F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs Ivanti Connect Secure comparison

F5 and Ivanti are both solutions in the SSL VPN category. F5 is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.2, while Ivanti is ranked #4 with an average rating of 6.6. F5 holds a 12.8% mindshare in SV, compared to Ivanti’s 23.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 78% of Ivanti users who would recommend it.

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...

Read 17 F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) reviews

670 Views
546 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Ivanti Connect Secure

Read 28 Ivanti Connect Secure reviews

1,165 Views
753 Comparison Views

78% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...

Ivanti Connect Secure

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) and Ivanti Connect Secure based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two SSL VPN solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. Ivanti Connect Secure Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. Ivanti Connect Secure

April 2025

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Helped 851,604 peers since 2012

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

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...

Ranking in SSL VPN

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (17th), Network Access Control (NAC) (8th), Remote Access (11th), Access Management (10th)

Ivanti Connect Secure

Ranking in SSL VPN

4th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the SSL VPN category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 12.8%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Ivanti Connect Secure is 23.0%, up from 19.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

SSL VPN

Featured Reviews

Ashish Kumar Rai

Associate Network Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Offers remote access control, good GUI and easy to configure

I'd suggest improved documentation integration directly within the GUI. Right now, finding comprehensive documentation often requires going to external websites like the community portal. In the APM interface itself, they could add direct hyperlinks to relevant online documentation. This would provide easy access to admin guides and other resources when working within the GUI.

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Johan Derycke

Network Security Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Reliable remote access and tunneling enhance work efficiency, but upgrade processes need improvement

Ivanti needs improvement in its seamless upgrade and migration procedures, particularly with the browser components, which are fragile and sometimes cause issues depending on the Windows version, the browser version, and the different modules being used. On the client side, browser-initiated sessions are complex and require a more robust approach for non-admin users.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool is reliable and easy to configure."

"Stickiness is the most valuable feature of the product."

"The most valuable feature is the virtual IP creation. It's our most frequently used feature."

"F5 BIG-IP APM is relatively easy to use."

"The performance of the solution is valuable."

"The solution is stable and reliable."

"We have seen a return on investment from F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager. It provided access at a time when we didn't have it."

"This is a product that is easy to install and integrate, and it is simple to use."

More F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is remote access."

"From an end-user perspective, the setup phase is easy."

"Ivanti Connect Secure provides the feature to check and ensure that employee devices are compliant before allowing them to access the VPN."

"It is customer-friendly. It is quite easy for our users to connect. There is also the flexibility of the features."

"This solution enables secure connections for our engineers to work from home or other locations."

"The most valuable features of the solution are reliability and uptime."

"The most robust and reliable feature of Ivanti Connect Secure is the VPN tunneling, using both the Pulse and the Ivanti client."

"I can safely say this is one of the best solutions I have seen for VPN access. It can achieve what other vendors may not be able to. This product will train you about exactly what an SSL should be. You can leverage it to do whatever you wish, the way you wish to do it. This is the solution if you want a perfectly scalable product for your enterprise that can help your mobile users and integrate with the latest technologies."

More Ivanti Connect Secure pros

Cons

"The operational deployment is not great."

"The initial setup was complex."

"F5 BIG-IP APM disconnects when you leave it for long enough, but that is natural for IT solutions to do. That's a little bit frustrating."

"F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) does not have a direction for SaaS."

"The solution is quite costly."

"The price of this product can be improved."

"Regarding price, I'm not directly involved in purchasing, but our CIO thinks the product is very expensive. He's considering moving from the tool to Citrix NetScaler WAF because it's cheaper, and we already have Citrix for VDI. We got NetScaler almost free as part of our VDI deal. Three years ago, I convinced him to use the solution because it's better, but now, with budget constraints, he may want to switch."

"If I could copy and paste objects instead of picking and configuring them from scratch each time, it would be great."

More F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) cons

"An area for improvement in Pulse Connect Secure is the concurrent connections, particularly needing a license if you want to use Pulse Connect Secure with your Microsoft or Windows machine."

"This solution normally works but at times, we have had trouble with connectivity."

"The security mechanisms of Ivanti Connect Secure are very slow to update."

"Pulse Connect Secure could improve the reporting, it is lacking in detail and should take the report automatically."

"The product could use additional dashboards."

"Pulse Connect Secure could improve by having better integration with NAC solutions, such as Cisco ClearPass integration with Pulse Connect Secure. Additionally, they need better integration with Microsoft Azure AD and Azure Authenticator."

"At the moment, Pulse Connect Secure is a pretty good solution, and I don't see any issues with it. Currently, I'm not aware of a new or additional feature that's needed in Pulse Connect Secure, but it would be good if the team could look at how the speed of connection could be increased. Though it's quite seamless and I didn't face any problem with the speed, it would be better to improve the speed and keep going forward, especially as the industry's changing and people would love connections to be a lot faster."

