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Kemp LoadMaster vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Kemp LoadMaster
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
8th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Application...
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
4th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.6%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is 7.9%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

PeterForster - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Shehzad Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers time and cost savings with integration, but user interface needs improvement
We are using it for our internal application development. We are testing those features of application gateways. We are integrating it with our solutions, application, Azure Application Gateway Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well. It provides a range of services, so it…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Edge Security Pack is valuable because of the way it separates between critical infrastructure and the public internet."
"I like that this is a Network Load Balancer that can be used practically with any application in the backend. They have how-to guides on how to set up Kemp NLB with Exchange, but you can use it as well for Sharepoint, RDS, or any other back end server."
"The most valuable feature so far has been the high-availability options that allowed us to add an additional Kemp LoadMaster VLM virtual appliance into our VMware vSphere environment, to provide failover for our existing LoadMaster."
"The feature I find most valuable is load balancing with different algorithms."
"The security features are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Load-balancing is a great feature that is very easy to configure and it is always working fine."
"The old process of manually having to redirect Outlook Web Access traffic and Email traffic to a second server is a thing of the past."
"The most valuable features for us are the Load Balancing and Web Application Firewall, as we have a lot of web applications."
"We find it valuable because it is compatible with our existing Azure solution."
"I find Application Gateway’s WAF module valuable because it helps prevent layer 7 attacks."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well."
"The tool helps manage microservices by providing developers with a platform to conduct tests and assessments on the web application. The custom domain option is one of the most valuable features I've found. This feature is incredibly helpful for the end-users of the web application. With the custom domain feature, you can change the lengthy link to a shorter, more memorable one. For example, instead of using a lengthy default link, you can customize it to something like imail.com, which is much easier to remember and share."
"The solution's most valuable feature is an HTTP solution and SSL certificate. It is also easy to use."
"The security feature in all the layers of the application is the most valuable."
"The tool is easy to use and quite flexible. It has policy management features as well. The solution screens all traffic to our web applications before passing it to the application. We recently tested it on one of our poorly developed applications, and the upgrade gave us a 100% result based on our tests. It's very effective as a security measure, and people can detect threats even through the web application."
 

Cons

"I want to have the ability to pull a particular server. The DevOps portion was challenging for me, like if I needed to redirect from one IP to another URL. I needed to look that up, and the knowledge base is not well organized. When I look for information about Kemp on the Internet, I don't find many articles or something like that."
"In the web interface, there are a lot of settings in the different menus and it would be helpful if there were an interactive help system or tooltips to help the administrators find and configure the right settings."
"The only thing that I miss is that the TMG server was giving me live information about who is connected and what is the request about."
"The product is really good as-is out of the box. If there is one thing I would change is to have the license file not be coupled with the MAC address of the device. This is actually not really useful in a virtual environment where if you have a single VM with KEMP LoadMaster and you have not set up static MAC Address, if you, for example, recreate the VM and just load the disk file on a new VM it will get new MAC address and the NLB will not work as it will not see a proper license."
"The cost of the GEO upgrade is not cost-prohibitive but it's something that would be a nice add-in, out of the box."
"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."
"I really don't like the way the logs are presented in the software."
"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 configuration is very specific right now and needs to be much more flexible."
"Scalability can be an issue."
"One of the challenges we faced was the solution does not support any other PCP protocols apart from HTTP and HTTPS."
"It could be easier to change servicing."
"Application Gateway’s limitation is that the private and the public endpoint cannot use the same port."
"The solution could improve by increasing the performance when doing updates. For example, if I change the certificate it can take 30 minutes. Other vendors do not have this type of problem."
"I want the solution's support to improve. The tool is also expensive."
"I believe that there is room for improvement in terms of additional functionality. It is an advantage to have features readily available for configuration without needing customer-defined rules."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nowadays, going with the virtual appliance is the easiest way and the cost is reasonable."
"The price is great and the value is definitely there."
"The setup cost and pricing plan is reasonable and will ultimately give you a worthy return."
"​I have control on the licensing and all the prices since I work for a partner.​"
"Licensing is yearly and I am going to guess that it is CAN $2000.00."
"Less expensive than Citrix."
"It is well-priced and licensing is very flexible."
"This product has good value and features for the money."
"It is not expensive."
"The product is not expensive."
"I rate the pricing seven out of ten because some third-party solutions are even costlier than this."
"There is a need to pay a fixed price per month to use the product. There are no additional payments to be made to Microsoft apart from the charges paid towards the monthly licensing costs attached to the solution."
"It is an expensive solution. We have an enterprise agreement, it is monthly."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a pretty affordable product. My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs of the solution. The additional costs apart from the licensing costs of the solution vary."
"The solution is cheaper than Imperva. I rate it four to five out of ten."
"Between v1 and v2, there is a lot of change in the pricing. It is very costly compared to AWS."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
63%
Computer Software Company
7%
University
3%
Government
3%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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.
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...
What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?
We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...
How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft Azure Application Gateway web application firewall software was the better fit ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it.
 

Also Known As

LoadMaster Load Balancer
Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT€ Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank
Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
Find out what your peers are saying about Kemp LoadMaster vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.