Azure Application Gateway vs. F5 BIG-IP

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Application Gateway
Score 8.1 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
BIG-IP
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
F5 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. The BIG-IP suite of products supports a wide range of security and application performance needs. The suite includes BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) traffic management and optimization, BIG-IP DNS, BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) identity and password protection, BIG-IP Application…N/A
Pricing
Azure Application GatewayF5 BIG-IP
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Application GatewayBIG-IP
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 BIG-IP
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Azure Application GatewayF5 BIG-IP
Virtual Private Network
Comparison of Virtual Private Network features of Product A and Product B
Azure Application Gateway
-
Ratings
F5 BIG-IP
7.1
10 Ratings
15% below category average
AES 256-bit Encryption00 Ratings7.77 Ratings
Kill Switch00 Ratings6.44 Ratings
Multi-Platform Support00 Ratings6.55 Ratings
Split Tunneling00 Ratings6.84 Ratings
IP Address Masking00 Ratings7.76 Ratings
No-Logs Policy00 Ratings7.35 Ratings
Multiple Server Locations00 Ratings7.55 Ratings
Automatic Wi-Fi Protection00 Ratings5.83 Ratings
Simultaneous Connections00 Ratings7.68 Ratings
Customer Support Services00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure Application GatewayF5 BIG-IP
Small Businesses
Cloudflare
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Score 8.8 out of 10
Avast Small Business Solutions
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Score 8.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.8 out of 10
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.0 out of 10
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Score 9.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
Azure Application GatewayF5 BIG-IP
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(7 ratings)
8.9
(116 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(2 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
6.3
(6 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Application GatewayF5 BIG-IP
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.
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F5
I really do think it's well suited for any placement on the edge, especially with the WAF portion. APM is a whole different module unto itself that allows for VPN Connect connectivity, web top access. So it really is for these modules anyway, an edge appliance for us and not really usable in the interior of the network.
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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.
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F5
  • 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.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • Live examples in the Azure documentation
  • Application Gateway UI Blade in Azure Portal can be streamlined
  • Have more advanced feature set as WAF (Web Application Firewall)
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F5
  • I think the policy configuration that had some improvements on the ASM word things, improvements may be on the signatures that would be good because it's a little bit confusing on the ASL, how they are updated and deployed, and this staging. So that's something that could be.
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
F5
Only way to to this type of tasks
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Usability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
F5
Great customization and easy to use help reference menus
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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.
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F5
On the occasions when we've had to engage f5 support, they have been great. They have always resolved our issues quickly and been easy to work with and professional. The reason I give them a 10 out of 10, however, is because when we've had issues that have crossed over between the f5 BIG-IP, our Cisco switches, and our Microsoft IIS server the f5 support representatives have been extremely knowledgeable about every product and device involved and have been able to troubleshoot end-to-end without having to engage other vendors.
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
F5
implementation is fine
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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.
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F5
F5 BIG-IP is my first F5 product that I have stared to work, and it brings me more experience doing a lot of migration upgrades from old code version to new code. The way F5 has all configuration help us to develop scrips to improve our process.
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Costs increased for the company, so expenses were more than before.
  • Was able to get better user experience so users won't feel the website is useless.
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F5
  • Having a load balancer of F5 helps to address large traffic limit on organisation's application
  • This means that organisation gets a lot of revenue due to the usage of their application
  • Hence provide a very positive impact onthe inverment or ROl of the organisation
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ScreenShots