F5 BIG-IP software from Seattle-based F5 Networks is a load balancing and application protection solution suite available on cloud or via virtual editions, on a subscription or perpetual licensing basis. The BIG-IP suite of products supports a wide range of security and application performance needs. The suite includes BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) traffic management and optimization, BIG-IP DNS, BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) identity and password protection, BIG-IP Application…
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VMware NSX
Score 8.6 out of 10
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VMware NSX is network virtualization technology. VMware NSX is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.
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Pricing
F5 BIG-IP
VMware NSX
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BIG-IP
VMware NSX
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
F5 BIG-IP
VMware NSX
Considered Both Products
BIG-IP
No answer on this topic
VMware NSX
Verified User
Professional
Chose VMware NSX
We use both ACI & NSX. They both provide a programmable network and in future releases of ACI they will allow you to stretch fabrics into the cloud like you can do with NSX. ACI, when compared to NSX, turned out to be significantly cheaper, but it also was lacking certain …
The scale, performance, and configuration for various scenarios have already been mentioned. The versatility, reliability, etc., are dependable and well-known. Being the industry leader, it is almost a standard, and no one can get fired for recommending F5 compared to some of the new offerings, which are not battle-tested.
With proper design, VMware NSX can and should be deployed to virtually any VMware virtualization environment, but the deployment should be tailored to the needs of that environment. There isn't really a one size fits all deployment design for all environments. That versatility is what provides its greatest strength to a business.
I think the policy configuration that had some improvements on the ASM word things, improvements may be on the signatures that would be good because it's a little bit confusing on the ASL, how they are updated and deployed, and this staging. So that's something that could be.
On the occasions when we've had to engage f5 support, they have been great. They have always resolved our issues quickly and been easy to work with and professional. The reason I give them a 10 out of 10, however, is because when we've had issues that have crossed over between the f5 BIG-IP, our Cisco switches, and our Microsoft IIS server the f5 support representatives have been extremely knowledgeable about every product and device involved and have been able to troubleshoot end-to-end without having to engage other vendors.
So the cloud versions, and admittedly we did not do the Imperva on-prem solution. We only went with cloud. There's a lot of idiosyncrasies, like you can't use real IP addresses, you must snap. And that caused us problems with DNS and DNS routing. So we had to turn on some features with F5 that did remediate the issue, like using the one connect profiles, but that did cause some other problems identifying traffic and we had to make some eye roll changes to use the exported four headers.
We use both Cisco ACI and VMware NSX, and while they have different strengths and capabilities, I would recommend VMware NSX, as it can be used in all VMware environments, without costly physical infrastructure changes. Cisco ACI provides some of the same capabilities, but not all. It's focus relies on physical networking changes.