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Fortinet FortiADC 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
5.0
Fortinet FortiADC offers reliable web traffic management with strong support, but users find WAF functionality could improve usability.
Sentiment score
5.0
VMWare Avi Load Balancer users see cost savings and improved efficiency, though some haven’t seen immediate financial returns.
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.
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
6.2
Fortinet FortiADC's support experiences vary, with praise for professionalism but issues with response times and license-related impacts.
Sentiment score
6.5
VMware Avi Load Balancer's support is generally positive, with skilled engineers but occasional delays in response times.
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
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
Fortinet FortiADC is scalable with virtual, cloud, and hardware models, but accurate initial sizing is crucial for expansion.
Sentiment score
7.0
VMWare Avi Load Balancer is highly scalable, efficiently managing traffic but needs GSLB for better scalability and user satisfaction.
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
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
8.2
Fortinet FortiADC is highly stable and reliable, with responsive support, despite minor bugs occasionally introduced by firmware updates.
Sentiment score
8.1
VMWare Avi Load Balancer offers reliable performance, stability, and centralized management, ideal for small to medium businesses.
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
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

Fortinet FortiADC users seek better support, documentation, and features, including load-balancing, security, interface, and resource optimization improvements.
VMWare Avi Load Balancer requires better pricing, documentation, integration, setup ease, and enhanced functionalities for smaller IT teams.
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.
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

Fortinet FortiADC offers competitive, predictable pricing with flexible licensing options, appealing to both small businesses and large enterprises.
VMWare Avi Load Balancer offers flexible, subscription-based pricing but may be seen as costlier than some alternatives.
This solution is quite expensive compared to Kemp.
Senior Network Engineer at SP SYSNET PTE. LTD.
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

Fortinet FortiADC offers features like SSL offloading and load balancing, valued for simplicity, scalability, affordability, and integration.
The platform offers seamless integration, stability, scalability, and advanced analytics with centralized management and multi-cloud support enhancing performance.
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
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

Fortinet FortiADC
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
25
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 Fortinet FortiADC is 8.3%, down from 9.6% 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 (%)
Fortinet FortiADC8.3%
VMWare Avi Load Balancer4.4%
Other87.3%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing 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 Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
 

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.
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.
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

FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC
Avi Software Load Balancer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Palo Alto Networks, DGDean, Swisslos
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiADC vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.