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A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway 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)
18th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Application...
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
12th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Lightning ADC is 2.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is 4.9%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway4.9%
A10 Networks Lightning ADC2.0%
Other93.1%
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.
SS
Cloud Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Mutual TLS has secured our web services and now needs broader protocol support
The most valuable feature we have found in Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is mutual TLS. We find mutual TLS valuable because we can verify the client securely by setting up the trust certificate of the client, and also if we do it at the client side as well. This successfully develops mutual trust, ensuring that we know the client who is calling our service is a legitimate client. That is a very nice feature.Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has helped manage our traffic efficiently because we have many web services that we can put behind the same URL, and we can have different URLs with the same Application Gateway with a limited number of listeners. We can do host-based routing as well as URL-based routing or path-based routing. It supports both, so we can have even a single URL supporting many applications, or we can have different URLs for different applications respectively. We have both use cases.

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."
"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."
"Our clients have reported an increase in revenue by around 5% on a year to year basis, since this solution was implemented."
"I think the WAF feature is valuable, it replicates your firewall."
"Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"It does an excellent job of load balancing."
"The pricing is quite good."
"The most valuable feature is WAF."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"I rate Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's scalability a ten out of ten. My company has more than 1000 users who use it daily."
 

Cons

"The documentation is pretty much closed and I think A10 crashes sometimes because initially, I was not able to set up Lightning ADC."
"We would like to see some improvement in the rapidity with which we can customize security facts within the solution."
"The support from A10 should be improved."
"A10 documentation is not as open and accessible as AWS and Azure documentation is."
"It could be more stable, and support could be better. It would also be better if they offered more features. For example, it lacks security features. Before we used another English solution, and we realized that some of the rules were not set up correctly and passed through the Application Gateway's English controllers. But the problem, in this case, is if you send ten rules, for example, six rules hit some issues. IP address blocking could be better. The rules, for example, don't work properly. If you have one issue, one rule or another rule will not work. This sounds like total madness to me."
"The solution should provide more security for certificate-based services so that we can implement more security on that."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is harder to manage than Imperva. It is not intuitive and stable compared to other products."
"It takes a lot of time for a certificate to update in the system. That is a huge drawback, affecting the load-balancing side. And when there are changes to the load balancing, it affects the end-user."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's first deployment is complex. It needs to improve its pricing."
"The main drawback of the solution is that it's only for Azure."
"The solution can sometimes feel a little cumbersome unless you're a professional infrastructure person."
"The solution is easy to use overall, but the dashboard could be updated with a better layout and graphical design so that we can see the data a bit easier. Microsoft could also add more documentation. The documentation Microsoft provides doesn't tell us about resource requirements. We found that the instances we had weren't sufficient to support the firewall, so we had to increase them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I would rate the pricing a three out of ten, with ten being cheap and one being expensive."
"The solution is paid monthly. The solution is highly expensive."
"It is not expensive."
"The cost is not an issue."
"The product is not expensive."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a pretty affordable product. My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs of the solution. The additional costs apart from the licensing costs of the solution vary."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has less price than other application gateway solutions."
"The solution's pricing is not complex. It is not expensive from our point of view."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

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What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?
We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...
How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft Azure Application Gateway web application firewall software was the better fit ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Regarding the pricing and licensing of Application Gateway, it is not cheap because the version we are using is WAF V2, and we are also using DDoS Premium Protection. I think the price of WAF on Ap...
 

Also Known As

Lightning ADS
Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Handle Financial
Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.