Not necessarily. My driver can function as an EtherNet/IP I/O adapter or scanner (class 1), and as a virtual PLC (class 3 target), optionally as a I/O scanner (class 1) or with producer-consumer tags (also class 1). The fixed buffer layouts of class 1 traffic are much lighter loads on the PLC.
My alternate client driver also perform better than the IA native Logix driver for some specific cases. You should look at this topic and its various related links: