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.
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Kemp LoadMaster
Score 8.9 out of 10
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LoadMaster from Kemp Technologies in New York is an application delivery controller.
$1,720
per year
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
NGINX, a business unit of F5 Networks, powers over 65% of the world's busiest websites and web applications. NGINX started out as an open source web server and reverse proxy, built to be faster and more efficient than Apache. Over the years, NGINX has built a suite of infrastructure software products o tackle some of the biggest challenges in managing high-transaction applications. NGINX offers a suite of products to form the core of what organizations need to create…
I used NGINX and Cloudflare CDN and now that F5 owns NGINX it’s been an easy switch. Cloudflare has a very intuitive platform that makes it easy to get up and running. Most of my experience is with F5 and I’m happy to say it’s made my experience streamlined enough that I …
Easy to configure , hardware based , no need to maintain or secure operating system and better performance. Better performance and stability against Citrix. With the virtualization feature you can have many virtual appliances for other environments like PoCs or Developments …
F5 has wide range of the environment coverage, including on-prem and clouded, it also has lots of options and flexibility in term of the processing the traffic (I.e. irule to customized based on the application need), unlike the application gateway which limited ONLY to what …
Porque nos es agnóstico a la tecnología implementada, de esta manera podemos evaluar en un futuro adquirir nuevas tecnologías y no depender de un solo vendor para implementar distintas necesidades que puedan surgir a futuro. Por lo tanto, se puede decir que los productos de F5 …
As I said previously, the F5 BIG-IP products are far and away the easiest, most robust and powerful application delivery platform I've ever worked on. The user experience was really the most noteworthy difference when using other products. The Kemp Load master platform was …
Number of issues or errors are very small, F5 BIG-IP change OS/Firmware architecture to microservice run on the container to easy to maintain and upgrade. Good support from engineer teams. Security functions upgrade and F5 BIG-IP is one important component in F5 Platform …
We have multiple vendors in our environment. As we have a number of F5 devices already deployed keeping them fed and happy is a task. We continue with F5 as the data plane is solid and management tools are consistent with automation objectives.
Kemp is getting more mature but F5 is still superior. While the Kemp UI is easier F5 allows for more option and customization. I still feel Kemp is strong due to their no-cost lab license.
Kemp LoadMaster is easier to implement and operate, all while being less expensive. Although some competitors offer more functionality, most of our customers don't need it.
[Selected for] good business performance and noticeable price advantage.
Verified User
Manager
Chose Kemp LoadMaster
When we looked at other load balancers, we ran into some issues. For some of the free ones, these don't necessarily perform as well - which is probably why they are free. When looking at some of the other brands, some are too complicated to use - they may have a ton of advanced …
They all do the same thing, just present the functions in a different way and cost more/less. We have found that the virtual load balancers offer the same performance at the throughput that we need. While a dedicated appliance would be necessary in some applications, we don't …
Kemp support is unlike we have seen from any other tech vendor. It truly is outstanding, and they even helped us resolve issues with our VMware environment that had nothing to do with the Kemp deployment. That combined with the pricing flexibility and the option to deploy into …
Verified User
Administrator
Chose Kemp LoadMaster
KEMP Loadmaster was chosen by the VP for reduced price alone. I was thoroughly against it in the beginning (as I was a hugh F5 supporter) until i got used to it. For a much reduced price, it performs just as well as a F5; after you get used to the WebUI configuration tool.
Application delivery of both simple and advanced applications. It's easy to handle certificate management that do require individual certificates to be installed on each backend server, you can just install the certificate on the F5 BIG-IP and use for multiple backends. Also adding WAF is as simple as adding a generic policy and you will cover 80% of the scenarios.
Loadmaster is very powerful and flexible load balancer. Variety of options allows to create a complex network of rules and routes. During our website rollout Loadmaster allowed us to run multiple generations of the website simultaneously and seamlessly by doing the content switching on the fly. Powerful API allows easy integration into any development lifecycle.