"Ivanti needs improvement in its seamless upgrade and migration procedures, particularly with the browser components, which are fragile and sometimes cause issues depending on the Windows version, the browser version, and the different modules being used."

More Ivanti Connect Secure cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is a little bit expensive."

"Recently, they have simplified the licensing"

"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The product is very expensive."

"The pricing for Pulse Connect Secure is not low and not high, so it's good. It's a six out of ten for me, price-wise."

"The pricing is quite nominal. We pay on a yearly basis."

"A license is required for you to use Pulse Connect Secure, but I'm not aware of how much it costs."

"Pulse Connect Secure is relatively cost-effective."

"The price of Pulse Connect Secure is expensive."

"I rate the product price a six to seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."

"The cost of the product is high, but worth it because of the utility and great product support."

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851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?

In my opinion, the GUI is perfect with the configuration options provided. F5 BIG-IP has given customization options and policy configuration tools in the GUI. It's good and good enough to work.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?

F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability, akin to purchasing a Bentley as opposed to an Audi.

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM ( /categories/application-performance-monitoring-apm-and-observability )) does not have a direction for SaaS. Most solutions focus more on remote access and acc...

See all answers

What do you like most about Pulse Connect Secure?

From an end-user perspective, the setup phase is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pulse Connect Secure?

Ivanti has always been known to be pricey, making it a rather high-cost solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pulse Connect Secure?

See all answers

Comparisons

Citrix Gateway vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

Compared 9% of the time

BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

Compared 7% of the time

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiProxy vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

Compared 6% of the time

Aruba ClearPass vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

Compared 5% of the time

More F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) Competitors

Fortinet FortiClient vs Ivanti Connect Secure

Compared 20% of the time

Ivanti Secure Access vs Ivanti Connect Secure

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) vs Ivanti Connect Secure

Compared 8% of the time

OpenVPN Access Server vs Ivanti Connect Secure

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway vs Ivanti Connect Secure

Compared 6% of the time

More Ivanti Connect Secure Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)

May 2025

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) report

Download F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Ivanti Connect Secure

May 2025

Download Ivanti Connect Secure product report

Also Known As

F5 Access Policy Manager

Pulse Connect Secure

Overview

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is an access management proxy solution for managing global access to the enterprise networks, cloud providers, applications, and application programming interfaces (APIs). Through a single management interface, BIG-IP APM consolidates remote, mobile, network, virtual, and web access.

BIG-IP APM can also serve as a bridge between modern and classic authentication and authorization protocols and methods. For applications which are unable to support modern authentication and authorization protocols, like SAML and OAuth with OIDC, but which do support classic authentication methods, BIG-IP APM converts user credentials to the appropriate authentication standard supported by the application.

BIG-IP APM Benefits:

Ease of use
Flexibility
Ability to integrate with other systems
Security features
Granular access control
Responsive and helpful support team

BIG-IP APM Features:

Support for Identity Aware Proxy (IAP) enabling Zero Trust application access
Context-based authorization with dynamic L4/L7 ACLs
Integration with third-party MFA solutions
DTLS 2.0 mode for delivering and securing applications
SAML 2.0 identity federation support
Support for OAuth 2.0 authorization protocol
SSO support for classic authentication (Kerberos, header- based, etc.), credential caching, OAuth 2.0, SAML 2.0, and FIDO2 (U2F)
AAA server authentication and high-availability
Integration with leading IAM vendor products (Microsoft, Okta, Ping Identity)
BIG IP Edge Client and F5 Access integrate with VMware Horizon ONE (AirWatch), Microsoft Intune and IBM MaaS360
Risk-based access leveraging third-party UEBA and risk engines (HTTP Connector)

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by BIG-IP APM users.

Mahmmoud Rabie, Senior Site Reliability Engineer, writes that BIG-IP APM is "A highly stable solution for load balancing, but the initial setup is complex."

Clyde Livingston, Senior Process Specialist at Telstra, says that BIG-IP APM is "Easy to use, useful access remotely, but lacking stability."

Chris Lam, Senior Solution Consultant at Macroview Telecom Limited, states that BIG-IP APM is "Useful for remote access VPN and VPI integration with VMware.

Ivanti Connect Secure provides a seamless, cost-effective SSL VPN solution for remote and mobile users from any web-enabled device to corporate resources— anytime, anywhere.

Ivanti

Sample Customers

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office

Axcient, Baloise Group, Cygate, Catholic University of America, Datec Inc, Revlon, Santa Monica Networks, 7-Eleven

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. Ivanti Connect Secure

April 2025

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. Ivanti Connect Secure

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. Ivanti Connect Secure and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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