F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Imperva Web Application Firewall comparison

The compared F5 and Imperva solutions aren't in the same category. F5 is ranked #2 in ADC , with an average rating of 8.9, and holds a 15.7% mindshare in the category. Imperva is ranked #7 in WAF , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 5.6% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Imperva users who would recommend it.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Read 122 F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) reviews

7,554 Views
5,590 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Read 52 Imperva Web Application Firewall reviews

4,578 Views
4,258 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Imperva Web Application Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall Report (Updated: September 2020).

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

September 2020

Download the complete report

Helped 865,295 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 Local Traffic Man...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

122

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd)

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Application Firewall (WAF) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Imperva Web Application Firewall aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is designed for Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) and holds a mindshare of 15.7%, up 15.4% compared to last year.
Imperva Web Application Firewall, on the other hand, focuses on Web Application Firewall (WAF), holds 5.6% mindshare, down 6.5% since last year.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Bonieber Orofeo

IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital

Identifying compromised traffic and securing data has been a significant advantage

One of the most beneficial features of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is its ability to identify compromised traffic and its capabilities in authentication. Additionally, the security aspect of it provides a significant advantage as it helps us secure our data, which is a major investment and benefit for us. Before using this system, we had difficulties in storing our data and managing the traffic that comes in and out.

Read full review

Mitesh D Patel

Senior Technical Consultant- Cyber Security at Ivalue Infosolution

Effectively defends against threats like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and others

It does bring value. For example, consider a BFSI customer. Their application is critical and represents their brand. Without a WAF, an attack could take their application down, harming their reputation. It leads to hampering the customer's workflow. With an Imperva WAF, they protect against attacks like DDoS or SQL injection, ensuring their application remains available and customers are happy. That's the main benefit for both the customer and the organization. The impact depends on the customer's use case. If their business primarily operates online, a CDN is beneficial for traffic optimization. Moreover, the integration options depend on the specific use case of our customers. Generally, integration capabilities are good with SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) parts.

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 combination of ADC and WAN is good."

"Its user interface is very easy to use on a day-to-day basis. It is very user-friendly."

"It also has an AVR feature: application, visibility, and recording. It's good for customers looking for what is actually happening in their network and where the latency is."

"The web application firewall feature is the most valuable and useful feature. It is a leading industry product when it comes to load balancing. Its user interface is very simple. There isn't a steep learning curve. When we initiate someone to F5, they start using it quickly."

"We are fond of the load balancing feature for DNS and servers."

"One of the best features of the solution is the operating system."

"ASM for WAF."

"it has TCP LAN and WAN optimization features. It has has caching."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pros

"I am impressed with the product's scalability, availability, easy management, and security. We were able to integrate the product with Azure and Sentinel."

"Very intuitive and granular configuration - It does not require much time, or advanced knowledge, for configuration and maintenance."

"Imperva is a Gartner leader, so its scalability, performance, and features are excellent."

"Imperva has a complete picture of how the applications are utilizing it. It is handy. DDoS is good. It has an internally managed database. It is very easy to integrate. We have integrated it with SIEM services."

"It has threat intelligence and we are using Incapsula. With threat intelligence, we can separate HTTP and HTTPS traffic. We can use Incapsula to send all the threat intelligence to the WAF."

"It is easy to use and has good security."

"Imperva monitors all traffic, even customer access, to the web application. Then, Imperva uses features like signatures to identify attacks like cross-site scripting or SQL injection."

"Configuration for different application sources is most valuable. We can segregate the traffic that an application is carrying and identify the sizing in Imperva."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pros

Cons

"There is a challenge in Pakistan. This is when there is a hardware failure. Sometimes, it takes more time to get a replacement because it is sent out from the U.S. or some other regional outpost. Thus, it takes two to three days to receive a replacement."

"LTM's cloud capabilities could be improved. Cloud providers all offer load balancing, but you can't get the same level of security. F5's cloud service is still not on par with its on-prem service."

"LTM would be improved with the inclusion of signature-based blocking."

"They need to develop the reporting tools further."

"The user interface could be improved in F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager."

"I would like to see better integration."

"The solution's initial setup process was quite complex. I"

"I would like there to be more device security. I would like the tool to support SSL links, along with SSL and TLS."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) cons

"The only disadvantage of Imperva is that it is a pretty costly solution."

