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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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
6.6
Many companies found F5 BIG-IP LTM beneficial for security and deployment, with mixed views on ROI depending on pricing.
Sentiment score
5.0
VMWare Avi Load Balancer users see cost savings and improved efficiency, though some haven’t seen immediate financial returns.
The major return on investment is the security of our data.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
VMWare Avi Load Balancer has created a smoother failover process without issues, keeping the state normal, where typically there would be manual intervention.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
We can easily identify from the dashboard whether there is any faulty server and monitor the health checks.
V Mware And Vector Administration at Tech Mahindra Limited
I have not found any return on investment so far, as it does not really lend itself to that; it is more about not having to stand up another data center for redundancy.
Vdi Consultant at Garbutt Ltd
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
F5 BIG-IP LTM support experiences vary, with mixed reviews on responsiveness, knowledge, community resources, and regional support efficacy.
Sentiment score
6.5
VMware Avi Load Balancer's support is generally positive, with skilled engineers but occasional delays in response times.
I would rate the technical support of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) nine out of ten.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
Overall, my experience with F5 is very good compared to Radware.
Security Analyst at IBM
Customer support is quite good but could be faster.
Network Engineer at Stryker
Once we raise the support case through the portal, they immediately assist us, join a call, and they are fixing the issues and providing solutions for any critical application failure issues.
V Mware And Vector Administration at Tech Mahindra Limited
The solution architect from VMware side told me that there would be no issue adding them. Here we are with an RFP, and we cannot add them easily.
Pre Sales at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The support for VMWare Avi Load Balancer is really good, and the integration with other tools is really effective, which makes the overall experience smoother.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
F5 BIG-IP LTM offers scalable integration with AWS, suitable for enterprises, but requires careful sizing to avoid constraints.
Sentiment score
7.0
VMWare Avi Load Balancer is highly scalable, efficiently managing traffic but needs GSLB for better scalability and user satisfaction.
I would rate the scalability of VMWare Avi Load Balancer a perfect ten out of ten because it senses traffic and scales automatically, also scaling down when there is no need, making it very elastic, resulting in zero costs when there is no traffic, which is excellent.
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Publicis Sapient
VMware Avi Load Balancer is software defined, and due to that, scaling is very much easier compared with other products and traditional hardware appliances.
V Mware And Vector Administration at Tech Mahindra Limited
In my role as a database engineer, scalability works in two layers and rarely becomes a bottleneck.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
F5 BIG-IP LTM is stable and reliable, with occasional bugs manageable through updates, supported by responsive customer service.
Sentiment score
8.1
VMWare Avi Load Balancer offers reliable performance, stability, and centralized management, ideal for small to medium businesses.
VMWare Avi Load Balancer is very reliable and stable.
Vdi Consultant at Garbutt Ltd
VMWare Avi Load Balancer is stable based on my experience.
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Publicis Sapient
I would like to provide a rating of nine out of ten for this product for stability and scalability.
V Mware And Vector Administration at Tech Mahindra Limited
 

Room For Improvement

F5 BIG-IP LTM needs better cost-effectiveness, user interface, cloud integration, documentation, security, automation, and a flexible licensing model.
VMWare Avi Load Balancer requires better pricing, documentation, integration, setup ease, and enhanced functionalities for smaller IT teams.
I expect faster resolutions when providing contact numbers while raising cases, as other companies typically do.
Network Engineer at Stryker
The pricing of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is on the higher side compared to competitors, but it is worth it.
Security Analyst at IBM
Predictive analytics for capacity planning and additional built-in operational reports on the dashboard would help infrastructure teams during daily monitoring.
V Mware And Vector Administration at Tech Mahindra Limited
Multi-cloud capability comes from a configuration called NSX Extended.
Pre Sales at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The need for policy execution tracing to simplify debugging is evident because if connections are routed incorrectly, for example, directly to a replica, debugging can become painful in production.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
 

Setup Cost

F5 BIG-IP LTM is feature-rich but costly, especially in AWS; consult F5 for tailored licensing options.
VMWare Avi Load Balancer offers flexible, subscription-based pricing but may be seen as costlier than some alternatives.
The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that its pricing is quite pricier compared to Anthos Service Mesh.
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Publicis Sapient
it operates on a capacity and consumption model, unlike traditional appliances that charge based on hardware.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
 

Valuable Features

F5 BIG-IP LTM excels in load balancing, security, and customization, enhancing performance and reliability for complex network environments.
The platform offers seamless integration, stability, scalability, and advanced analytics with centralized management and multi-cloud support enhancing performance.
The impact of SSL offloading on reducing server load and latency is very much positive because whatever traffic we receive, we encrypt at our F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) level, which has definitely reduced the additional load and SSL decryption load on the servers, so it has very much helped us and it is very smooth; it will not take much time and will not impact our regular traffic.
Security Analyst at IBM
R-series has better CPU and memory, leading to higher throughput with minimal downtime, making it a significant improvement over the I-series.
Network Engineer at Stryker
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.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
Since implementing VMWare Avi Load Balancer, we no longer need to manually change IP addresses in our configuration, as Avi automates this process, which controls traffic and network appropriately, adding a layer of security and assurance.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
The special capability I appreciate about VMWare Avi Load Balancer is its ease of use; it is very lightweight and quite inexpensive to deploy.
Vdi Consultant at Garbutt Ltd
It enables flexible deployment across environments and elastic auto-scaling, automatically scaling load balancer capacity based on traffic, then adding and removing service engines dynamically without over-provisioning, which leads to lower infrastructure costs and efficient handling of sudden traffic spikes.
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Publicis Sapient
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
124
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMWare Avi Load Balancer
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 12.2%, down from 15.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMWare Avi Load Balancer is 4.4%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)12.2%
VMWare Avi Load Balancer4.4%
Other83.4%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

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.
Sasikiran Sakalabattina - PeerSpot reviewer
V Mware And Vector Administration at Tech Mahindra Limited
Centralized load management has improved availability and reduces manual effort for critical apps
The features we use most frequently in VMware Avi Load Balancer are virtual services, backend pools, health monitoring, and Layer 7 load balancing. Virtual services are a component of VMware Avi Load Balancer that serves as the primary entry point for the client traffic. In our application, I regularly create and manage the virtual services for the web applications, APIs, and internal business applications. We configure SSL certificates for load balancing the policies and health monitoring at the virtual service. The best feature of VMware Avi Load Balancer is health monitoring. The most valuable feature for me is the health monitoring capability. In our production environment with more than one thousand virtual machines, it continuously checks the health of the backend application servers. During monthly Windows patching or unexpected application failures, unhealthy pool members are automatically removed from the service. This feature is significantly reducing the traffic directed to unhealthy services without any manual intervention. Once the application server is restored, VMware Avi Load Balancer automatically adds the server back to the pool. This feature has significantly improved the application availability and is reducing the business downtime. Due to this, manual interventions required are minimal, so it is saving time.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Government
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise86
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing, senior administrators manage this aspect, and I am not fully aware of it. However, I can say that compared to other products, the pricing for VMWare Av...
What needs improvement with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
VMware Avi Load Balancer is actually a mature and reliable product, but there are areas where it could improve, such as improving the cloud environments. I would like to see more automated root-cau...
What advice do you have for others considering Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
I would like to give the rating of nine out of ten for VMware Avi Load Balancer because it is an excellent product with centralized management where we can manage every virtual machine in one conso...
 

Also Known As

F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP
Avi Software Load Balancer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Palo Alto Networks, DGDean, Swisslos
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.