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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    Microsoft Azure

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.

    $29

    per month

    Pricing
    F5 BIG-IPMicrosoft Azure
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Developer
    $29
    per month
    Standard
    $100
    per month
    Professional Direct
    $1000
    per month
    Basic
    Free
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    F5 BIG-IPMicrosoft Azure
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—The free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    F5 BIG-IPMicrosoft Azure
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of F5 BIG-IP and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    F5 BIG-IP
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Azure
    8.4
    27 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.126 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.725 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.624 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.225 Ratings
    Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.326 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.424 Ratings
    Operating system support00 Ratings8.926 Ratings
    Security controls00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
    Automation00 Ratings8.224 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    F5 BIG-IPMicrosoft Azure
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    F5 BIG-IPMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.2
    (265 ratings)
    8.7
    (96 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (12 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    8.7
    (140 ratings)
    8.3
    (36 ratings)
    Availability
    8.8
    (2 ratings)
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.7
    (12 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.2
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    8.3
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    8.3
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    F5 BIG-IPMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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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    Microsoft
    Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
    Read full review
    Pros
    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
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    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
    • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
    • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
    • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    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
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    Microsoft
    • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
    • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
    • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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
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    Microsoft
    Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
    Read full review
    Usability
    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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    Microsoft
    As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    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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    Microsoft
    We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    F5
    Practical cases and hands on , many hours of training with tipical cases
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    F5
    implementation is fine
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
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    Alternatives Considered
    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
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    Microsoft
    As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    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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    Microsoft
    • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
    • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
    • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots