Kemp

What Kemp does

Kemp Technologies is an application delivery controller (ADC) vendor founded in 2000 and headquartered in New York, with engineering operations in Germany and a Japanese sales presence inherited through parent Progress Software. Its flagship product, LoadMaster, performs Layer 4-7 load balancing, traffic management, and security functions for web applications, with deployment options spanning hardware appliances, virtual appliances, and cloud-native listings on AWS, Azure, Azure Government, GCP, Open Telekom Cloud, and Orange Flexible Engine. The platform is FIPS 140-2, ICD 503, and Common Criteria certified, qualifying it for US federal and EU public-sector procurement, and is sold through 50+ authorized resellers on the NASA SEWP contract vehicle alongside enterprise direct sales.

Kemp monetizes through a mix of perpetual software licenses, subscription, metered licensing for variable demand, hardware appliances, cloud marketplace SKUs, and professional services/support. Adjacent capabilities in network performance monitoring and real-time telemetry were added through the 2020 acquisitions of Lithops Technologies and Flowmon Networks. The customer base includes 100,000+ deployments globally with named logos such as NASA, US Air Force, ASOS, Amazon, Audi, Burger King, UPS, NFL Films, Pemex, and GSP, spanning consumer, industrial, logistics, and government segments. Following its acquisition by Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), Kemp operates as a product line within a larger portfolio with global GTM scale.

Name

Kemp

Legal name

Progress Software Corporation

Website

https://kemptechnologies.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2000

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Kemp Technologies is an application delivery controller vendor whose LoadMaster platform provides Layer 4-7 load balancing and security for web workloads across enterprise, federal, and cloud marketplace customers, now operating within Progress Software.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Application Delivery Controller (Load Balancing Software)

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)

akta.pro primary industry

Cloud‑Native & SaaS ADC / Load Balancing (Managed L4/L7) (HDAFAHAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Load Balancing & Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (HDABAFAH), Load Balancing & Application Delivery (ADC, Global Load Balancing) (HDABAGAF), Resilient DNS, Traffic Management & Global Load Balancing (HDABAIAI)

Keywords

• Application delivery controller
• Load balancing software
• Web application firewall
• Global server load balancing
• Kubernetes ingress controller

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Software Licenses (Perpetual): One-time perpetual license purchase for LoadMaster software with optional upgrade to higher performance tiers. Perpetual licenses can be applied to virtual, cloud, or hardware deployments.
2. Subscription Licenses: Annual or multi-year subscription-based licensing with four tiers (Individual/Subscription Only, Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus) providing different feature sets and support levels.
3. Metered/Pooled Licensing: Pay-per-throughput licensing model where customers pay for actual traffic processed per month regardless of instance count, ideal for variable demand and seasonal businesses.
4. Hardware Appliances: Sale of physical LoadMaster hardware appliances with throughput ranging from 1 Gbps to 90 Gbps capacity, available with dual power supplies and RAID storage.
5. Cloud Marketplace (Hourly/Pay-as-you-go): Hourly consumption-based pricing through AWS and Azure marketplaces for Virtual LoadMaster deployments, allowing pay-per-use without upfront commitment.
6. Professional Services: Technical services including implementation, deployment design, migration assistance (F5 iRules migration), and ongoing technical support.
7. Support Subscriptions: Support contracts providing firmware updates, technical support (ranging from 10x5 Standard to 24x7x365 Premium), and expert diagnostics across subscription tiers.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels7 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Kemp (Progress Kemp LoadMaster) sells a Layer 4-7 Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and load balancer available as virtual appliances, physical hardware appliances, and cloud-native instances across AWS, Azure, Open Telekom Cloud, and Orange Flexible Engine. The LoadMaster platform provides load balancing, SSL/TLS offload, Web Application Firewall, Global Server Load Balancing, Kubernetes Ingress, Zero Trust Access, and SSO/identity integration, with centralized management via LoadMaster 360 and licensing via perpetual, subscription, metered, or pay-as-you-go models.

Product overview

Kemp (now part of Progress) offers the LoadMaster unified application delivery and load balancing platform available as hardware appliances, virtual machines, and cloud-native instances. The core LoadMaster product provides Layer 4-7 load balancing, SSL/TLS acceleration, and security features across all deployment forms. LoadMaster 360 is the managed platform add-on providing centralized analytics, telemetry, certificate lifecycle management, and fleet management. The portfolio includes specialized solutions for Kubernetes (Ingress Controller), multi-tenant environments, web application security (WAF), global traffic management (GSLB), and zero trust access (ZTAG). The product supports Dell ObjectScale through the Progress Connection Manager for ObjectScale. Key differentiators include flexible licensing models (perpetual, subscription, metered/pay-as-you-go), FIPS 140-2 certified encryption, and support for 100,000+ deployments worldwide.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• LoadMaster: Industry-leading load balancer and application delivery controller (ADC) product line offering hardware, virtual, and cloud deployment options.
• LoadMaster 360
• LoadMaster Edge Security Pack (ESP)

Products and services

• LoadMaster (Core Platform) Industry-leading load balancer and application delivery controller (ADC) providing Layer 4-7 load balancing, SSL/TLS offload, WAF, and global server load balancing for hybrid, cloud, and on-premise environments.
• Virtual Load Balancer (Virtual LoadMaster) Virtual LoadMaster offering for virtualized environments providing 1 Gbps to uncapped throughput with support for VMware, Hyper-V, Xen, and KVM hypervisors, available via 30-day free trial and freemium tier.
• Hardware Load Balancer (Hardware LoadMaster) Physical appliance delivering high-performance application experience with throughput from 1 Gbps to 90 Gbps and up to 45,000 SSL TPS, dual power supplies, and RAID storage for enhanced resilience.
• Cloud Load Balancer Scalable and reliable cloud-native load balancing solutions available for AWS, Azure, AWS GovCloud, Microsoft Azure Government, Open Telekom Cloud, and Orange Flexible Engine with hourly consumption and BYOL options.
• LoadMaster 360

Quantifiable outcome

• 167 million visits handled during peak Black Friday traffic with 33 orders per second
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration10 records

AI capability1 record

Feature12 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• MicrosoftcoreTechnology or IntegrationTechnology alliance partner with LoadMaster available in Azure Marketplace. Integration includes Azure Government support, Azure AD integration for Secure Hybrid Access (SHA), and deployment templates for Azure environments.
• Dell TechnologiescoreTechnology or IntegrationDell UDS Federal Tier 1 Reseller status for government deployments. Dell ObjectScale storage optimization with Progress Connection Manager for ObjectScale, certified for Dell EMC ECS deployments.
• CiscocoreTechnology or IntegrationGlobal technology alliance partner with optimized high-performance load balancer integrations for Cisco environments.
• VMwarecoreTechnology or IntegrationTechnology alliance with LoadMaster available as virtual appliance for VMware vSphere, ESXi, and vCloud Air environments.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• F5: F5 is the dominant commercial ADC/load-balancing vendor with BIG-IP hardware, virtual, and NGINX offerings. Kemp explicitly benchmarks against F5 on price-performance and offers F5 iRules migration tooling, making it the head-on competitor.
• Citrix NetScaler (now Citrix ADC): Citrix ADC (NetScaler) is a long-standing ADC competitor covering hardware, virtual, and cloud deployment forms with similar L4-L7 capabilities. Kemp frequently cites Citrix as one of the two primary alternatives (alongside F5) it competes against.
• A10 Networks: A10 Networks provides Thunder ADC appliances and virtual solutions with similar Layer 4-7 load balancing, SSL offload, and security features. Targets overlapping enterprise and service provider segments with comparable form factors.
• Radware: Radware offers Alteon ADC alongside its application security portfolio, focusing on enterprise ADC plus WAF/DDoS. Competes directly with Kemp on hybrid cloud load balancing and secure application delivery.
• Barracuda Networks: Barracuda's Load Balancer ADC product is explicitly mentioned as a Kemp competitor (the 2015 Network Computing Award cited Kemp beating Barracuda). Targets similar mid-market and enterprise use cases with comparable pricing.
• HAProxy Technologies: HAProxy is a leading open-source and commercial load balancer/ADC for cloud-native and Kubernetes environments. Directly competes with Virtual LoadMaster and Kemp's Kubernetes Ingress Controller in modern application delivery.
• NGINX (F5): NGINX Plus, now part of F5, is a widely deployed web server, reverse proxy, and load balancer. Direct competitor in cloud-native and containerized load balancing, including Kubernetes ingress and ADC replacement scenarios.

Emerging players

• VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi Networks): VMware's NSX ALB (originally Avi Networks) offers elastic, software-defined ADC for multi-cloud and Kubernetes, emphasizing app-centric policies comparable to Kemp's LoadMaster 360 vision. Overlaps with Kemp on east-west and Kubernetes workloads.

Broad incumbents

• Amazon Web Services (Elastic Load Balancing / Cloud Map): AWS offers ALB, NLB, and GWLB as native, deeply integrated load balancing options within the AWS ecosystem. Kemp is positioned as the per-application software ADC that complements these by adding enterprise features (advanced WAF, GSLB, persistent routing) on top of AWS infrastructure.
• Microsoft Azure Application Gateway / Front Door: Azure's Application Gateway and Front Door provide native Layer 7 load balancing, WAF, and global routing within Microsoft Azure. Kemp is a strategic partner with Azure Marketplace/GovCloud listings, competing head-to-head on Azure-native deployments.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/KempTech
• Facebookfacebook.com/Kemp-Technologies-251784361634294
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/kemp-technologies

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds5 records

Investors4 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A2 records

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Kemp