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

Docker on CentOS vs F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
4.7
Docker on CentOS saves time and money, enhances stability, automation, and performance without reducing employee headcount.
Sentiment score
5.7
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition enhances performance and reduces costs by improving application uptime, security, and operational efficiency.
Previously, it took us about a week to deploy, but now we can deploy our entire app in one or two days.
Senior Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
We saw improvements such as less troubleshooting time, faster onboarding, more stable automation, better parallel execution, and cleaner CI/CD execution logs.
Senior Technical Lead QA at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
I could say it is maybe forty percent compared to before using Docker.
Network &Security Engineer at Natioanal Drug Authority Uganda
Overall, I can say the ROI includes a twenty-five to thirty percent cost reduction, with some areas achieving forty percent cost reduction in our expenses.
Network Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
There is a significant performance improvement in the website and website speed.
IT consultant at Beginning Solutions IT
With F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, we have not faced any RMAs, which has made a positive operational impact.
Senior Network And Security Engineer at Mobily
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.9
CentOS users rely on community support and documentation, with partners and AI offering valuable assistance for complex issues.
Sentiment score
6.5
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition support is effective and knowledgeable, though off-hour delays and access issues occasionally occur.
We purchase the software and product from them, so when I have an issue with Red Hat or Docker on CentOS or Kubernetes, I create a ticket with the partner who works directly with the respective teams.
Solution engineer at Vijatech
Most things can be easily found as resources online to help resolve those issues.
Network &Security Engineer at Natioanal Drug Authority Uganda
The customer support for Docker on CentOS is excellent, as there are very good community forums.
Senior Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
I would rate the customer support on a scale of one to ten as a perfect ten based on all of the experience I have had so far.
Senior Network And Security Engineer at Mobily
I rate customer support a 10 out of 10, as they are knowledgeable and provide straightforward troubleshooting.
Network Engineer at Thryv
Customer support for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is excellent.
IT consultant at Beginning Solutions IT
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.4
CentOS with Docker offers scalable, efficient, and rapid deployment capabilities, handling diverse environments and workloads effectively across regions.
Sentiment score
6.7
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition offers scalable, flexible resource expansion, supporting high availability and adaptability for increased traffic and demand.
if we need more resources, we can just spin up a new Docker image, so scalability is good.
Cloud Operations Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
If you have good hardware, you can scale Docker on CentOS as required.
Devops Engineer at EDAG
When we talk about scalability, it is not infinite, but for the types of projects we do, I think it is quite scalable.
Chief Technology Officer at iFoxCode
It is the most scalable and reliable system.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Within ten minutes of time, we can scale and boot as many virtual machines as needed in the environment.
Network Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Being a virtual edition, we were able to scale resources such as CPU, memory, and throughput based on our demand without major architectural changes.
Network Security Engineer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Docker on CentOS is stable and suitable for enterprises, but future shifts may affect its strategic relevance.
Sentiment score
8.4
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is highly stable, offering strong performance and security, with minimal downtime apart from updates.
Docker on CentOS is not stable anymore because it is not actively being maintained.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I experienced no conflicts during updates, maintaining the 140 TPS targets effectively.
Senior Software Engineeer at Charter Communications
Docker on CentOS is quite stable.
Solution engineer at Vijatech
The load balancing module still performed admirably.
Sr network engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
The performance increased significantly and the response times of the application improved.
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The uptime improvements with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition are almost close to 100%, as it only goes down if a failover happens.
Sr. Consutant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Docker on CentOS needs better documentation, orchestration, security, synchronization, automation, and AI workload integration post-CentOS deprecation.
F5 BIG-IP VE requires interface upgrades, better microservices support, improved logging, clearer licensing, easier upgrades, and enhanced Azure integration.
Needed improvements for Docker on CentOS include better POC, searching techniques, and leveraging AI because AI can provide insights into standard practices, compliance, user specifications, security, logging, monitoring, and isolation.
Lead DevSecOps Engineer & Founder of Spiderthings Solutions at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Docker on CentOS could benefit from images that we can create or have, for example, just a module based on Portainer or some UI interface to create the containers automatically or create some internal APIs to make it easier to configure this by Terraform.
Software Developer at Marra Moncks Informatica
A guided diagnostic tool for CentOS would be very useful, checking repositories, kernel compatibility, firewall rules, the overlay, Docker daemon status, and container resource usage.
Senior Technical Lead QA at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
The primary concern I noted regarding F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is its scalability during high-load situations.
Sr network engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
It is a somewhat expensive solution, and the price needs to be improved based on what our customers have told us.
IT consultant at Beginning Solutions IT
With FortiWeb, we have a dashboard where I can check the policy status with just one click, and everything is easily accessible.
Senior Network And Security Engineer at Mobily
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise Docker on CentOS is cost-effective, free of licensing fees, mainly resource costs, unlike Docker Desktop's subscription.
Enterprise users appreciate F5 BIG-IP VE's ROI and scalability, but licensing costs and pricing transparency remain concerns.
there is no licensing cost required.
Senior DeevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
There is no cost associated with either Docker or Docker on CentOS. It is completely zero cost.
Senior Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Track who needs paid subscriptions, and include cloud compute, storage, networking, image registry, and monitoring costs.
Senior Technical Lead QA at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition's pricing structure was significantly more advantageous and aligned with our budgetary considerations.
Sr network engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
My experience with pricing and setup costs for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition was mixed, as they do not have an option for 10 gig licensing, which was costly for us.
Analyst at Accenture
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition solves a very significant problem of high availability and performance.
IT consultant at Beginning Solutions IT
 

