Fortinet FortiADC vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

Fortinet and Progress Software are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. Fortinet is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0, while Progress Software is ranked #9 with an average rating of 9.0. Fortinet holds a 10.3% mindshare in ADC, compared to Progress Software’s 7.5% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

Fortinet FortiADC

Read 24 Fortinet FortiADC reviews

3,487 Views
2,933 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Kemp LoadMaster

Read 49 Kemp LoadMaster reviews

3,893 Views
2,409 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiADC

Kemp LoadMaster

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Kemp LoadMaster and Fortinet FortiADC are both leading load balancing solutions. Kemp LoadMaster holds the upper hand due to its ease of use, comprehensive feature set, and cost-effectiveness.

Features: Kemp LoadMaster is notable for its ease of deployment, robust templates for Microsoft apps, and affordability, including features like load balancing and security. It integrates seamlessly with Azure and provides high availability. Fortinet FortiADC excels in advanced load balancing, global server load balancing, and DNS intelligence, and is praised for its security features, though it may be more complex to set up.

Room for Improvement: Users of Kemp LoadMaster wish for an improved GUI, better documentation, and enhanced log management. Guidance for complex setups is also recommended. Fortinet FortiADC could benefit from stronger WAF capabilities, improved documentation, and quicker support response. Its setup complexity and tool integration also need refinement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kemp LoadMaster is favored for its straightforward deployment, especially in on-premises settings. Its customer service is repeatedly praised for outstanding efficiency. While Fortinet FortiADC's deployment may be complex, its support remains responsive and helpful.

Pricing and ROI: Kemp LoadMaster is lauded for affordability and ROI, offering free trials and competitive licensing. Fortinet FortiADC's pricing is competitive among high-end solutions, though it is generally viewed as less affordable than Kemp. Users point to pricing clarity but suggest improved cost-effectiveness.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiADC vs. Kemp LoadMaster Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiADC vs. Kemp LoadMaster

April 2025

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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

Fortinet FortiADC

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

7th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Kemp LoadMaster

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

9th

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiADC is 10.3%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.5%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

Saeid Khanipour Ghobani

IT Manager at Technology Evaluation Center

High-level load balancing and routing protocols but scalability is limited to 200 gigabits

The initial setup and configuration are very easy because the solution includes a simple OS. Initial configuration takes about ten minutes for simple environments. It is important to assess the environment and decide what services, servers, and web applications are needed. The solution can be configured in router mode or one-arm mode which uses source NAT as destination NAT to send traffic to the firewall. One-arm mode is more complex and requires discussions with our engineers. For example, you have a website with Node.js for your programming language, Amazon S3 for your CDN, NGINX for your web server, and you use both React and reCAPTCHA. Our team meets with your developer to learn your website and OS through a multi-step process and then we configure the solution to protect everything.

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PeterForster

Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

A highly stable and scalable load-balancing software that offers great technical support

My company is really happy with Kemp LoadMaster as a product. My company is also happy with the support we receive from Kemp LoadMaster. I want Kemp LoadMaster to provide users with better reporting capabilities in relation to TCP packets. In general, the connections that are present in the system require improvement. Feature-wise, Kemp LoadMaster has everything that our company's customers require. Kemp LoadMaster also has features that have supported our company's past projects.

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

"FortiADC provides load-balancing capabilities needed for integration with other Fortinet platforms."

"Although FortiADC has multiple features that I like, the global DNS is the most helpful. It is primarily useful for customers with huge environments and at least two data centers. FortiADC can act as your DNS server. It can check which data center has the lowest latency, and route traffic to that one. It's an intelligent DNS."

"I am impressed with the product's load-balancing feature."

"The GSLB, the DR side, is the best part. Because we had our main side in one city, we created another, and we had a complete MPLS over the internet. We used the GSLB and data loss for our business applications."

"The main feature that we use is GSLB (Global Server Load Balancing). GSLB makes the customer's network more reliable by scaling applications across multiple datacenters. GSLB as a disaster recovery solution can direct traffic based on site availability."

"TSL and SSL offloading are both very good features."

"Because ADC is the intermediary between the servers and the end-user application, it gives thorough information about the traffic, what the problem is."

"The most valuable feature is its simplicity."

More Fortinet FortiADC pros

"When the templates are used, there is not much left to configure and they just work!"

