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A10 Thunder TPS vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
A10 Thunder TPS reduced support tickets, improved satisfaction, and saved costs, acting like insurance against significant revenue losses.
Sentiment score
7.2
F5 BIG-IP AFM offers ROI and cost efficiency when integrated, but standalone ROI is below average, despite perceived value.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
A10 Thunder TPS support is praised for timely responses, effective resolutions, proactive fixes, and handling complex issues efficiently.
Sentiment score
6.5
F5 BIG-IP AFM support is praised for professionalism but needs faster ticket resolution and improved recommendation accuracy.
The technical support was quick and accepted my requests.
The responses are generally fast and effective.
The customer service is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
A10 Thunder TPS provides scalable, flexible defenses for global data centers, supporting large traffic volumes for medium-sized enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.3
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager offers scalable, efficient management for hybrid setups, supporting organizational growth and cloud migration.
Without accessible documentation, setting up can be time-consuming.
The solution is highly scalable, allowing me to add or remove nodes and manage traffic without interruption, which is essential for meeting application demands.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
The A10 Thunder TPS offers consistent stability, high availability, and positive user feedback, with reliability enhancements and successful maintenance.
Sentiment score
8.4
F5 BIG-IP AFM is lauded for its stability and reliability, with high user ratings and minimal operational issues.
 

Room For Improvement

A10 Thunder TPS needs better training, smoother upgrades, improved documentation, and enhanced synchronization, with concerns over UI and virtual training.
F5 BIG-IP AFM is costly, complex, needs dashboard improvements, enhanced features, better integration, and concerns over CPU and support.
We had to find workarounds for issues like A10 blocking necessary traffic, sometimes leading to decreased security.
The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security.
Having advanced technology similar to other vendors like Palo Alto for zero-day attack prevention would be valuable.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find A10 Thunder TPS pricing mixed, highlighting both value and expense, with multiyear deals as beneficial.
F5 BIG-IP AFM is costly but justified by its features, with pricing for licenses and potential extra feature fees.
The global price list is not accessible, making it difficult to work.
The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive.
If considering a one-stop solution that provides load balancing, DNS security, AAA authentication, and firewalling on the same hardware, the cost is reasonable.
 

Valuable Features

A10 Thunder TPS excels in traffic filtering, DDoS mitigation, load balancing, and offers programmable automated defense with RESTful API.
F5 BIG-IP AFM offers robust network security, ease of use, and supports cloud migration with AI-driven features.
The vendor indicated that Thunder would not be supported, but I was able to add Thunder to the central console management.
The solution provides behavioral analysis via AI to detect malicious traffic.
The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications.
 

Categories and Ranking

A10 Thunder TPS
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of A10 Thunder TPS is 2.0%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

RonaldoDE Melo - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for protecting and supporting users against attacks
One problem for me with A10 Thunder TPS is that the box comes from another country in Brazil. In the tool, there is no one key to block it. For example, in F5 Networks, we have a key. If you try to buy another box from Huawei or from F5 and try to enable them in A10 Thunder TPS, you need a key to do it. The problem here is when you buy another box from A10, they want to put Thunder TPS to run, and it works okay, after which we cannot block it for another solution to be used, which is a problem for me where improvements are needed.
Pawel Augustyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides outstanding resource management and application security across multiple geographies
The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications. The solution also monitors and blocks unconventional requests and maintains security efficiently. The scalability feature also allows me to manage and allocate resources dynamically without disrupting production traffic.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
33%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
9%
Insurance Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about A10 Thunder TPS?
The most valuable feature of A10 Thunder TPS is load balancing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for A10 Thunder TPS?
I have not seen specific prices, like $10,000 or $20,000. A frustrating aspect is the lack of demo versions. The vendor insists on commercial licenses despite requests for demo licenses. The global...
What needs improvement with A10 Thunder TPS?
I had issues with the user interface because, when putting settings up, the system asked me for strange things like virtual local networks that I didn't create. For example, I set an NTP server, an...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive. There are plenty of technical documents and a supportive community available, which helps mana...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security. Some features like the WAF ( /categories/web-application-firewall-waf ) firewall may seem expensive compared t...
 

Also Known As

No data available
F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

DDoS defense solution trusted for more than 200 service providers, online gaming, and enterprises including; Bungie, Comcast, KDDI Corporation, Leaseweb, Microsoft Azure, NTT Docomo, Softbank, Turkcell Superonline, Verizon and more.
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Thunder TPS vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.