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A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Akamai Ion 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 Thunder ADC
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Akamai Ion
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is 5.7%, up from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai Ion is 2.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
A10 Networks Thunder ADC5.7%
Akamai Ion2.0%
Other92.3%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

KA
Cloud Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Focused on reworking interface and ecosystem while load balancing has improved uptime
A10 Networks Thunder ADC is quite solid, but there are some issues that I face, particularly with the user interface. A current issue is that the GUI is less polished than competitors. When compared against F5 BIG-IP or Citrix ADC, the GUI is not as good. The documentation and learning curve are areas that can be improved by A10 Networks. Compared with larger vendors including F5, Cisco, or Palo Alto, A10 has a smaller ecosystem. Although A10 Networks Thunder ADC supports cloud and Kubernetes, many enterprises now expect deeper cloud-native functionality. Improvement areas include Kubernetes Ingress maturity, service mesh integration, and auto-scaling intelligence.
HarshBhardiya - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable bot management with valuable traffic analytics and good delivery configuration
We are using Akamai Ion primarily for CDN services. It is more about delivery configuration, and for security, we use Akamai WAF security controls and Botman Akamai Ion helps protect us from DOS, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and scraping tools. Real-time analytics are very helpful for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A lot of our SSL management is done on the front-end side, so there is one pane of glass for a lot of our security certificates. It gives us visibility. It also falls under when certificates are going to expire. Even for servers that are coming down, we can see how that affects the traffic flow by using the services map."
"A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution."
"It's a phenomenal investment that the company has made, improving our performance and management and saving us money."
"Compared to F5, which I used about six years ago, the A10 is much easier when routing. You don't have to use the wildcard bits to route it between the different segments. It's much less troublesome to configure."
"It's a very friendly solution, easy to configure, and it's very flexible."
"The SLB and GSLB load balancing are the most valuable features. They meet our need to do server-side load balancing and global site load balancing so we can distribute traffic, not only intra-data center, but inter-data center."
"The solution is flexible."
"A10 Networks Thunder ADC fits quite seamlessly into my overall workflow, and once it is set up, it became more of a set-it-and-monitor-it, autopilot mode component rather than something I constantly have to tweak."
"Akamai is easy to use and very effective."
"The most valuable feature is bot management."
 

Cons

"I chose a rating of eight or nine instead of a perfect ten because there are a few areas that could be improved for A10 Networks Thunder ADC."
"The user interface is what people complain about most of the time, particularly if they don't use it very often. Then they complain that it's a bit clunky."
"I believe the user experience and user interface could be improved considerably."
"The solution should add automation features in the next release."
"A10 Networks Thunder ADC is quite solid, but there are some issues that I face, particularly with the user interface."
"The costs can be quite high."
"There are competitors that have more features."
"It scaled well for our numbers, up to 3 million subscribers for our most crowded region but I would like to see the same scalability numbers for the virtualized version as well."
"Log management should display data for more than two months."
"The product must provide more flexibility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For the hardware and license, we paid $35,000 per box, which was a one-time cost. Then, for the Gold Support on the two boxes, we pay $9400 annually."
"The pricing is a third of the price of the F5 competition."
"The solution costs less than its competitors."
"There were budgetary constraints that keep us from investing in the single pane of glass traffic management feature. We saw a demo of this feature about a year to a year and a half ago."
"Pricing is one of the features of the product that influence customers to use the product."
"One of the main reasons for switching away from Cisco was the licensing model. A10 gives you global server load balancing for free, while Cisco charged a significant licensing fee for that."
"The price of the maintenance support is too expensive."
"We just pay for support in addition to our licensing."
"The tool is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
I would recommend A10 Networks due that it delivers high performance in a small form factor to reduce OPEX with significantly lower power usage, rack space, and cooling requirements compared to oth...
Do you recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC?
I do recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC. It's very user-friendly, easy to configure, and flexible. It is a very useful solution - especially now, when a lot of employees are working remotely. I hav...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for A10 Networks Thunder ADC?
The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a question for another department, not for me.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai Ion?
The billing cycle is monthly, however, payment is done yearly. While expensive, it provides value for the services offered.
What needs improvement with Akamai Ion?
Log management should display data for more than two months. The traffic report needs to be more flexible. The response time of technical support should be improved.
What is your primary use case for Akamai Ion?
We are using Akamai Ion primarily for CDN services. It is more about delivery configuration, and for security, we use Akamai WAF security controls and Botman.
 

Also Known As

Thunder ADC, AX Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

123inkt.nl, Bentley University, Box, Brainshark, Buienradar, Capgemini, CGN/LSN & NAT64, Chengdu Telecom, Club One, Code Ready, CRC Health Group, Cyso, Deutsche Telekom, Earth Class Mail, Excite, FFF Enterprises, Florence County, Framingham State University, From30
Eurail, Boston Scientific
Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. Akamai Ion and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.