"One of the most valuable features I like is the ability to block specific cipher suites like RC4, and older protocols like SSL 3.0."

"Great web balancing and remote access balancing."

"I like the way this solution handles multiple SSLs in different domains while still load balancing."

"When you configure the listening services, you can implement a lot of security features like the Edge Security Pack that intercepts the requests and processes those before they are sent to the real servers."

"The Global WAF has saved us more than one time from unwanted traffic."

"From my personal experience, many firewalls provide Load Balancing functionalities, but Kemp Loadmaster has a lot of features and functionalities like what you can configure. So there are a lot of features but we use only five percent of it."

"It is an easy-to-use, user-friendly interface, and you can set up a new VIP in a couple of minutes."

More Kemp LoadMaster pros

Cons

"I had a terrible experience with Fortinet support. I only used support once when I bought the solution. I got no response for two days. However, I believe that it's no longer the case. Fortinet solutions have problems when they're launched. For example, we had issues with Fortinet's authenticator when it came out. We also had trouble with FortiNAC in the beginning."

"The L7 Persistent load-balancing algorithm has not worked for me after having tested it many times with my customer's in-house application. I'd like to suggest that the company make sure that all load-balancing algorithms work properly with most applications, even those that are in-house apps."

"Because it is so generic, the documentation requires special attention. A person who has not worked on Fortinet FortiADC or a similar product will struggle to understand what the document is trying to say. The documentation could be more specific, and more detailed."

"One of the product's areas of improvement includes reducing the number of components requiring additional licenses, such as antivirus and IDS, which are already covered by our firewall."

"Technical support and documentation could both be improved."

"I will queue all the details clearly on the ticket, including the diagram, log files, and everything else. Once a case is assigned, they ask the same questions again without checking the submitted details."

"Though FortiADC is useful, I'd appreciate more user-friendly features and in-depth insights into network activity, like detailed logs and AI-driven feedback for optimization."

"The product's stability for VMs could be better."

More Fortinet FortiADC cons

"Some of the support documentation seems to make assumptions that the person installing or configuring is experienced with the product or concepts."

"I really don't like the way the logs are presented in the software."

"The ability to see live traffic is not great and can be improved."

"It has all types of logs and they are very detailed, but it's a little bit hard to search for a single event."

"Over the last several major versions, the GUI has remained virtually unchanged and still seems lacking."

"We experienced a brief period of instability."

"The configuration of the basic services is pretty straight forward but for more complex solutions, there needs to be better documentation or knowledge base articles."

"The auth website of ESP is really lacking. It’s not responsive (mobile friendly) and the procedure of changing the website is difficult. We tend to avoid using pre-auth for that reason."

More Kemp LoadMaster cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is competitive"

"I believe the price is good. It's fair. There are no extra costs."

"The solution could be more cost-effective."

"The product has affordable pricing."

"The solution's pricing is an issue and should be improved."

"They offer a perpetual license."

"Compared to F5, FortiADC pricing is better."

"I rate Fortinet FortiADC's pricing one out of ten. It is fixed."

More Fortinet FortiADC pricing and cost advice

"This product has good value and features for the money."

"The price is lower than other options."

"They have multiple tiers of licensing and you can upgrade it easily."

"Licensing is yearly and I am going to guess that it is CAN $2000.00."

"The license varies according to the number of megabits."

"Download Kemp's VLM trial and take it for a test drive; you will be impressed."

"The price is great and the value is definitely there."

"Setup is easy, the cost is affordable, and the licensing is quick and simple."

More Kemp LoadMaster pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Retailer

Educational Organization

57%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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

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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiADC?

The user interface is very easy and integrates with Sandbox easily.

See all answers

What do you like most about Kemp LoadMaster?

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial setup of Kemp LoadMaster is very simple.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?

LoadMaster is cheaper than some other solutions. It has a perpetual license, so it's a one-time cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?

There are some challenges with updates on certain models that don't have a few features. The support team often takes a lot of time to provide resolutions for issues. Also, I could see more capabil...

