Azure Application Gateway vs. F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Application Gateway
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's Azure Application Gateway is a platform-managed, scalable, and highly available application delivery controller as a service with integrated web application firewall.N/A
F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
F5’s cloud-based, intelligent DNS with global server load balancing (GSLB) directs application traffic across environments globally, performs health checks, and automates responses to activities and events to maintain high performance among apps.N/A
Pricing
Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer
Best Alternatives
Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer
Small Businesses
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.9 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.9 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.8 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(8 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
For building scalable and highly available applications, Azure Application Gateway does most of the job on behalf of you; automatically load-balancing traffic from a number of users to a number of back-end servers. This ensure scalability and availability. The in-built security is great as can be expected from Microsoft, and user has a variety of tools for monitoring the health of the load-balancing function as well as the health of back end servers behind it.
Read full review
F5
For small scall env and lower bandwidth apps. Require more on high workloads and additional bandwidth of sustainability. Virtual appliance are most flexible for environment who requires on-prem solutions. Look for flexible subscription and continuous support on various enhancements
Read full review
Pros
Microsoft
  • Easy integration with Load Balancer and Azure Scale Set to provide a full solution for traffic management.
  • With rich routing rule, we could use one Application Gateway as the central point for all internal applications to expose to the external network.
Read full review
F5
  • Routing
  • Availability
  • Robust
Read full review
Cons
Microsoft
  • More cost-effective pricing plans are welcome for the future, especially for WAF
  • Ability to automate the TLS certificate renewal procedure
  • Ability to manage non-HTTP traffic
Read full review
F5
  • Virtualization
  • Flexible subscriptions
Read full review
Usability
Microsoft
Most of the Application Gateway's features and services can be managed and re-configured via either the Azure Portal GUI or via the Azure Cloud Shell, thus allowing both CLI modes, i.e. Azure CLI (Bash) and Azure Powershell. The v2 version of Application Gateway has significantly improved performance during initial configuration or during re-configuration changes, thus making it much more usable for IT admins, as compared to v1.
Read full review
F5
I gave F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer this usability rating because I think F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer Review is intuitively designed.
Read full review
Support Rating
Microsoft
I don’t like that it's part of the Microsoft brand. In general, I am not a fan of Microsoft products but Azure gets it right.
Read full review
F5
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Other load balancing tools in Azure (Azure LB and Azure Traffic Manager) are limited in their functionality in comparison with the Azure Application Gateway, and also, they don't provide security features. Azure Firewall, although it has security features, is more expensive, and most importantly, it's not a load balancer at all.
Read full review
F5
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Positive : Improved performance and scalability
  • Positive : Better and enhanced Security
  • Positive : Efficiency
  • Negative: Cost
  • Negative: More resources to manage.
Read full review
F5
  • The impact F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer has on our organization's overall business objectives is that F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer is an Instrumental part of our cloud architecture
Read full review
ScreenShots