F5 BIG-IP really works
Updated August 04, 2025

F5 BIG-IP really works

James Russel | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with F5 BIG-IP

I feel F5 BIG-IP accelerates the application and improve user experience by 30%. BIG-IP includes robust security features such as an advanced web application firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, bot mitigation, and IP intelligence to help safeguard applications from common threats and zero-day vulnerabilities.

Pros

  • it improves access to application speed
  • Supports device clusters, geographic redundancy, and failover groups for resilience.
  • Ensures uptime and seamless service even during maintenance or failure.

Cons

  • Licensing is complex and expensive, particularly for smaller organizations.
  • The GUI can be overwhelming and unintuitive, especially for new users.
  • the caching needs to be increased
  • Avoidance of downtime, data loss, reputational damage, and compliance penalties.
  • Fewer servers needed and better end-user experience, reducing churn and boosting engagement.
  • Each support needs to be trained
I think F5 BIG-IP is very useful when it comes to accelerating performance
Unlike many competitors, F5 delivers a unified platform that handles Layer 4–7 load balancing, SSL offloading, WAF, DDoS protection, and application acceleration—all within a single solution.

Do you think F5 BIG-IP delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with F5 BIG-IP's feature set?

Yes

Did F5 BIG-IP live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of F5 BIG-IP go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy F5 BIG-IP again?

Yes

F5 BIG-IP integrates seamlessly with a wide range of platforms and technologies—including Microsoft, VMware, Citrix, Kubernetes, and OpenShift—making it well-suited for diverse enterprise environments.

Using F5 BIG-IP

4 - IT Production services
Our network engineers manage the F5 BIG-IP
  • Distribute client requests across multiple servers to ensure performance, scalability, and reliability
  • Protect web applications from common threats like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities.
  • Decrypt SSL/TLS traffic at the BIG-IP device rather than at the web server.
  • Implement advanced traffic analysis to detect and block bots or abuse patterns (like credential stuffing).
  • Use iRules and iApps to inspect, route, throttle, and secure REST APIs.
  • Deploy BIG-IP VE (virtual edition) at the edge to process data locally before sending it to the cloud.
  • Integrate with AI/ML engines to predict traffic patterns and dynamically adjust routing, caching, or rate limits in real time.
  • Act as a policy enforcement node in a Zero Trust Architecture authenticating, authorizing, and continuously verifying users/devices before granting access.
  • Combine with edge platforms (e.g., AWS Wavelength, Azure Stack Edge) to process AI model inference closer to users (e.g., facial recognition, anomaly detection).
Bringing performance, security, and control that many organizations can’t afford to compromise.

Evaluating F5 BIG-IP and Competitors

  • Cloud Solutions
  • Ease of Use
We needed enterprise-grade security features—such as a Web Application Firewall (WAF), SSL offloading, and bot mitigation—to protect against sophisticated web threats and meet compliance requirements.
we are happy with the decision

F5 BIG-IP Implementation

  • Implemented in-house
  • Third-party professional services
Implement in-house with help from F5 support.
Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled - Maintain clear documentation for custom configurations, scripts, failover setups, and traffic policies.
  • Confusion around modular licensing and required keys.
  • Delays or interruptions while waiting for license activation.

F5 BIG-IP Support

“F5 support engineers really understand the complexities of networking, security, and application delivery, Unlike generalist support from some vendors.”
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
Immediate help available
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
at the moment not yet, we have not decided.
“We were new to F5, and their support engineers took time to help us understand how to use iApps and the UI effectively. They even offered personalized walkthroughs during our onboarding phase.”

Using F5 BIG-IP

ProsCons
Like to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Feel confident using
Lots to learn
  • Using the built-in templates (Local Traffic Policies or iApps), you can configure various load balancing algorithms (round robin, least connections, etc.) with just a few clicks.
  • Setting up DNS-based failover and geolocation-based routing is easy using BIG-IP DNS (formerly GTM). You can assign topology-based rules or latency metrics via the GUI.
  • BIG-IP licensing is modular and tied to hardware or virtual capacity. Enabling new features (like ASM, APM, or GSLB) often requires re-licensing or new keys.

Comments

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