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

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Safe-T Secure Application Access 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
124
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (1st)
Safe-T Secure Application A...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (37th), Access Management (30th), ZTNA (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Safe-T Secure Application Access 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 13.0%, down 15.4% compared to last year.
Safe-T Secure Application Access, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Infrastructure VPN, holds 1.0% mindshare, up 0.3% since last year.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)13.0%
NetScaler12.1%
HAProxy8.9%
Other66.0%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Safe-T Secure Application Access1.0%
OpenVPN Access Server12.2%
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks6.3%
Other80.5%
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

edshyaa - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at Stryker
Load balancing has improved traffic distribution and currently supports high availability upgrades
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) offers effective load balancing methods that help distribute traffic across our servers, whether we have two or several. This load balancing feature stands out as it is the fundamental work we do with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). While I recognize there are many features, such as iRules, which I have not explored yet, we primarily work on VIPs, pool members, and traffic distribution. The load balancing algorithms' flexibility makes them very useful for our team, enabling us to choose different servers and manage load effectively. We use various methods based on user or application requirements, making the algorithms set up by F5 in the backend quite helpful. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) positively impacts our organization primarily through its load balancing capabilities. We avoid traffic overload on individual servers by placing backend servers behind F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) VIP. This load balancing helps us manage traffic effectively. Since the configuration of the I-series, we have had smooth performance, and with the recent migration to the R-series, it is working faster than before, providing positive outcomes for our operations. Since moving to the R-series, I notice improved performance; it is user-friendly and handles traffic efficiently. The upgrading process is different as we create tenants and a main host. R-series has better CPU and memory, leading to higher throughput with minimal downtime, making it a significant improvement over the I-series.
it_user787671 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer
Needs to be easier to configure and to display logs more simply
We use only it for scanning files for viruses. That's the only feature we use in this product It needs to be easier to configure, it should be something that's working well with other sources. It should be something that allows me to see the logs simply. One to three years. Sometimes it doesn't…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution is the best security platform."
"BIG-IP can do anything. It's like a Swiss Army knife."
"It is the perfect solution when you have high workloads in your IT environment."
"Initial setup is easy and pretty standard."
"Over our year of engagement with F5, we evaluated multiple products from other vendors and competed with many others, and we always found F5 products to be our first and best choice to advise our customers to use, with respect to: Performance, protection, stability, scalability."
"Secure and scalable traffic management solution for applications. Good for bigger environments."
"The anti-bot protection is very good, helping our customers filter real traffic from fake and allowing the real traffic to access the application."
"The detail that you have available when setting up iRules."
"We use only it for scanning files for viruses."
"You can easily integrate it and fit the system to your organization's needs, and that's a very huge advantage."
"Safe-T is very good for users because it has a plug-in for Outlook."
"Safe-T SDA has allowed my organization to secure my office applications and makes it harder for hackers to be able to hack into my internal office web applications."
"From a technical point of view, products are stable and scalable, and we do appreciate the personal touch the sales engineers (SE) support and development bring, as well as the personal touch of the sales support, the free online, and web-based training."
"It's easy to use over the web. A user who is not in the office can use it and securely insert files."
"Safe-T SDA has allowed my organization to secure my office applications and makes it harder for hackers to be able to hack into my internal office web applications."
"If you need a solution for sending big files to customers or for receiving large files from them, this is a very good solution."
 

Cons

"Needs to provide a visual interface to follow a customer's activity (from client to BIG-IP to SNAT IP to the chosen server, then back). Today, we are still performing packet captures."
"The ASM administration is quite complex."
"The pricing of the product is a bit too high."
"One area for improvement with F5 BIG-IP LTM could be its pricing, which some may find on the higher side."
"This is a very expensive solution."
"Cloud native integration should be provided."
"The management interface is unclear, complex, and not concise. I would like a better user interface."
"The technical support is very poor. They do not deliver on their SLAs, and even when we escalate the issue, we do not get a good response in 24 hours."
"I'm not sure what advice I would give others about this product because I don't like Safe-T."
"Better UI. A better UI for the people that manage all the processes of Safe-T. Some of the UI is not as intuitive as you would like it to be."
"In terms of improvement, they need to be much more strict regarding the roadmap, about timelines and when new features will be up in production."
"The Outlook agent is not working well for installing it in the entire office."
"One important thing that we haven't found in this product is the ability to provide a read-only view for documents. Also, the ability for the customer to add annotations to these documents."
"The cloud solution is not that great especially with Swiss customers."
"The Outlook agent is not working well for installing it in the entire office."
"Setting up Safe-T SDE is very complex. It is not straightforward, and it requires much understanding on the concepts of the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They are expensive."
"It is cheaper than the average on the market."
"I use a yearly subscription, which is the most expensive one now compared to its competitors."
"The only area that has room for improvement would be pricing, so its competitors do not have a say."
"The price should be reduced because it is expensive when compared to the competition."
"This solution comes with a standard license, and there are also extra licenses that can be obtained. The licenses are purchasable for durations of one, two, three, and five years. The hardware is something to consider when purchasing"
"It is sort of a commodity product. A load balancer is a load balancer. What will be, at the end of the day, the cheapest option or have the best performance, that is what it will come down to."
"It could be priced a little less, especially on the virtual side. It gets a bit expensive, but you get what you pay."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Performing Arts
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Media Company
9%
Religious Institution
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise86
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) could improve file upload speeds when opening cases and attaching files; sometimes, downloading files like QKView takes time, depending on size. I expect faste...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?
My main use case for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is placing our applications on F5 and the backend servers on the pool. We also regularly renew SSL certificates before they expire, usuall...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP
Safe-T SDA, Safe-T, Safe-T Software-Defined Access
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Government of Israel, eviCore Healthcore, Glen Imaging, Sarin, LBG, Rollomatic, Boegli-Gravures SA, Banque Heritage, Groupe Minoteries, Temenos, ZEK, RLM Finsbury, Harel Insurance, Meitav Dash
Find out what your peers are saying about F5, NetScaler, HAProxy and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC). Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.