A10 Thunder ADC vs Progress Kemp LoadMaster
A10 Thunder ADC
a10networks.comProgress Kemp LoadMaster
progress.comSide by side
| Figure | A10 Thunder ADC | Progress Kemp LoadMaster |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 2 |
| Spec score · Load Balancing Software | 8.7 (#2) | 7.5 (#8) |
| Deployment | The product is offered as physical and SPE appliances, virtual appliances, bare metal, containers, and cloud deployments. | Progress describes LoadMaster as available in hardware, virtual, and cloud forms, and documents on-premises and cloud deployment options. |
| Founded | 2004 | 1981 |
| Headquarters | San Jose, California, United States | Burlington, Massachusetts, United States |
| Integrations | The product page names Terraform and Ansible for CI/CD integration, TKC and HashiCorp NIA with Consul for Kubernetes service discovery, and Prometheus/Grafana for monitoring. | The documentation provides deployment guides for Microsoft, VMware, Omnissa, Dell EMC, Citrix, and Oracle workloads. |
| Intended users | A10 describes Thunder ADC as intended for SMBs, large enterprises, service providers, and cloud operators managing mission-critical applications. | Progress describes the LoadMaster product family as serving businesses of all sizes and managed service providers. |
| Purpose | Thunder ADC is an application delivery controller and Layer 4–7 load balancer designed to protect critical applications, maintain server availability, and accelerate content delivery. | LoadMaster is an application delivery controller and server load balancer that manages user traffic and applications. |
| Security | The product includes web and DNS firewall capabilities, single sign-on, DDoS protection, and support for advanced encryption including PFS and ECC. | The integrated WAF provides protections including OWASP Top Ten coverage, SQL injection protection, cross-site scripting mitigation, and denial of service mitigation. |
Plans
Progress Kemp LoadMaster
- Temporary LoadMaster trial licenseFree
- Permanent LoadMaster licensePriced on request
In their own words
A10 Thunder ADC
A10 Thunder ADC is an application delivery controller and advanced load balancer for distributing workloads, maintaining server availability, protecting applications, and accelerating content delivery. It balances traffic at Layers 4–7, offers customizable service health checks, and supports aFleX scripting. Global Server Load Balancing can direct traffic across data centers and clouds for continuity and localized responses. Deployment options include hardware, virtual appliances, cloud, bare metal, and containers. Performance capabilities include caching, TCP optimization, and TLS/SSL offloading; security features include single sign-on, CAPTCHA, web and DNS firewalls, and DDoS protection. The REST-based aXAPI interface is described as providing 100% API coverage. Named integrations include Terraform and Ansible for CI/CD, Kubernetes service discovery through TKC or HashiCorp NIA with Consul, and Prometheus/Grafana monitoring. Pricing is on request. A 30-day trial license is listed for vThunder and public cloud offerings; container trial details require contacting A10 Sales. The container edition lists OpenShift 4.16 and minimum requirements of 4 vCPU and 16 GB memory.
Progress Kemp LoadMaster
Progress Kemp LoadMaster is an application delivery controller and server load balancer for managing application and user traffic. Its routing and delivery features include Layer 4 and Layer 7 balancing, persistence, health checks, SSL acceleration and offloading, and rule-based content switching. An integrated WAF covers protections such as OWASP Top Ten risks, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and denial of service; other access controls include reverse proxy, single sign-on, pre-authentication, dual-factor authentication, IPS, and SSL bridging. GEO policies can direct clients to datacenters by location or proximity and support failover and failback. Progress offers hardware, virtual, and cloud forms, with on-premises and cloud deployment options. Cloud licenses can be pay-per-use, charged only for usage consumed, or perpetual BYOL. The temporary trial costs nothing for 30 days on the VLM-MAX model with Enterprise Plus Support, including ESP, WAF, and GEO. When that license expires, LoadMaster ceases to function; some features may also be lost if a permanent license has a different support tier.