No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

A10 Networks Lightning ADC
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
17th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kemp LoadMaster
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
11th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (22nd), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Lightning ADC is 1.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 6.1%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kemp LoadMaster6.1%
A10 Networks Lightning ADC1.8%
Other92.1%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

RONALDO DE MELO - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Account Executive at l8
Efficient application security while optimizing connections
The initial setup is simple; it is not complex. The configuration itself is simple and can be done in a couple of hours. However, the migration of the system to A10 Networks takes longer due to critical applications. Clients prefer to move them one by one, which is why it takes a significant amount of time. The configuration itself is simple, especially for this application.
IshtiaqKhalil - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Engineer at BOK
Displays flexible, user-friendly interface with minor licensing challenges
The product could be improved with a more intuitive interface for complex configurations and more advanced analytics. Additionally, enhanced security features, like a more robust Web Application Firewall, and stronger APIs for better automation would be beneficial. Overall, the main areas for improvement are in strengthening the advanced features to better meet the demands of large-scale enterprise environments. key features for the next release should focus on three areas. First, an enhanced, next-generation security suite with a more powerful Web Application Firewall (WAF) and integrated bot protection. Second, more advanced and customizable analytics dashboards to provide deeper insights into application performance. Finally, greater support for modern, cloud-native environments, including better APIs for automation and seamless hybrid-cloud traffic management

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Our clients appreciate that this is a security enabled solution."
"Our clients have reported an increase in revenue by around 5% on a year to year basis, since this solution was implemented."
"It allows you to secure the application while balancing the connections for many other customers, reducing CPU usage and server load."
"What I like about Lightning ADC, is that instead of having a big appliance sitting in front of the Kubernetes cluster, Lightning can pretty much go inside of Kubernetes."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial setup of Kemp LoadMaster is very simple."
"The most beneficial function of using the ADC is to ensure this resiliency."
"When the templates are used, there is not much left to configure and they just work!"
"From my personal experience, many firewalls provide Load Balancing functionalities, but Kemp Loadmaster has a lot of features and functionalities like what you can configure. So there are a lot of features but we use only five percent of it."
"Persistence is very valuable. This holds the connection information of the source and that connection is important to RDP and our APO calls. The connection has to be persisted to the original source to operate properly. We also use the subsections for sub-services to create services inside our services for our API resources, this is most awesome. We would not be able to do this without Kemp and offer this type of sub-service to route based on an API instance. It routes the traffic properly based on the sub-service type."
"Overall, the product has covered what we needed and even offered some additional features."
"Using Kemp as a front-facing service appliance, it allows me to have the flexibility of swapping out real servers behind the scenes without any intervention from my network team."
"We had some issues in patching management, so we deployed this product for virtual patching, the IPS rule, and it gives us very good results because we have very critical servers."
 

Cons

"We would like to see some improvement in the rapidity with which we can customize security facts within the solution."
"A10 documentation is not as open and accessible as AWS and Azure documentation is."
"The support from A10 should be improved."
"The documentation is pretty much closed and I think A10 crashes sometimes because initially, I was not able to set up Lightning ADC."
"If you want logging for SMTP traffic, you have to enable ESP, which requires you to define allowed IP addresses. That’s irritating, to say the least."
"It would be very helpful to get all the http/https session logs by default in the log monitor without activating debugging mode like an apache web sever natively does"
"I would say overall improvement of the solution features"
"If I had to pick an area for improvement, I think it would be direct integration with the template library."
"The only thing that I miss is that the TMG server was giving me live information about who is connected and what is the request about."
"I want to have the ability to pull a particular server. The DevOps portion was challenging for me, like if I needed to redirect from one IP to another URL. I needed to look that up, and the knowledge base is not well organized. When I look for information about Kemp on the Internet, I don't find many articles or something like that."
"It would be much easier to have the management interface directly integrate with the Kemp Support library, allowing you to choose the desired template from the online catalog to then directly download to the LoadMaster."
"If there is anything that needs to be updated, the GUI can get a refresh to make it look more like 2020, although it is just a cosmetic change."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"This product has good value and features for the money."
"Less expensive than Citrix."
"Licensing is yearly and I am going to guess that it is CAN $2000.00."
"It has a great price for the solution they offer."
"The costs for the Kemp Load Balancer solution are okay because, for a good product, you have to spend money."
"The license varies according to the number of megabits."
"KEMP gives away free trials for 30 days. This can be stretched if you want. During the test, you will have access to KEMP support.​"
"It has a very attractive ratio of price/performance."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?
My primary advice is to carefully analyze your total cost of ownership (TCO) rather than just the initial purchase price. Kemp LoadMaster is highly competitive on price and often provides a much be...
What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?
The product could be improved with a more intuitive interface for complex configurations and more advanced analytics. Additionally, enhanced security features, like a more robust Web Application Fi...
What is your primary use case for Kemp LoadMaster?
Our primary use case was traffic load balancing and distribution. The solution was essential for managing all inbound client traffic, including HTTPS and DNS requests, by routing it through our fir...
 

Also Known As

Lightning ADS
LoadMaster Load Balancer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Handle Financial
Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT€ Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs. Kemp LoadMaster and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.