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 27% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 25% of the time

NetScaler vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 12% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 5% of the time

Loadbalancer.org vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 4% of the time

More Fortinet FortiADC Competitors

HAProxy vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 18% of the time

NGINX Plus vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 14% of the time

NetScaler vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 11% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 7% of the time

More Kemp LoadMaster Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiADC

April 2025

Download Fortinet FortiADC product report

Buyer's Guide

Kemp LoadMaster

May 2025

Download Kemp LoadMaster product report

Also Known As

FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC

LoadMaster Load Balancer

Overview

Fortinet FortiADC is a robust application delivery controller (ADC) that delivers application optimization, application security, and application availability. FortiADC is a valued offering from Fortinet, which is widely recognized as a trusted supplier of dynamic security solutions worldwide. FortiADC offers dynamic security functions (AV, DDoS, and WAF) in addition to advanced application connectors for a simplified deployment and complete transparency to an organization's networks and applications. FortiADC offers three primary deployment options: physical machine, virtual machine, (VM) and cloud solution options.

Fortinet FortiADC Benefits

FortiADC security protocol: FortiADC integrates with FortiSandbox to improve the overall antivirus security protections where every file is scanned for known and unknown malicious risks. If a file is identified as malicious or problematic, it will be blocked in the future.
SSL protocol: FortiADC securely uses the most up-to-date cryptography to provide exceptional encryption and decryption using a hardware-based SSL ASIC. FortiADC offers complete transparency to inspect all traffic for threats, improves server response time, and reduces backend server load, SSL inspection and SSL offloading. FortiADC integrates seamlessly with Gemalto’s SafeNet Hardware Security Module (HSM).
FortiADC connectors: FortiADC Fabric Connectors offer open API-based integration and coordination with numerous software-defined networks (SDNs), third-party partners, and cloud management providers. Fortinet Fabric Connectors provide deep open and turnkey integration with recognized third-party vendors such as AWS, K8s, OCI, and SAP, in multi-vendor solutions, improving scalability, simplified management, and automation.
Business stability: FortiADC load balancing for on-premise global server load balancing (GSBL) and in the cloud (FortiGSBL Cloud) will ensure users can maintain a reliable and available network by improving the ability of scaling applications throughout numerous data centers to reduce application response times and enhance disaster recovery. Users are able to define protocols based on network latency concerns, overall data performance, and site availability.

Fortinet FortiADC Features

Application availability
- 4-7 application load balancing: DNS, HTTPS, RTMP, RADIUS, MySQL and more
- External fabric connectors: Splunk Integration, AWS/OCI Connector, Kubernetes Service.
- Security fabric connectors: FortiSIEM, Fortigate BanIP Integration, FortiAnalyzer, and more.
- Deployment modes: High availability (AA/AP Failover), Router mode, transparent mode (switch), one-arm mode (proxy with X-forwarded for support.
Web application firewall (WAF)
- Security services: Captcha support, cookie support, HTTP header security, XML/SOAP/JSON validation, CSRF protection, API gateway, and more.
- Application security: Web attack signature, bot detection, web vulnerability scanner, OWASP Top-10 Wizard, API protection and more.

Application enhancement
- HTTP and TCP improvement: TCP buffering, HTTP compressions/decompression, HTTP caching (dynamic and static objects), Bandwidth monitoring using quality of service (QoS), TCP buffering, and more.
- Authentication offloading: Two-factor authentication (Fortitoken/Fortitoken Cloud and Google Authentication), NTLM, AUTH2.0, SAML 2.0 (SP and Idp) RADIUS, LDAP, Kerbos, and local.
- Networking: Integration with Ansible, Cisco ACI, OpenStack and Nutanix, NVGRE and VXLAN support, VLAN and port trunking support, IPv6 Support (SLB, firewall, routing and interfaces), Dynamic NAT, Hide NAT, Static NAT for added scalability and flexibility.
- Management: Syslog support, SNMP using private MIBs with threshold-based traps. REST APIs, VDOMS, data analytics, real-time monitoring graphs, role-based monitoring, intuitive reporting, FortiView integration, and more.

Fortinet

Kemp LoadMaster is a powerful load balancing solution that also serves as a web application firewall. Its primary use case is load balancing and application load balancing, making it an ideal solution for organizations that must distribute traffic across multiple servers. Kemp's integration with an active directory for ESP usage, hosting/deployment of SSL certificates, and pricing are some of its most valuable features.

Using Kemp has helped organizations mitigate cross-scripting vulnerabilities, cookie-related issues, and content security policy issues. It has also allowed them to handle everything with Kemp instead of working on each application individually.

Progress Software

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiADC vs. Kemp LoadMaster

April 2025

Free Report: Fortinet FortiADC vs. Kemp LoadMaster

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