A10 Thunder Kubernetes Connector vs F5 BIG-IP Container Ingress Services
A10 Thunder Kubernetes Connector
documentation.a10networks.com
F5 BIG-IP Container Ingress Services
clouddocs.f5.comSide by side
| Figure | A10 Thunder Kubernetes Connector | F5 BIG-IP Container Ingress Services |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Kubernetes Ingress Controllers | 7.7 (#11) | 7.8 (#10) |
| Intended users | A10 describes its application and network solutions as serving large enterprises, service providers, and cloud platforms. | F5 identifies network architects, network operations, AppDev, DevOps, and system infrastructure teams as target customers. |
| Purpose | Thunder Kubernetes Connector (TKC) helps provide external access to applications running in a Kubernetes cluster with Thunder ADC. | CIS integrates container orchestration environments with F5 BIG-IP to dynamically create L4/L7 services and load balance traffic as container applications change. |
Plans
F5 BIG-IP Container Ingress Services
- Open-source softwareFree
In their own words
A10 Thunder Kubernetes Connector
A10 Thunder Kubernetes Connector (TKC) monitors Kubernetes application lifecycles and updates an external Thunder ADC load balancer to route traffic. Running inside a Kubernetes cluster, it identifies a web service’s NodePort and dynamically configures Thunder ADC to load-balance traffic to Kubernetes nodes, avoiding manual network-resource provisioning. A10 describes TKC for multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud deployments, where Thunder ADC can apply consistent security and business policies across public and private clouds. Centralized traffic routing provides operations teams with application traffic and analytics visibility for troubleshooting. TKC supports Terraform and Ansible for CI/CD integration and is listed as an automated Kubernetes service-discovery option. Related Thunder ADC capabilities include Layer 4–7 load balancing, customizable health checks, aFleX scripting, TLS/SSL offloading, rate limiting and a web application firewall. TKC v2.4.2 is documented for Linux, self-hosted deployments using the ingress API model.
F5 BIG-IP Container Ingress Services
F5 BIG-IP Container Ingress Services (CIS) connects Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift environments with F5 BIG-IP. It watches Kubernetes resources and adjusts BIG-IP configuration as applications change, while teams manage BIG-IP through Kubernetes or OpenShift command-line interfaces and APIs. CIS can send traffic from BIG-IP to clusters through NodePort or ClusterIP and supports F5 AS3 declarations. It provides HTTP and URI routing, load balancing, scaling, health monitoring, and Blue/Green or A/B traffic handling. F5 documents Ingress resources, OpenShift Routes, IngressLink coordination with NGINX Ingress Controller, and overlays including OpenShift SDN, Flannel, and Calico. BIG-IP data streams can export application and network statistics to tools such as Splunk. Installation is available through Helm or manual methods, with releases on Docker Hub and Red Hat Container Registry. The open-source plan is free, but requires a licensed BIG-IP system, a Kubernetes or OpenShift cluster, and AS3 installed on BIG-IP.