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

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs Fortinet FortiADC 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
5.7
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition enhances performance and reduces costs by improving application uptime, security, and operational efficiency.
Sentiment score
5.0
Fortinet FortiADC offers reliable web traffic management with strong support, but users find WAF functionality could improve usability.
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
The alert system is efficient, sending alerts within a fraction of a second if any power issues arise.
Senior Network Engineer at SP SYSNET PTE. LTD.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition support is effective and knowledgeable, though off-hour delays and access issues occasionally occur.
Sentiment score
6.2
Fortinet FortiADC's support experiences vary, with praise for professionalism but issues with response times and license-related impacts.
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
The support team is knowledgeable and efficiently assists with automation and configuration problems.
Security Network Architect at novonordisc
It varies depending on the engineer assigned; in most cases, we resolve issues on the first attempt.
Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited
Fortinet technical support is very good, and they provide us with better support.
Team Lead at Adapt Information Technologies (Pvt) Ltd
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition offers scalable, flexible resource expansion, supporting high availability and adaptability for increased traffic and demand.
Sentiment score
7.4
Fortinet FortiADC is scalable with virtual, cloud, and hardware models, but accurate initial sizing is crucial for expansion.
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
For those opting for a SaaS or cloud solution, there is scalability and flexibility.
Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited
It is scalable for some versions, however, as components reach their end of support, upgrades are necessary to maintain scalability.
Security Network Architect at novonordisc
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is highly stable, offering strong performance and security, with minimal downtime apart from updates.
Sentiment score
8.2
Fortinet FortiADC is highly stable and reliable, with responsive support, despite minor bugs occasionally introduced by firmware updates.
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
The support system is reliable when issues like automation or configuration arise.
Security Network Architect at novonordisc
Overall, it has been good; in the past it was very good, and now it is still performing well.
Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited
We have two applications in two ESXi hosts that I integrated into our ADC, and I created one virtual IP in the virtual server pool.
Team Lead at Adapt Information Technologies (Pvt) Ltd
 

Room For Improvement

F5 BIG-IP VE requires interface upgrades, better microservices support, improved logging, clearer licensing, easier upgrades, and enhanced Azure integration.
Fortinet FortiADC users seek better support, documentation, and features, including load-balancing, security, interface, and resource optimization improvements.
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
Fortinet has been a pioneer for enterprise solutions, such as firewalls, SASE, ZTNA, and SD-WAN solutions, and they are in a leader quadrant.
Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited
The limitation of managing all components and the differing versions pose challenges.
Security Network Architect at novonordisc
If I need design help, they do not assist; they say it is a design issue they cannot support, and I must approach the system integrator.
Senior Network Engineer at SP SYSNET PTE. LTD.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users appreciate F5 BIG-IP VE's ROI and scalability, but licensing costs and pricing transparency remain concerns.
Fortinet FortiADC offers competitive, predictable pricing with flexible licensing options, appealing to both small businesses and large enterprises.
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
This solution is quite expensive compared to Kemp.
Senior Network Engineer at SP SYSNET PTE. LTD.
 

Valuable Features

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition boosts user experience and efficiency with load balancing, security features, high availability, and cost reduction.
Fortinet FortiADC offers features like SSL offloading and load balancing, valued for simplicity, scalability, affordability, and integration.
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
I use server load balancing and employ layer seven features, which provide more granular traffic shaping and detailed logs.
Senior Network Engineer at SP SYSNET PTE. LTD.
When integrated with FortiAnalyzer, it has much more significance.
Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited
The implementation process is straightforward, and cluster implementation is also very easy.
Team Lead at Adapt Information Technologies (Pvt) Ltd
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortinet FortiADC
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is 1.3%. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiADC is 8.7%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiADC8.7%
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition1.3%
Other90.0%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
GANESAN K - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited
Has supported load balancing for medical applications and could benefit from more custom configuration options
Some customers need custom management for handling their applications across the servers. Instead of having a predefined solution, if we had space for custom-based algorithms to load balance the traffic, it would be better. We have faced such cases with A10, where we can leverage many custom scripts and do much more. Even though A10 primarily focuses on SMBs, they have also ventured into the enterprise market. Fortinet has been a pioneer for enterprise solutions, such as firewalls, SASE, ZTNA, and SD-WAN solutions, and they are in a leader quadrant. Therefore, they should have more options. From a pricing perspective, it is expensive.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
The integration capabilities of the product are easy to use, and there is no complexity involved in it.
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...
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.
Do you recommend Fortinet FortiADC?
I recommend Fortinet FortiADC. My experience with Fortinet has been very positive. Our company has been using it for around five years. We mainly use FortiADC for the load balancing of application ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiADC?
Pricing is not considered on our side since we are the implementation team. Our pre-sales team considers the pricing and all the details.
 

Also Known As

No data available
FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs. Fortinet FortiADC and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.