Centralized policies have strengthened application security and streamline load balancing
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is application delivery and security, primarily for load balancing and Layer 7 (application-layer) protection of web applications.
We use it to distribute traffic across multiple backend servers to ensure high availability, performance optimization, and zero single point of failure. On the security side, we use it to protect applications from common web threats such as SQL Injection, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), CSRF, brute-force and credential-stuffing attacks, bot traffic, malicious scanners, and Layer 7 DDoS floods.
Additionally, we leverage BIG-IP VE for:
-
SSL/TLS offloading and inspection to reduce server load
-
Persistence/session management (cookie / source IP) for stable user sessions
-
Health monitoring to automatically detect failures and route traffic to healthy nodes
-
Traffic visibility and logging for troubleshooting, compliance, and faster incident response
Overall, it has been a reliable solution for improving application uptime, security posture, and user experience in production environments.
How has it helped my organization?
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition has had a very positive impact on our organization by improving application delivery, availability, and overall service stability. It has helped us ensure high uptime by distributing traffic across multiple servers and automatically routing users to healthy backend resources through effective health monitoring.
It also enhanced application performance through optimized load balancing and SSL offloading, which reduced server load and improved response times for end users. From an operational perspective, it has saved significant time for our team by providing better traffic visibility, faster troubleshooting, and centralized control, which reduced downtime and improved incident response.
Overall, BIG-IP VE has strengthened our application environment by delivering reliable performance, better availability, and faster service delivery with improved efficiency.
What is most valuable?
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition’s best features are load balancing, high availability, and Layer 7 security. It keeps applications running smoothly by distributing traffic, provides failover to avoid downtime, and protects web apps from attacks like SQL injection, XSS, bots, and brute-force attempts. On top of that, the monitoring and visibility are very helpful. It makes troubleshooting faster and saves a lot of time for the operations team. Overall, it’s a reliable solution that improves performance, security, and availability at the same time.
What needs improvement?
I believe F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition could be improved in terms of pricing and licensing transparency.
However, customers who purchase through authorized partners may receive better pricing and licensing options, as it largely depends on the partner’s capability and commercial offering.
From a pricing perspective, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is somewhat high compared to others, and the licensing is provided as annual-based licenses rather than perpetual licenses.
There are some issue we are faced we are getting clear kb article
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working in my current field for the last 3.5 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Yes, it is very stable solution you can as so far on your own requirement
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is highly scalable. You can scale it by increasing CPU/RAM resources, adding more backend pool members, and deploying additional VE instances in HA or clustered designs. It works well for growing traffic demands as long as proper sizing and licensing are planned.
How are customer service and support?
yes we are supporting customer in deployment and providing technical services to all our customers
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before using F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, we were using Citrix NetScaler.
How was the initial setup?
it's less complex from others
What about the implementation team?
Yes, we used a local reseller and system integrator for the deployment, and the overall experience was very good. They supported us with licensing, sizing recommendations, and end-to-end implementation, and ensured a smooth rollout with proper configuration and post-deployment support.
What was our ROI?
Yes, we have seen a positive ROI with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition. It improved application uptime and availability through load balancing and health monitoring, which reduced service outages. It also saved operational time by enabling faster troubleshooting and centralized traffic control, and reduced backend server load through SSL offloading, resulting in better performance with fewer escalations and less downtime.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing and licensing for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition are generally on the higher side compared to other ADC solutions. Setup cost mainly depends on the required modules and sizing. Licensing is mostly subscription-based (annual/term), and if the evaluation license expires, some LTM features can be disabled, so license monitoring is important.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Citrix ADC (NetScaler) before choosing F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition. Both are strong ADC solutions for load balancing and application delivery, but we found some key differences.
F5 BIG-IP VE vs Citrix ADC (NetScaler) – Pros & Cons
-
Very strong LTM load balancing and traffic management
-
Mature Layer 7 security and policy control (especially with iRules and security profiles)
-
Excellent stability and performance in enterprise environments
-
Strong monitoring, logging, and troubleshooting visibility
-
Better flexibility for advanced customization and complex use cases
❌ F5 BIG-IP VE – Cons
-
Licensing and pricing can be higher compared to alternatives
-
Requires skilled resources for advanced configurations (iRules, policies, security tuning)
✅ Citrix ADC – Pros
-
Good load balancing and application optimization
-
Often seen as cost-effective depending on licensing and bundles
-
Works well in environments heavily based on Citrix virtualization / VDI
-
Strong GUI-based configuration for standard use cases
❌ Citrix ADC – Cons
-
Advanced customization and troubleshooting can be less flexible compared to F5
-
Some enterprises find F5 more stable for high-complexity deployments
-
Security/policy tuning may require more effort depending on the environment
Summary
Overall, we selected F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition because it provided better application availability, stronger traffic control, and more reliable performance for our production requirements.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition 9/10 overall.
Advice: Plan the sizing and licensing properly, deploy it in HA (Active/Standby) for high availability, and monitor license validity (especially EV licenses) to avoid any service impact. If configured correctly, it delivers excellent load balancing, application availability, and Layer 7 security.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Load balancing has increased web availability and improves performance for critical applications
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, which is mostly requested by our customers, is using it as a load balancer, functioning as an LTM (Local Traffic Manager).
Recently, we had a requirement from a customer who hosts a web application on a web server and needed to increase the availability of the website. We suggested and implemented a solution where we placed F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition in front of the server and deployed three servers behind it, all hosting the same application. Using this approach, we have increased both the performance and availability of the application.
What is most valuable?
