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Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 13, 2026

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

Check Point WAF (formerly C...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (5th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (8th), DevSecOps (2nd)
F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
16th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
CDN (6th), API Security (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) is 2.0%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 2.0%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF)2.0%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services2.0%
Other96.0%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Krishnakumar Mahadevan - PeerSpot reviewer
CISO at Spink Solutions Private Limited
Cloud security has strengthened risk posture and improved advanced threat visibility
There are some API gateway and API securities I mentioned. If these are incorporated with AI-related features, particularly those seven key vulnerabilities I mentioned—token theft and tool poisoning—that would be beneficial. AI-related features are not included yet in Check Point CloudGuard WAF. However, they are present in FortiGate. That is the advantage of FortiGate now. FortiGate is stopping all AI-related vulnerabilities now. FortiGate has this capability. It is unfortunate that even Palo Alto also lacks one or two of these features. Check Point Quantum is very good, without a doubt. However, their capabilities are not in comparison with Palo Alto. There are some features, but there are some gaps in comparison with Palo Alto.
Mohan Janarthanan - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Centralized security has protected APIs and optimized multi‑cloud traffic management
F5 Distributed Cloud Services has been used for two years for DDoS protection, and there is a particular feature called API protection. Within API protection, there is malicious user mitigation, which is one particular technology that has been implemented. This is a kind of advanced bot attack prevention. Malicious user mitigation is an AI/ML-based technology that was introduced by the F5 team, and this particular MUG protects rate limiting. If some users are having anomaly detection or someone is trying to do a bot attack, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge for that particular user alone and not for all users. For example, if someone is trying to act as a rogue, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge in the backend system on that particular system, so they cannot try again and again at the same time. It is for a concurrent session, and it will give the CAPTCHA challenge. This MUG, malicious user mitigation, prevents bot attacks. F5 Distributed Cloud Services includes the real-time intelligence feature, which helps with threat response strategies from a threat intelligence perspective. For example, if there are geo-restrictions or geo-based restrictions, sometimes people may come in through proxy-based servers, and it will prevent that. The load balancing feature optimizes application performance. Observability is the basic piece where F5 got introduced. This observability piece provides end-to-end visibility on the application performance. It gives complete end-to-end visibility across network latency and application performance issues. Sometimes when it is getting more than 200 pages, it throws errors such as 300, 400, or whatever has been configured, including 500 errors. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has helped improve traffic management efficiency. Most applications are hosted in the Check Point and F5 firewall, F5 web application firewall, where applications and traffic management can be accessed in a single dashboard. Automated threat detection is a basic feature of F5 Distributed Cloud Services meant for that purpose. There are two scenarios with automated threat detection, which is provided by F5. It is a completely machine learning solution that came from the bot defense, and it automatically protects against sophisticated attacks.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Machine learning is a valuable tool for this assessment because it allows for a two-phase approach: secure and non-secure."
"Check Point CloudGuard WAF has improved our organization by providing protection against web application attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and bot threats."
"In short, Check Point CloudGuard WAF is a powerful tool."
"We have a strong sense of security assurance when utilizing CloudGuard, as it consistently delivers outstanding protection capabilities."
"One of the best features of CloudGuard WAF is its user-friendly GUI dashboard."
"It offers good functionality of the application that is currently running."
"Check Point CloudGuard WAF has really reduced the headache of IT engineers and has helped me in security through machine learning."
"Knowing what measures we must take allows us to reduce costs associated with security in the cloud by providing early identification of a risk or a possible security breach."
"Elastic environments are the most valuable features because I can pull these apps and migrate the on-premises environment to the Distributed Cloud environment, and this capability is very strong and the security regarding the apps is really very powerful."
"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."
"Technical support from F5 is good compared to Cisco and HP."
"I appreciate the UI of F5 Distributed Cloud Services and the backend cost, alongside the actual value proposition that they provide with the load balancer, which is excellent."
 

Cons

"In my opinion, there is some room for improvement regarding pricing, which we require, and much of it relates to the license base and support."
"Check Point CloudGuard WAF is a strong solution, but there are a few areas where it could be improved, particularly the user interface for managing custom rules and exceptions, which could be more intuitive and streamlined to reduce the learning curve for new users, especially when deploying for the first time."
"The UI interface needs improvement because there are a number of bugs. Integration with the SIEM platform is currently one of the key challenges that need to be addressed."
"Check Point CloudGuard Application Security needs to improve updates on integrations. It also needs to incorporate real-time monitoring features."
"It didn't lower the TCO, it actually raised it, in my opinion."
"The learning curve was a challenge due to initially incorrect configurations. It took approximately a month and a half to understand how the solution works because of inadequate documentation."
"At present, we require a lot of customization and additional features to make it usable in our system."
"It doesn't detect user activity like some of its competitors. It's not a vulnerability, but it's a legitimate activity that it doesn't detect. It only detects vulnerabilities or misconfigurations."
"One area where F5 Distributed Cloud Services can be improved is in API security, which can be enhanced."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."
"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."
"The worst experience is that with so many solutions available, it is very complicated to know all of the solution modules, and the offers from F5 Distributed Cloud Services are vast."
"Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed."
"For small players, it is completely not worth it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Check Point CloudGuard WAF is expensive compared to Azure WAF."
"The pricing is competitive compared to other solutions on the market. So, the licensing cost is average."
"If the pricing for the Infinity platform covers everything, it would be more straightforward. I had a hard time selling it to our CEO as a former CFO because of the differentials. There are different deltas year to year over a five-year period. It is very difficult to explain. It would be easier to digest for our executives if there was a flatter scale"
"Check Point CloudGuard Application Security's pricing is not friendly."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly and competitive."
"The sales team or account managers from Check Point are top-notch. As I am using other products as well, my pricing was competitive compared to others."
"As Infiniti customers, the pricing is manageable, as we have allowances dedicated to each Check Point product. The price is not as high compared to other options I have dealt with in the past."
"Considering all the benefits we've observed, we find the price to be satisfactory."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business56
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise36
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudGuard for Application Security?
It is a little bit expensive, but the pricing model is acceptable, though a reduction would make it more competitive with leaders such as Palo Alto.
What needs improvement with CloudGuard for Application Security?
The false positive rate is a concern, but I could recommend improvements where false positives have to be minimized better. This all depends on how the rules are customized and configured, and it c...
What is your primary use case for CloudGuard for Application Security?
The main purpose is to have network security through machine learning, which can offer threat detection and intelligence for my endpoints, and I am looking for application security. I am looking fo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
F5 Distributed Cloud Services is affordable. I think it is very affordable. I do not think it is expensive.
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
One area where F5 Distributed Cloud Services can be improved is in API security, which can be enhanced.Specifically, the confidence level on API security that F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
My main use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services is WAF protection.I am using F5 Distributed Cloud Services primarily for securing my infrastructure with layer 7 protection, which F5 provides. Th...
 

Also Known As

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard AppSec, Check Point CloudGuard Code Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Orange España, Paschoalotto
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
911,493 professionals have used our research since 2012.