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A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer 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
VMWare Avi Load Balancer
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 VMWare Avi Load Balancer is 4.4%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMWare Avi Load Balancer4.4%
A10 Networks Lightning ADC2.0%
Other93.6%
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.
Sasikiran Sakalabattina - PeerSpot reviewer
V Mware And Vector Administration at Tech Mahindra Limited
Centralized load management has improved availability and reduces manual effort for critical apps
The features we use most frequently in VMware Avi Load Balancer are virtual services, backend pools, health monitoring, and Layer 7 load balancing. Virtual services are a component of VMware Avi Load Balancer that serves as the primary entry point for the client traffic. In our application, I regularly create and manage the virtual services for the web applications, APIs, and internal business applications. We configure SSL certificates for load balancing the policies and health monitoring at the virtual service. The best feature of VMware Avi Load Balancer is health monitoring. The most valuable feature for me is the health monitoring capability. In our production environment with more than one thousand virtual machines, it continuously checks the health of the backend application servers. During monthly Windows patching or unexpected application failures, unhealthy pool members are automatically removed from the service. This feature is significantly reducing the traffic directed to unhealthy services without any manual intervention. Once the application server is restored, VMware Avi Load Balancer automatically adds the server back to the pool. This feature has significantly improved the application availability and is reducing the business downtime. Due to this, manual interventions required are minimal, so it is saving time.

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."
"Our clients have reported an increase in revenue by around 5% on a year to year basis, since this solution was implemented."
"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."
"From my experience, VMware Avi Load Balancer has become a critical component for our application delivery infrastructure, and features such as health monitoring and centralized management and SSL offloading and detailed analytics have reduced the troubleshooting time and improved the application availability."
"Avi Networks Software Load Balancer can improve the way some organizations function because the platform is agile."
"What's most valuable in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is its deployment capability, the ability to deploy in a dispersed service, with the service engines that can disperse and have a single control plane that can control the load balancing services across any available platform, wherever needed. The analytics of Avi Networks Software Load Balancer and flexibility of deployment are its most valuable features and the reasons why many people buy it."
"The WAF - the web application firewall itself - is great."
"The interface and software features are the most valuable aspects of this solution."
"It is more common in the market, so it is easier to use because it is more common."
"The features I find most valuable in VMWare Avi Load Balancer are the load balancing part and the WAF part."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"The documentation is pretty much closed and I think A10 crashes sometimes because initially, I was not able to set up Lightning ADC."
"A10 documentation is not as open and accessible as AWS and Azure documentation is."
"The support from A10 should be improved."
"We would like to see some improvement in the rapidity with which we can customize security facts within the solution."
"VMware Avi Load Balancer is actually a mature and reliable product, but there are areas where it could improve, such as improving the cloud environments."
"VMWare Avi Load Balancer can be improved in various ways, as it follows a pay-as-you-go model, which still makes it quite pricey and a little expensive for startups or small-scale industries."
"Avi Networks is great. It could be good for a small company, but for the whole municipality, it's just not good enough."
"It doesn't match the development structure or user community of our existing product. It pales in comparison to that."
"In terms of improvement, the pricing and documentation need improvement. We have had problems getting the documents."
"The scalability of VMWare Avi Load Balancer is not great, but it does what it needs to do in the single appliance we have, so that is acceptable."
"The network analytics and monitoring features are not effective."
"Avi Networks Software Load Balancer needs to improve its documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"With Avi Networks, you can buy a 10-Gig license and, if your primary data center goes down, in the flick of a switch you can move that license to your backup data center and it will generate the traffic... there are a lot of cost-effective measures."
"The licensing costs for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer are really variable. The product can be sold from a bandwidth utilization perspective. It can be sold from a per CPU perspective, depending on if you're looking at on-premises or hyperscale environments. Licensing costs vary quite a bit if you're familiar with the AWS Calculator, where you can see that it can widely vary per licensing model. On a scale of one to five, with one being not very good value for the money and five being great, I would rate the pricing for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer a five because its pricing is extremely competitive. Not all features are included with the license, for example, there's single licensing."
"I rate the solution price a four to five on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high, since it is an affordable tool."
"The tool is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
17%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Government
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing, senior administrators manage this aspect, and I am not fully aware of it. However, I can say that compared to other products, the pricing for VMWare Av...
What needs improvement with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
VMware Avi Load Balancer is actually a mature and reliable product, but there are areas where it could improve, such as improving the cloud environments. I would like to see more automated root-cau...
What advice do you have for others considering Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
I would like to give the rating of nine out of ten for VMware Avi Load Balancer because it is an excellent product with centralized management where we can manage every virtual machine in one conso...
 

Also Known As

Lightning ADS
Avi Software Load Balancer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Handle Financial
Palo Alto Networks, DGDean, Swisslos
Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.