Kemp LoadMaster vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer comparison

Progress Software and VMware are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. Progress Software is ranked #9 with an average rating of 9.0, while VMware is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.5. Progress Software holds a 7.3% mindshare in ADC, compared to VMware’s 5.6% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Progress Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 71% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Kemp LoadMaster

Read 49 Kemp LoadMaster reviews

3,032 Views
2,156 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Read 8 VMWare Avi Load Balancer reviews

1,887 Views
1,264 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Kemp LoadMaster

VMWare Avi Load Balancer

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Kemp LoadMaster and VMWare Avi Load Balancer are prominent in the load balancing market. Kemp LoadMaster appears to have an advantage due to its competitive pricing and strong customer support, while VMWare Avi Load Balancer is preferred for its advanced features and analytics capabilities.

Features: Kemp LoadMaster is known for its intuitive configuration templates, reverse proxy capabilities, and comprehensive integration with Microsoft applications like Exchange and SharePoint. It also integrates seamlessly with Azure, enhancing cloud connectivity. VMWare Avi Load Balancer is recognized for its advanced visibility and analytics across various cloud environments. It offers a robust web application firewall and a flexible deployment that appeals to cloud-native needs.

Room for Improvement: Kemp LoadMaster users seek enhancements in its UI and documentation to simplify complex configurations, along with expanded security options. Meanwhile, VMWare Avi Load Balancer could improve its integration with other VMware products and provide more detailed documentation. Enhancing network analytics and strengthening security features are also recommended.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kemp LoadMaster is mainly deployed on-premises and is renowned for its easy setup and excellent customer service, making it ideal for those seeking reliable solutions with minimal fuss. VMWare Avi Load Balancer supports multiple deployment environments including hybrid and public clouds. It provides flexible infrastructure but would benefit from improved compatibility across different environments.

Pricing and ROI: Kemp LoadMaster offers flexible and cost-effective licensing options, supporting strong ROI and value for money. The pricing is appreciated for its affordability and positive financial return. VMWare Avi Load Balancer offers competitive pricing with flexible licensing, though some features may incur additional costs. Its pricing model is suitable for diverse deployment scenarios, offering considerable value for multi-site implementations.

To learn more, read our detailed Kemp LoadMaster vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Kemp LoadMaster vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer

June 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

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

VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

11th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.3%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMWare Avi Load Balancer is 5.6%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

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.

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Richard Polyak

Sr. Architect at NBC Universal

Easy to set up and has good integration into the host environment but needs better third party integration

I'm not sure which version number we are on. It's one of the latest, I assume. We don't run the latest. We usually are either one or two versions behind. It is something we are exploring. We do have use cases and it will compete against our existing product line. That would have to go in the second half of this year. Right now, it's more of a comparison of how we use it right now. We don't use it really in production. We are going to definitely explore it and do our comparison and more in-depth analysis of the product and compare it against our existing product line. I'd advise potential users to do a very in-depth analysis of the products in comparison. And don't just look at the cover of it - really look into the detailed backend support infrastructure and if it can be implemented the way you need it to be. I'd rate the solution five out of ten. It's not a fully mature product.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Load-balancing is a great feature that is very easy to configure and it is always working fine."

"Security is considered the most effective feature in Kemp LoadMaster."

"The solution is easy to configure when changing the load balancing method to Round Robin or least connection."

"The feature that allows us to easily disconnect a server when we need and bring back online is the most valuable. It's a click of a button. This allows us to keep all systems up. We can then run updates, perform reboots whatever we need to one of the servers without taking production down."

"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 user interface is very easy to work with."

"The most valuable feature is the load balancing and allowing for high availability of our web services."

"Using Kemp as a front-facing service appliance, it allows me to have the flexibility of swapping out real servers behind the scenes without any intervention from my network team."

More Kemp LoadMaster pros

"Its visibility and login mechanism are the best parts. In addition to the great visibility it has a great dashboard and an easy to configure graphic user interface, a beautiful GUI."

"The friendly user interface is valuable."

"The interface and software features are the most valuable aspects of this solution."

"The most valuable feature of the solution for my organization is its UI since it allows us to see the clusters while providing a very specific and good overall understanding."

"The WAF - the web application firewall itself - is great."

"The solution has simplified our network infrastructure management."

"The solution is stable."

"What's most valuable in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is its deployment capability, the ability to deploy in a dispersed service, with the service engines that can disperse and have a single control plane that can control the load balancing services across any available platform, wherever needed. The analytics of Avi Networks Software Load Balancer and flexibility of deployment are its most valuable features and the reasons why many people buy it."

Cons

"If you want logging for SMTP traffic, you have to enable ESP, which requires you to define allowed IP addresses. That’s irritating, to say the least."

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

"The GUI is rather technical and complex, so it could be improved by making it simpler and more user-friendly."

"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 cost of the GEO upgrade is not cost-prohibitive but it's something that would be a nice add-in, out of the box."

"In the next release, they can introduce 360 views in the same dashboard to make it easier for users to view. The graphical information should be displayed on the dashboard."

"It lacks an officially supported, well-written SCOM Management Pack."

"I think there should be more visual instructions on how to configure advanced features."

More Kemp LoadMaster cons

"Avi Networks Software Load Balancer needs to improve its documentation."

"In terms of improvement, the pricing and documentation need improvement. We have had problems getting the documents."

"I did not go with it because their APM module is a different product altogether. It's a common thing that companies do. They sell something and then they add on top of it as a different product. It is a type of marketing strategy. But when it comes to the overall management, it takes a lot of time to really look into it."

"IDS and IPS sites need to be more progressive."

"It doesn't match the development structure or user community of our existing product. It pales in comparison to that."

