need to know how it works. ELB is not the only piece here. ELB has a very close relation with AWS Target Groups. You create or select a target group every time you create a Load balancer. Target groups allow you to connect the load balancer to EC2 autoscaling groups, Lambda functions, or even a single EC2 instance. While this sounds complex, it becomes easy, once you know his tricks. Thanks to the user interface, managing a ELB is an easy task. The rules editor is really useful, although it will need a bit of improvement to some interface items
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    It is a good product to use but right now it is lacking the automation of certificates, management of iRules and automation of certain configuration. Also creating an APM policy from scratch with many APM agents take a long time due to slow load times of the GUI and the need to create everything from scratch every time. It's tough to reuse the configuration.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Amazon AWS
    AWS gives you several support plans. On the free plan, you basicaly need to google for help, but the good news is that AWS Elastic Load Balancing works. We has more than 15 load balancers and we never run into a problem that require support. But you mght consider a support plan if you are going to do something more complex or critical
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    I've supported F5 for three different companies. Our F5 support has been very consistent, regardless who the customer is. F5 technicians are very experienced and provide good support, even when issues are more related to knowledge than they are with the ability of the product to do what you need it to do.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    Practical cases and hands on , many hours of training with tipical cases
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    implementation is fine
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Amazon AWS
    We have not used any other solution out there in the market but our dev-ops team did deep research and AWS provided us the solution we needed to be cost-effective. Also, the decision to keep working with Amazon was strategic. We were already using other AWS features and [Amazon Elastic Load Balancing] integrates great with those.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    We are recently not evaluating, but we have started the deployment for WAF and we're using GTM, LTM, you name it. F5, we are using all of them.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Amazon AWS
    • Currently it is too soon to say for sure what kind of impact this will have.
    • The ideal goal is that this will be cheaper than having to host our own routing on site.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    • The F5 BIG-IP has improved all our load balancing needs, we have over 400 LTM VIPs in our environment this all use to be done with DNS round Robin configurations.
    • we have created unique APM solutions to support our external customer base
    Incentivized
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