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Airlock vs F5 Advanced WAF comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Airlock
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
24th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
9.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Airlock is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 7.5%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
F5 Advanced WAF7.5%
Airlock0.7%
Other91.8%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Tiodor Jovovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Business Officer at Sky Express
Provides endless features and can be adapted to every single application that exists in the world
WAF is the most beneficial feature for security posture. Our customers are more than satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The level of detail of the configuration is the most significant aspect. We can adapt it to every single application that exists in the world. The product helps with the compliance processes.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Application security has protected critical banking services while policy learning minimizes false blocks
F5 Advanced WAF performs well overall, but I have noticed some points that could enhance the solution. Initially, policy tuning could be simpler, as while the learning engine is powerful, initial tuning still requires experienced engineers, which can be challenging for new teams due to the complexity of options and parameters. A more guided and simple tuning workflow would help reduce the learning curve. Additionally, tighter native integration with SIEM or SOAR tools would simplify correlation and investigations for security teams, although log exports are available. Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Our customers are more than satisfied with the user experience provided by the product."
"F5 Advanced WAF offers features not available in other products."
"Overall, F5 Advanced WAF is a strong, dependable enterprise solution that works best when seen as a long-term security platform rather than a quick add-on; once properly designed, sized, and tuned, it runs quietly in the background and effectively does its job without constant attention."
"There is no need to worry about updating signatures because WAF will automatically update the signatures for you."
"I like all of the features, but the main one is the attack signatures."
"Web attack signatures are very important for detecting web attacks."
"Identification, ease of use, and ease of modifying it to most of our needs are valuable."
"It is also quite intuitive and user-friendly. They have several webinars that are actually like labs. You can use these webinars to learn about how to use all features of the product."
"The initial setup was was easy to install."
 

Cons

"The tool must be simplified."
"The reporting portion of F5 Advance WAF is not great. They need to work out something better, as it is very basic. You only see the top IPs, I think there is more they can offer."
"While F5 Advanced WAF does limit the number of partners in certain regions to ensure successful business transactions, they could also benefit from expanding their partnerships and making it easier for more people to learn about and become experts in F5 Advanced WAF. By doing so, they could increase the reach and exposure of their solution, similar to how Cisco has become widely recognized in the security industry."
"You have to buy another module with an extra license, to have the authentication feature."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve on its funding for WAF features. There is a need to be more advanced WAF features."
"There is a gap in report management."
"For me, an area for improvement in F5 Advanced WAF is the reporting as it isn't so clear. The vendor needs to work on the reporting capability of the solution. What I'd like to see in the next release of F5 Advanced WAF is threat intelligence to protect your web application, particularly having that capability out-of-the-box, and not needing to pay extra for it, similar to what's offered in FortiWeb, for example, any request that originates from a malicious IP will be blocked automatically by FortiWeb. F5 Advanced WAF should have the intelligence for blocking malicious IPs, or automatically blocking threats included in the license, instead of making it an add-on feature that users have to pay for apart from the standard licensing fees."
"The solution should include RASP for another level of protection at the code itself."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve resource usage, it is CPU intensive. Additionally, adding automated remediation would be a benefit. For example, an easy button alerts us of the events that are occurring, and what we want to do at the time. An automated approach where somebody could be alerted very quickly. Instead of going and reconfiguring everything, an automated approach is what I'm looking at."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is cheap."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."
"There are various plans available for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF as a Service, including a trial version."
"There is an annual subscription for this solution."
"The pricing is too high."
"I think the price is very high."
"The pricing of F5 Advanced WAF is more expensive than other solutions like Radware and CD18, it is quite high."
"The solution is very expensive so should only be used in the right environment."
"I would rate the pricing as seven out of ten"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
11%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Airlock?
Our customers are more than satisfied with the user experience provided by the product.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Airlock?
The tool is cheap. We are protecting very sensitive portals. We didn't have a single incident for the last 15 years.
What needs improvement with Airlock?
The tool must be simplified. However, if it is simplified, it will lose its competitive edge. The solution requires advanced administrators. However, it has endless features. It would be good if it...
What do you like most about F5 Advanced WAF?
It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the rules per the requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?
Regarding the price, I think the cost is a bit higher compared to others. Earlier we were using Radware, and compared to Radware, it is very high. However, it is providing more features than Radwar...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
In terms of additional features I would like to see from them in the future, I think the GTM is a bit complicated to configure, which I observed. Otherwise, LTM and WAF are straightforward. I faced...
 

Also Known As

Airlock Suite
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Raiffeisen, SGKB, Generali, Visana
MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, F5, Imperva and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.