Forum Discussion
How does LTM differentiates from other brands, head-on?
Here's my perspective
(Not a beneficiary sales guy or affiliate, just an independent technical freelancer)There's no serious competition to F5 at this point, unless all you need are the basic LTM features.
With that said, if you only need basic LB/ADC, you can find solutions from other vendors that do the same at a lower purchase price. Most companies that end up going down that route will eventually migrate to F5 once the basic features are no longer enough. A common reason for migration is a lack of advanced security features. The main problem with budget competitors, although some are great, is that they sell a product that covers 75% of what LTM can do, and nothing else. F5 is a top tier player in many niches, including LB/ADC, SSL VPN & Access and WAF. If you ever need a product for more than one, you can win in long-term operational costs and quality. Engineers that manage the infrastructure can then afford to be familiar with less vendor-specifics, and be more specialized. This generally results in better use of infrastructure assets and less human errors.
You can use Gartner's quadrant as one measure (link below). Any other comparisons/evaluations created by reputable 3rd parties will do. If you want a fair heads-up, do not take into account anything stated on official web-sites or forums of beneficiaries (this means you should also ignore DevCentral).
Gartner 2016 report: https://interact.f5.com/2016Q1EGartner2015ADCsEMEAOCT07.html
NacreousHere's my perspective
(Not a beneficiary sales guy or affiliate, just an independent technical freelancer)
There's no serious competition to F5 at this point, unless all you need are the basic LTM features.
With that said, if you only need basic LB/ADC, you can find solutions from other vendors that do the same at a lower purchase price. Most companies that end up going down that route will eventually migrate to F5 once the basic features are no longer enough. A common reason for migration is a lack of advanced security features. The main problem with budget competitors, although some are great, is that they sell a product that covers 75% of what LTM can do, and nothing else. F5 is a top tier player in many niches, including LB/ADC, SSL VPN & Access and WAF. If you ever need a product for more than one, you can win in long-term operational costs and quality. Engineers that manage the infrastructure can then afford to be familiar with less vendor-specifics, and be more specialized. This generally results in better use of infrastructure assets and less human errors.
You can use Gartner's quadrant as one measure (link below). Any other comparisons/evaluations created by reputable 3rd parties will do. If you want a fair heads-up, do not take into account anything stated on official web-sites or forums of beneficiaries (this means you should also ignore DevCentral).
Gartner 2016 report: https://interact.f5.com/2016Q1EGartner2015ADCsEMEAOCT07.html
