Progress Kemp LoadMaster
Load balancing software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
- Affordability
- Market presence
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$1,700 perpetual license
Free TrialFree version
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- Education and training
- Healthcare and life sciences
- Public sector and nonprofit organizations
What is Progress Kemp LoadMaster
Progress Kemp LoadMaster is an application delivery controller (ADC) used to load balance and proxy traffic across application servers to improve availability and performance. It is used by IT and network teams to publish web applications, APIs, and remote access services in on-premises, virtualized, and cloud environments. The product combines Layer 4/Layer 7 load balancing with features such as SSL/TLS offload, health checks, and traffic management policies, and it is commonly deployed as a virtual appliance or cloud image.
Broad ADC feature coverage
LoadMaster supports Layer 4 and Layer 7 load balancing, content switching, health checks, and persistence options that fit common enterprise application publishing patterns. It also includes SSL/TLS termination and certificate management workflows that reduce the need to terminate encryption on back-end servers. This breadth can reduce the number of separate components required for traffic management compared with simpler reverse proxies.
Flexible deployment options
The product is available as hardware appliances, virtual appliances, and public cloud marketplace images, which supports different infrastructure strategies. This flexibility helps teams standardize on one load balancer across data centers and cloud environments. It also supports high availability configurations to reduce single points of failure in front of critical applications.
Centralized management and reporting
LoadMaster provides a management interface for configuring virtual services, monitoring health, and reviewing traffic statistics. Built-in logging and reporting help operations teams troubleshoot application reachability and performance issues at the edge. Central administration can be useful for organizations managing multiple application front doors and certificates.
Less cloud-native integration
Compared with products designed primarily for container and service-mesh ecosystems, LoadMaster is typically operated as an appliance-style ADC. Kubernetes ingress and service discovery workflows may require additional integration work or different operational patterns than teams expect in cloud-native stacks. Organizations heavily standardized on declarative GitOps tooling may find the configuration model less aligned.
Licensing and scaling complexity
Capacity is commonly tied to licensed throughput/features and appliance sizing, which can make rapid scale-out planning more complex than purely software-based, horizontally scaled approaches. Cost and entitlement management can become a consideration when expanding environments or adding advanced capabilities. This can be a constraint for highly elastic workloads with frequent scaling events.
Operational learning curve
Advanced traffic policies (e.g., content switching, persistence, SSL/TLS settings, and security-related options) require careful configuration to avoid misrouting or weakening security posture. Teams without ADC experience may need time to establish standards for certificates, cipher policies, and health checks. Change control is important because configuration errors can affect all upstream applications.
Plan & Pricing
Virtual LoadMaster (Perpetual MSRP)
| Plan | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| VLM-500 | $2,000 (MSRP) | Up to 500 Mbps throughput; ~500 SSL TPS; entry virtual model. (Note: some promotional pages list "prices starting at $1,700 MSRP"). |
| VLM-3000 | $4,000 (MSRP) | Up to 3 Gbps throughput; ~4,000 SSL TPS. |
| VLM-MAX | $10,000 (MSRP) | Uncapped throughput and SSL TPS (performance dependent on allocated resources). |
Bare-metal / Bare Metal LoadMaster (Subscription & Perpetual options)
| Plan | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| LMB-MAX (1-year subscription) | $7,610 per year | Uncapped throughput & SSL TPS; includes Enterprise Plus support. |
| LMB-MAX (3-year subscription) | $6,083 per year (billed as $18,250 every 3 years) | 20% savings vs 1-year; Enterprise Plus support included. |
Hardware LoadMaster (MSRP examples)
| Model | Price (MSRP) | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| LM-X1 | $2,200 | 1 Gbps throughput; ~1,000 SSL TPS; 4x1GbE ports. |
| LM-X3-NG | $4,620 | 3.4 Gbps throughput; ~1,700 SSL TPS. |
| LM-X15-NG | $12,100 | 15 Gbps throughput; hardware acceleration; redundant PSU/disk on some SKUs. |
| LM-X25-NG | $23,650 | 25 Gbps throughput. |
| LM-X25MT-NG | $26,950 | 8 Gbps variant (MT); higher SSL TPS. |
| LM-X40-NG | $35,200 | 35 Gbps throughput. |
| LM-XHC55-NG | $56,650 | 55 Gbps throughput; high-capacity model. |
| LM-XHC75-NG | $61,050 | 75 Gbps throughput. |
| LM-XHC100-NG | $64,350 | 90 Gbps throughput; top-end hardware SKU. |
Notes:
- Cloud LoadMaster is offered as pay-as-you-go through cloud marketplaces (AWS/Azure); hourly marketplace pricing is handled by the cloud provider and is not listed as a single fixed number on Kemp's pricing hub.
- Kemp’s pricing pages include MSRPs and also state that prices may vary by country and are subject to change; many pages link to "Get a Quote" for custom configurations.
Seller details
Progress Software Corporation
Burlington, Massachusetts, USA
1981
Public
https://www.progress.com/
https://x.com/ProgressSW
https://www.linkedin.com/company/progress-software/