"The network analytics and monitoring features are not effective."

"The initial setup is a bit complex."

"One struggle with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is its integration with other VMware products. Integration could be improved in the solution so that you have a more unified control plane with it and other data center security and networking products that VMware sells. There has been a bit of a lag on the roadmap of new features that have come out there recently, but better interoperability with the hyperscale environments such as the AWS, Azure, GCPs of the world, and simpler deployment and interoperability with those existing tools, are areas that are receiving attention and could use additional attention today. These are the areas for improvement in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nowadays, going with the virtual appliance is the easiest way and the cost is reasonable."

"Any decent product will cost money and if you want great support and a great product, then you will want to spend the money on it."

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

"From a cost perspective, Kemp is very competitive and is not hard to justify by any means."

"It has a very attractive ratio of price/performance."

"KEMP gives away free trials for 30 days. This can be stretched if you want. During the test, you will have access to KEMP support."

"The price is lower than other options."

"Currently, no cost is involved with a virtual load balancer. They have used open source. We did not pay for software. We paid for the expertise. We are only paying the consulting charges, which are very reasonable, that is, around a thousand dollars."

More Kemp LoadMaster pricing and cost advice

"The tool is expensive."

"The licensing costs for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer are really variable. The product can be sold from a bandwidth utilization perspective. It can be sold from a per CPU perspective, depending on if you're looking at on-premises or hyperscale environments. Licensing costs vary quite a bit if you're familiar with the AWS Calculator, where you can see that it can widely vary per licensing model. On a scale of one to five, with one being not very good value for the money and five being great, I would rate the pricing for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer a five because its pricing is extremely competitive. Not all features are included with the license, for example, there's single licensing."

"With Avi Networks, you can buy a 10-Gig license and, if your primary data center goes down, in the flick of a switch you can move that license to your backup data center and it will generate the traffic... there are a lot of cost-effective measures."

"I rate the solution price a four to five on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high, since it is an affordable tool."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

29%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Government

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.

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

What do you like most about Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?

The solution has simplified our network infrastructure management.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?

The tool is expensive. It is not cheap. The product must be cheaper.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?

The network analytics and monitoring features are not effective. The product does not provide deep troubleshooting features. The solution must provide public IP features. F5 provides such features.

See all answers

Comparisons

HAProxy vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 19% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 15% of the time

NGINX Plus vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 12% of the time

NetScaler vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 11% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 5% of the time

More Kemp LoadMaster Competitors

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

Compared 29% of the time

NetScaler vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Compared 22% of the time

HAProxy vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Compared 16% of the time

NGINX Plus vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Compared 11% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer

Compared 4% of the time

More VMWare Avi Load Balancer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Kemp LoadMaster

June 2025

Download Kemp LoadMaster product report

Buyer's Guide

VMWare Avi Load Balancer

June 2025

Download VMWare Avi Load Balancer product report

Also Known As

LoadMaster Load Balancer

Avi Software Load Balancer

Overview

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

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is an application delivery controller (ADC) platform. The solution provides scalable application delivery across any infrastructure and allows your organization to deliver multi-cloud application services, such as load balancing, autoscaling, application security, container networking, and web application firewall. It is designed with 100% software load balancing to ensure a fast and secure application experience. Additionally, Avi Networks Software Load Balancer offers elasticity and delivers intelligence across any environment.

The Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is unique because

It can scale from 0 to 1 million SSL transactions per second in minutes.
It can achieve 90% faster provisioning and 50% lower TCO than a traditional appliance-based approach.

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer Product Highlights

Troubleshoots application issues in less than a minute.
Alerts you of potential risks with SSL certificates and TLS versions used.
End-to-end timing for each transaction to help solve end-user experience issues.

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer Features

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Automated application delivery
Seamless integration with the CI/CD
Built-in analytics
End-to-end visibility
Actionable insights
Security
“Network DVR”-like capability to record and replay specific transactions
Google-like search filters transactions based on device, location, errors, etc.

Avi Networks Software Load Balancer Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Avi Networks Software Load Balancer. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Multi-cloud application services: Avi Networks Software Load Balancer provides consistent, enterprise-grade application services, including load balancing, WAF, and container networking across heterogeneous environments. The multi-cloud application services can be deployed on bare metal, VMs, or containers in any data center or public cloud environments.

Faster application provisioning: With this solution, you gain automation with 100% REST APIs and self-service like public cloud.

Better business decisions: Avi Networks Software Load Balancer uses analytics to deliver application insights and help you drive more intelligent decisions.

Containerized applications: Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is a proven solution to deploy container-based workloads in production environments using Kubernetes/OpenShift/Tanzu clusters. It includes multi-cluster, multi-site support for containerized applications.

Lower TCO: The solution is 100% software, and does not require any proprietary hardware. In addition, because it offers on-demand autoscaling, there is no over-provisioning. Lastly, point-and-click application troubleshooting means there is no need for a black box.

Software-defined architecture: Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is designed with a software-defined architecture with a centralized control plane (Avi Controller) and distributed data plane (Avi Service Engine). Because of this, elastic autoscaling is made easy.

Better end-user visibility: The solution gives you granular visibility into end-user experiences and server response in real time. It also empowers application owners with end-user stats to optimize and improve apps.

Application health score: Avi Networks Software Load Balancer summarizes analytics information into a helpful health score that provides a quick snapshot of the overall applications. The health score it provides is determined by server response time, resource usage, anomalous traffic, and security posture.

VMware

Sample Customers

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

Palo Alto Networks, DGDean, Swisslos

Buyer's Guide

Kemp LoadMaster vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer

June 2025

Free Report: Kemp LoadMaster vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer

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