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F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

    Score9.6 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

    Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)

    Score7.3 out of 10
    N/AApplication Server is an expanded server role in the Windows Server® 2008 operating system. It provided an integrated environment for deploying and running custom, server-based business applications. These applications respond to requests that arrive over the network from remote client computers or from other applications. Application Server is deprecated.N/A
    Pricing
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)
    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
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)
    Considered Both Products
    F5
    No answer on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    48 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    43 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    46 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    37 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    39 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    Features
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)
    Application Servers
    Comparison of Application Servers features of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)
    Feature
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)
    8.0
    9 Ratings
    1% above category average
    IDE support00 Ratings9.09 Ratings
    Security management00 Ratings9.09 Ratings
    Administration and management00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
    Application server performance00 Ratings9.09 Ratings
    Installation00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
    Open-source standards compliance00 Ratings7.08 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    NGINX
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Azure Application Gateway
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Oracle WebLogic Server
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    NetScaler
    Score8 out of 10
    NGINX
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.6
    (49 ratings)
    9.0
    (9 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.7
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.5
    (27 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Microsoft Application Server (deprecated)
    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
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    Discontinued Products
    Microsoft Application Server has been incredible this past year during COVID. Previously I would have said that we could go without it, but after this past season, I’m glad we have utilized it. Without having this software set up prior to COVID, we would have been in a tough situation. I mention COVID a lot because we were able to continue our work almost seamlessly this entire year.
    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
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    Discontinued Products
    • Microsoft Application Server has proven to be highly reliable and effective at deploying to all of its clients.
    • Application performance is surprisingly good and responsive even in bandwidth-constrained environments and generally very reliable.
    • All software programs are manageable from a single location, even when bandwidth is limited.
    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
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    Discontinued Products
    • Some security hotfixes and general release updates require restarts.
    • We wish it supported more applications out of the box.
    • Thin client support would be great for MS Application Server.
    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
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    F5
    I am very comfortable with this product not only configuring it but automating it as well. There are not many configurations or situations where I do not know how to implement it on the device. I find it straightforward and easy to use.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    I have found Microsoft Application Server to be incredibly easy to use. I have used dozens of similar programs and have always struggled to navigate through all the functions. So far I have been able to adapt and learn this software with ease. I rarely run into a problem that I wasn’t easily able to move forward on with a few tips.
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    Support Rating
    F5
    Good after sales support if one purchased direct support from F5.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    Stability is one of the first things we consider when evaluating software. MS Application Server has been rock solid and has reduced the time that our IT staff dedicates to maintaining our legacy applications.
    Incentivized
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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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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
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    Discontinued Products
    It has a similar feature to what Microsoft Application Server has but at a greater cost and also having to deal with another vendor when we could use a full Microsoft Stack for better training and support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    F5
    • It has allowed us to let application developers know that the issues are with their application and not due to the network, because of where it sits. This has been invaluable when troubleshooting issues when they arise. Knowing whether or not traffic is even hitting the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), either ingress or outgoing. If the Dev's information is not even making it to the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), we can quickly tell them and let them figure the issue out on their own, saving the rest of the Network Team from getting that 2am call.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    • Our ROI has been great since it has enabled our IT staff to have a central location to perform application updates which enables us to save time and money.
    • Deployment is very easy since the internal applications that required constant updating are now updated in one central location.
    • It's a lot easier to be within compliance protocols requirements.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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