"It would be useful if the solution used more intelligence in attack protection. For example, firewalls are to be dependent on the configuration, but if they could have some data science around it the solution would be even better. The profiling of the traffic, and making decisions surrounding that should be intelligence-based, instead of being based on the configuration of the firewall itself."

"They can provide an option to create reports, automatically import the entire report, and create rules again. In a real-life crisis, it would be helpful to be able to import a report and generate security rules from that report. I should be able to create a simple query and import the reports automatically. It can maybe also tell us the format of the report."

"The user interface could be better."

"I would like the solution to improve its support response time."

"An improvement for Imperva WAF would be to reduce the number of false positives and create more strong use cases based on AI/ML or behavioral analytics."

"The solution works for particular zones but isn't always the best solution for all zones."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the console by making it easier to use."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I found F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) an expensive product. The costs would depend on the appliance and infrastructure size. However, my company didn't have to pay extra to use additional features."

"If your IT budget is good, go for it."

"Unless the price difference is large, this is not the primary concern for the product. The performance and product-related issues (secure for VPN, multi-function for network device, etc.) are the keys."

"The cost is high for this product, so it's not suitable for small customers, e.g. those with small environments."

"The tool is a bit expensive."

"F5 pricing is too high, compared to Citrix."

"The solution is more expensive than one of its competitors."

"F5 is expensive."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pricing and cost advice

"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."

"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."

"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."

"There is a license for this solution and we purchase the license annually with no additional fees."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."

"Imperva’s pricing is a bit higher in the market since it offers a full-blown WAF."

"The tool is expensive."

"The pricing is somewhat expensive. It is actually a huge investment when compared to other countries."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?

The GUI of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) could be improved. It's not something regarding how it processes or blocks, as that's perfect. However, it still feels a bit legacy regarding the GU...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is a perfect product for load balancing and WAF, and I would recommend it far more than any other product. The load balancing capabilities of F5 BIG-IP Local T...

See all answers

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)?

The solution is robust and reliable.

See all answers

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

My recommendation is Imperva.

See all answers

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?

For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.

See all answers

DDoS solutions: Any other solutions to consider aside from Radware DDoS Protection Service and F5 Silverline DDoS Protection?

You can have a look to Imperva Cloud WAF, the anti-DDoS mitigation is under 1s and works very well. I observed a lot of DDoS attacks that were well managed (even not seen by the customer) by Imperv...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 18% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

NetScaler vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 7% of the time

HAProxy vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 7% of the time

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Competitors

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 14% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

More Imperva Web Application Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

August 2025

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report

Download F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall

August 2025

Download Imperva Web Application Firewall product report

Also Known As

F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP

No data available

Overview

F5 BIG-IP LTM optimizes the speed and reliability of your apps via both network and application layers. Using real-time protocol and traffic management decisions based on app and server and connection management conditions, and TCP and content offloading, BIG-IP LTM dramatically improves application and infrastructure responsiveness. BIG-IP LTM's architecture includes protocol awareness to control traffic for the most important applications. BIG-IP LTM tracks the dynamic performance levels of servers and delivers SSL performance and visibility for inbound and outbound traffic, to protect the user experience by encrypting everything from the client to the server.

BIG-IP LTM provides enterprise-class Application Delivery Controller (ADC). You get granular layer 7 control, SSL offloading and acceleration capabilities, and advanced scaling technologies that deliver performance and reliability on-demand. The highly optimized TCP/IP stack combines TCP/IP techniques and improvements in the latest RFCs with extensions to minimize the effect of congestion and packet loss and recovery. Independent testing tools and customer experiences show LTM's TCP stack delivers up to a 2x performance gain for users and a 4x increase in bandwidth efficiency.

Imperva Web Application Firewall is a versatile solution that protects web applications and databases from various attacks, including DDoS, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection attacks. It offers data security, availability, and access control and can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud.

The solution has good security against web attacks and offers advanced bot protection, API security, and mitigation features. Imperva WAF is easy to configure and deploy; it has good customer service and an excellent user interface.

Imperva

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.

BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

September 2020

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: September 2020.

DOWNLOAD NOW

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall report.

We monitor all Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.