F5 Silverline Managed Services and Azure Web Application Firewall compete in the web application security market. Based on data comparisons, Azure Web Application Firewall may have an edge due to its comprehensive feature set.
Features: F5 Silverline Managed Services provides robust DDoS protection, extensive reporting, and customizable security measures. Azure Web Application Firewall offers integrated threat intelligence, flexibility in traffic management, and compatibility with Azure services.
Room for Improvement: F5 Silverline could enhance its integration capabilities and flexibility in traffic management. It might also improve user interface intuitiveness and provide more seamless self-service setup options. Azure Web Application Firewall could benefit from reducing its upfront costs, enhancing support for external non-Azure environments, and simplifying configurations for non-experienced users.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: F5 Silverline Managed Services is known for its fully managed service model, which simplifies deployment and ensures continuous support. Azure Web Application Firewall integrates seamlessly with the Azure ecosystem, although its self-service setup can be challenging without experienced personnel. Silverline's customer service is often praised for its responsiveness.
Pricing and ROI: F5 Silverline Managed Services tends to present lower initial setup costs and delivers high ROI through its managed service offerings. Azure Web Application Firewall, while potentially more expensive upfront, provides long-term value with extensive integration capabilities and powerful features that enhance ROI over time. The primary pricing distinction is Silverline's affordability and Azure's investment in extensive features.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.
Recently, they have been under serious attack with major exploits, such as Log4j, affecting Fortinet and Palo Alto, and even Cisco and VMware.
AI-based recommendations save on time and money.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.
We'd like a dedicated account manager.
They are good at troubleshooting and configuring things.
I am very satisfied with the response from Microsoft dedicated architects if it happens that I have to call for their support.
Their support team is responsive, and they deliver timely updates, addressing any glitches promptly.
They resolve the issues by joining me to fix them.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten because I had no issues with it.
I rate the scalability a ten out of ten.
It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.
Some Azure applications, like the web application firewall, require a certain level of SKU for hosting setup.
F5 Silverline Managed Services is scalable enough without observed limitations.
The solution is fully scalable, and I would give it a rating of ten on a scale of one to ten for scalability.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.
Very rarely do I see any latency issues.
They offer regular updates, and overall, I would rate the stability of the solution as nine out of ten.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
In future releases, one thing that would be great is if Cloudflare could provide basic WAF rules and security recommendations based on website scanning.
Upgrading the platform regularly is necessary for security, however, frequent updates every six months or year from Azure can be a maintenance overhead.
Introducing preemptive support prompts would reduce the manual effort required for creating policies or blocking specific IPs.
Improvements could include the creation of highly optimized profiles.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
I find it to be cheap.
It's cost-effective, but I think they should have a custom pricing model for enterprise customers based on the features you use.
It is even a lower cost compared to AWS and GCP.
Sometimes, when opting for a higher SKU, it's not the WAF itself that's costly but the additional requirements.
On a scale where ten is very expensive, I would rate the pricing as three.
The solution is expensive
Our scenario consisted of two web servers in different allocations to control access demands, and the load balancer did the job as expected, bringing security and stability to access points.
For me, the valuable feature is DDoS protection.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
With Microsoft, everything is within a single suite, making it easier to configure and plan.
It is almost impossible to access these assets from outside, requiring a very skilled attacker to obtain asset tokens of a customer using Azure.
It allows for centralized management of certificates, protecting applications from top ten attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
The monitoring tab displays GET and POST requests in a readable format, making it accessible even to non-tech-savvy individuals.
Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.
Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.
Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.
Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.
Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.
Cloudflare benefits
Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:
- Faster load times
- Robust DNS security
- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)
- Free universal SSL
- Image enhancement
- Automatic browser caching
- Next-generation cloud load balancer
- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
- Rate limiting
- Minification
- Zero-trust capabilities
- Cost-effective
- Reduced carbon footprint
Reviews from real users
“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange
“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet
“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company
Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides centralized protection of your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities. Web applications are increasingly targeted by malicious attacks that exploit commonly known vulnerabilities. SQL injection and cross-site scripting are among the most common attacks.
To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.
F5's Silverline Managed Services is a SaaS solution delivering DDoS protection, managed Web Application Firewall (WAF) services, and managed Shape Security Fraud and Anti-bot solutions.
Silverline services include 24x7 access to F5's Security Operations Center (SOC). F5's expert security professionals use F5 products with state-of-the-art security tools to ensure the best protection possible. As an add-on to Silverline DDoS or WAF services, Silverline Threat Intelligence integrates dynamic lists of threatening IP addresses to give context for policy decisions.
We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.