The two main features I like most about F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition are the Local Traffic Manager and the Application Security Manager, also known as Advanced
WAF. These two are my favorite features.
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition has a positive impact on our customers. As I shared in the example scenario, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition helped our customers increase the high availability and performance of their applications, specifically their web applications.
What needs improvement?
I believe F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition could be improved in the area of pricing. It is a somewhat expensive solution, and the price needs to be improved based on what our customers have told us.
Another area for improvement is that training for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is not widely available. While there is paid training available on the F5.com website, there is generally no free training available for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been doing projects related to F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is very good. We can scale F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition very quickly in public cloud environments and also in our on-premise private environment.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is excellent. We always receive prompt responses from the customer support team.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not use any solution apart from F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition.
How was the initial setup?
The setup cost is acceptable, but it is somewhat expensive. However, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition solves a very significant problem of high availability and performance, so the pricing can be overlooked, though our customers do mention that it is expensive. The licensing is also expensive because we need to have separate licenses for separate modules. For example, LTM has its own license and ASM has its own license.
What about the implementation team?
We purchased F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition through the
AWS Marketplace.
What was our ROI?
I can see the return on investment with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition. The measurable metrics for us and our customers are those related to performance. There is a significant performance improvement in the website and website speed. Additionally, time is saved because we avoid a lot of manual processes using F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The setup cost is acceptable, but it is somewhat expensive. However, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition solves a very significant problem of high availability and performance, so the pricing can be overlooked, though our customers do mention that it is expensive. The licensing is also expensive because we need to have separate licenses for separate modules. For example, LTM has its own license and ASM has its own license.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is a market leader, so we did not evaluate any other options.
What other advice do I have?
I rate F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition 10 out of 10.
I gave it a 10 out of 10 because F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition truly solves a significant problem of high availability and traffic and performance improvement in web applications.
The metrics showing performance and availability improvement with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition include less downtime. Since we have increased redundancy on the web servers by placing three web servers behind F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, if one of the servers fails, the other two will serve the traffic. Additionally, faster response time is achieved because we have more compute power with three servers serving the same purpose and hosting the same website.
I would highly recommend F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition to everyone because we have had a phenomenal experience using this device. It is a very capable solution. We have used the Local Traffic Manager and we are in the process of implementing the Advanced Security Module, Application Security Module, or Advanced WAF.
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is a very good solution that solves many of the problems faced by small to medium-sized businesses.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Good for cloud security and branch management in the cloud and offers seamless integration
What is our primary use case?
I use it in the IT environment in Brazil for a financial bank in Latin America.
We're primarily using BIG-IP LTM across our data centers, employing it for global load balancing with GTM. This setup is crucial for our operations in Mexican, Colombia, and Brazil as well.
How has it helped my organization?
The biggest impact is in security solutions, for example, with HCM, which is recognized in the Gartner. We use BIG-IP for cloud security and branch management in the cloud.
Moreover, the integration with other networks or security solutions improves the infrastructure.
In Brazil, within the government environment, we use BIG-IP for load balancing and another solution as a proxy, which is called Blue Coat.
We utilize BIG-IP, for example, for load balancing. The VPN model we use is called ARC. The first solution connecting with BIG-IP is very effective.
What is most valuable?
The features that I like include LTM and Global Traffic Manager (GTM).
What needs improvement?
BIG-IP could improve in supporting microservices, for example, in Docker and Kubernetes environments.
Accessing and load balancing with Docker and Kubernetes is becoming more common in financial banks to scale services globally.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for many years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is 50-50 because the environment has a lot of connections, which influences stability. For example, the VM in the environment sometimes becomes unstable, particularly the connection. In such cases, we need to decrease the connections within the environment.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is easier to manage because it's possible to scale up big clusters, both in cloud-based and enterprise environments. So, it caters well to new business segments.
There are 8,000 end users in the company.
How are customer service and support?
My impression of the support team is mixed; sometimes good, sometimes bad. For example, when I raised a ticket for an IMEI issue and needed to replace BIG-IP, it failed. No problem, this process is very easy for replacing the software. So, I had a complex problem in my environment. The standard package was not satisfactory.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used a different solution, but its performance was very bad in comparison to F5 BIG-IP.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is 50% complex and 50% easy because I had to follow a lot of steps. It wasn't that simple.
In our environment, it is 90% in AWS. I use BIG-IP in the cloud, where the cloud fronts are AWS, Columbia, and Brazil, creating the infrastructure.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is standard.
The pricing is moderate, not too expensive, and not too cheap. For a small company, it might be considered very expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend using this solution.
Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Secure and reliable
What do you like best about the product?
It's stable, quality solution for a secure connection to your business network. The user interface is intuitive and not so complicated. But most of the time you'll need the integrator's help to set the policy as required
What do you dislike about the product?
The policy is a bit complex to understand at first you'll need guidance in your first steps but once you practiced a few times it'll be simpler
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Secure virtual connection for remote business users, secure external connection for vendors and costumers
Unreliable and Insecure Tool
What do you like best about the product?
Big IP Virtual Edition does not ensure that skilled IT professionals or those with access to F5 support and training. This needs to guarantee management of the implementation process. The performance and porting capabilities are somewhat limited.
What do you dislike about the product?
Big IP Virtual Edition needs to provide load balancing and robust security features. There are downsides to consider. It requires configuration. Lacks an intuitive user interface making it time consuming and difficult to work with.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Its pricing is on the side limiting accessibility for businesses. We have incorporated Big IP Virtual Edition into our system to balance the load on our Exchange servers but it failed to do so. It has obstructed our operations.