Valuable Features

Docker on CentOS enhances efficiency and scalability with volume mounts, container isolation, and cost-effective, lightweight, image-based deployments.
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition boosts user experience and efficiency with load balancing, security features, high availability, and cost reduction.
It also ensures a consistent environment where applications will work on every machine, not just the developer's machine, and offers resource efficiency, such as no full OS per application, allowing me to share my infrastructure with multiple containers and applications.
Cloud Operations Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Docker on CentOS has positively impacted my organization by making testing easier. I do not have to install older versions of applications and then make my system or service study.
Senior DeevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Docker containers promote better resource utilization since the operating system consumes fewer resources compared to traditional virtual machines.
Technical Consultant at Prodevans Technologies
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition helped our customers increase the high availability and performance of their applications, specifically their web applications.
IT consultant at Beginning Solutions IT
If ten thousand, fifty thousand, or even a million people want to access the application simultaneously, we have configured auto-scalability.
Network Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition has impacted my organization positively with cost savings by saving public IP addresses, and its performance and stability, which give almost 100% uptime for the application because we have high availability.
Sr. Consutant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Docker on CentOS
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Operating Systems (OS) for Business (20th)
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Docker on CentOS and F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Docker on CentOS is designed for Operating Systems (OS) for Business and holds a mindshare of 0.3%, up 0.0% compared to last year.
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, on the other hand, focuses on Application Delivery Controllers (ADC), holds 1.6% mindshare.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Docker on CentOS0.3%
Ubuntu Linux8.0%
Windows 117.6%
Other84.1%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition1.6%
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)12.6%
NetScaler11.8%
Other74.0%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

VV
Senior Software Engineeer at Charter Communications
Containerization has streamlined microservices delivery and ensures consistent hybrid deployments
The capabilities of Docker on CentOS that I have found the most valuable include its use for Spring-based applications, which significantly enhance the value I derive from it. Docker on CentOS is particularly effective for building distributed applications and microservices. Deployments are smooth and easy, and the integration with Kubernetes is seamless. I have successfully managed 80-plus pods clusters, scaling from 80 to 85 with 140 TPS without encountering any issues. Docker on CentOS's lightweight nature allows for flawless development across environments such as dev, stage, and prod. From my perspective, the experience with the deployment of Docker on CentOS is quite positive, especially for the CI/CD pipeline. The architecture overview includes the use of a Git repository and GitLab CI, which facilitates the Docker build for our Spring 3.x Java applications.
reviewer2800392 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cloud deployment has simplified traffic distribution and now supports flexible multi-zone DR
Regarding F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition's improvement areas, the current dashboard is very useful, but I believe the registration process should be simplified in the virtual edition. Especially in the Azure environment, many features are not currently aligned and working with Azure. We need to make efforts to ensure it is well integrated with Azure. Currently, if we want to integrate route tables with the virtual F5 edition, we need to deploy scripting inside the virtual F5 instances, and then that script performs the virtual IP route table changes in the Azure environment. This feature should be auto-configured, and efforts are needed to ensure the virtual edition is very much aligned with the Azure environment. I am expecting this improvement in the next edition. The failover capability is also not as good as it should be. We have tested the failover functionality, and sometimes we have observed that failover fails. F5 does not successfully fail over to other instances perfectly, so that also needs to be improved. Security should also be enhanced, as in the past I have seen some security loopholes. Tightening of security should be included in the new software. These improvements should be present in near future editions.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Operating Systems (OS) for Business solutions are best for your needs.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
21%
Construction Company
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Docker on CentOS?
The setup costs of CentOS include some versions without a cost, but I don't get the enterprise licensing for now, and I'm using the normal open-source licensing for CentOS.
What needs improvement with Docker on CentOS?
I have no additional information on how Docker on CentOS can be improved. At the moment, I have not received additional information regarding anything specific that could be improved with Docker on...
What is your primary use case for Docker on CentOS?
My main use case for Docker on CentOS is general use to run our Docker Compose. A specific example of how I use Docker on CentOS for general use is that I use Docker Compose to Kubernetes. I usuall...
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
Improvements for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition could include a more straightforward process for major updates where we could pre-schedule upgrades to avoid downtime.
What advice do you have for others considering F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition did not impact anything positively, as during core network activities, backend servers stopped responding due to being legacy servers, which may create issues. F5 BIG-IP V...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
Regarding pricing, I believe it is high, but the setup cost is low and licensing is fine, though I do not have the complete analysis from our sales team. I understand that F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Canonical, Rocky Linux and others in Operating Systems (OS) for Business. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.