Nginx is well-suited for any web server scenarios, such as web applications, backend or reverse proxy for both application and HTTP requests, and distribution. It is less appropriate for Windows-based applications that run directly on a Windows Server host. In any case, it is very easy to manage, through separate conf files for each application or site you want to host with it.
It's reliable. We've had very little problems with the technology. Performance is always right on. Metrics are great. They come out of it. We'd like to do more probably with it in the future as we start to grow a lot more.
Where the LoadBalancer excels is the multiple levels at which you can load balance servers. We currently use layer 7 LB, but others are available as well.
I particularly like the ability for the LB to know when servers are down, and if all are offline then you can create a redirect to a static HTML page or some other destination that is more informative.
The ease in which a service can be created and deployed using already pre-canned templates makes it a very convenient setup process.
Recently we have been deploying F5 web application firewall and we have started the deployment. We have already moved applications out there, but we are not yet to the point wherein I could comment any positive feedback or any negative feedback because we are still going through it, right. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't see any drawbacks or any shortcomings on the F5 product lineup.
Customer support can be strangely condescending, perhaps it's a language issue?
I find it a little weird how the release versions used for Nginx+ aren't the same as for open source version. It can be very confusing to determine the cross-compatibility of modules, etc., because of this.
It seems like some (most?) modules on their own site are ancient and no longer supported, so their documentation in this area needs work.
It's difficult to navigate between nginx.com commercial site and customer support. They need to be integrated together.
I'd love to see more work done on nginx+ monitoring without requiring logging every request. I understand that many statistics can only be derived from logs, but plenty should work without that. Logging is not an option in many environments.
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
It actually satisfies the use cases, but I would like to know what it can do more than just the use cases, which is what I'm looking for, to talk at some point with somebody and figure out what to do next. We probably maybe could be able to do more that we don't know yet.
Kemp makes it very easy to setup, configure and manage the LoadMaster without needing a lot of help from their engineers. The interface is very easy to understand and intuitive to use. We like how it is not complicated - I can easily have one of my techs login and they can figure out how to setup/configure virtual services for load balancing without needing a manual or tech support.
This tool is really easy to use and configure. Consumes very less system resources. It is highly modular and configurable. You can easily use it with other tools like certbot for SSLs. You can configure basic security with configuration and headers
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.
Support has been easy to deal with; I have only need[ed] to contact them a few times during setup. Once its been in place and operational, we have not need[ed] to mess with the system [which] is a huge advantage. I like system[s] that do not break and require constant attention in a production environment.
Community support is great, and they've also had a presence at conferences. Overall, there is no shortage of documentation and community support. We're currently using it to serve up some WordPress sites, and configuring NGINX for this purpose is well documented.
That's the one thing that really stood out. It was a lot easier to use from an administrator standpoint, so I think that's the one thing that really made our team decide to go with this product versus another competitor. Just ease of use.
We chose Kemp LoadMaster because it is 1/10 the price of the competition and MUCH easier to deploy and configure and WORKS. We have had ZERO issues with the product since installation. Their engineers and their sales team have both reached out post-install to check in and see if everything is working as expected.
I have found that [NGINX] seems to perform better throughout the years with less issues although I've used Apache more. I would definitely recommend [NGINX] for any high volume site and I've seen this to usually be the case from most provided web hosts who will pick [NGINX] over alternatives
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
We used Kemp LoadMaster for many projects. For a lot of customers, load balancers were too expensive or too complicated before we introduced Kemp products.
It's not a overly complicated product, so we were able to train many engineers on it and have them get a certification.
By using Nginx, we can host multiple web services on a single server, keeping our infrastructure costs lower.
Nginx maintains our HTTPS connections, allowing us to keep our promise to our customers that their data is safe in transit.
Due to Nginx's extremely low failure rate, our web addresses always return something meaningful, even when individual services go down. In sense, this means we are "always online" and allows us to maintain brand and support our customers even in the face of catastrophe.
