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

Check Point Software Technologies and F5 are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Check Point Software Technologies is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.7, while F5 is ranked #14 with an average rating of 9.0. Check Point Software Technologies holds a 2.4% mindshare in WAF, compared to F5’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Check Point Software Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of F5 users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 16, 2026

Check Point WAF and F5 Distributed Cloud Services are both designed for web application security. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has an edge due to its robust features, suggesting it is worth the investment despite Check Point WAF's favorable pricing.

Features: Check Point WAF offers comprehensive threat prevention, customizable rules, and AI-based threat detection. F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides global server load balancing, real-time intelligence for threat mitigation, and advanced capabilities for DDoS protection.

Room for Improvement: Check Point WAF could benefit from enhanced API security, more sophisticated AI algorithms, and an improved user interface for beginners. F5 Distributed Cloud Services could improve its deployment simplicity, reduce setup complexity, and expand support for smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Check Point WAF is known for straightforward deployment and strong customer service. F5 Distributed Cloud Services offers a technically sophisticated deployment process that may require additional setup time and technical expertise.

Pricing and ROI: Check Point WAF provides cost-efficient setup with quicker ROI due to its affordability. F5 Distributed Cloud Services, although potentially higher in initial cost, offers substantial ROI for larger enterprises with its extensive features and long-term benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

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

April 2026

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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

Cloudflare Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.5%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) is 2.4%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 1.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF)	2.4%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	4.5%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services	1.9%
Other	91.2%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

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Mohan Janarthanan

Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions

Integrated web protection has reduced breaches and now prevents attacks across critical apps

I have been using it for six months, and the biggest advantages for me are that Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) offers more than other F5 firewalls, which have only application protection called ASM (Application Security Monitoring). In contrast, Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) provides protection on IPS along with application protection. Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) itself provides an IPS function where I can protect against my Layer 7 traffic, which is not available in other vendors. The traditional WAF does not have the capacity of IPS functions. The intrusion prevention capability, I can only see in Layer 3 functions and stateful functions, which is the traditional firewall capability. Other vendors are keeping this in their Web Application Firewall, but Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) has integrated it differently. False positives are significantly less here compared to traditional Web Application Firewalls because they are more focused on the AI front. Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) integrates an AI platform within the Web Application itself using API protection with AI and what they call GenAI protection. They excel at creating the profile itself, which is the basic functionality of WAF. Normally, I deploy in preventive mode, which takes some time for learning, but I prefer to operate in preventing mode only.

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Mohan Janarthanan

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is a good product; it's reliable and scales well."

"It is configurable via API."

"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."

"The product has a valuable security control functionality."

"It protects web applications efficiently."

"This solution does a good job of preventing web application attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting attacks."

"The impact of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's integration with existing web technologies on our site's performance and security measures is quite great, actually."

"The Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's most valuable feature is its ease of configuration."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"It offers good functionality of the application that is currently running."

"Check Point CloudGuard WAF has been especially helpful here, automatically learning and adjusting protection without requiring constant manual tuning."

"The automated policy creation and threat intelligence have helped my team by reducing manual configuration and saving time, and the threat intelligence updates ensure immediate protection against new threats, simplifying daily operations and improving response speed."

"I find the configuration and real-time monitoring features valuable."

"The solution preemptively blocks zero-day attacks and detects hidden anomalies effectively."

"The solution's ability to handle multiple websites and applications without needing more expensive hardware is a key advantage."

"The communication between the on-premises device and the cloud for analysis and feedback is a valuable feature."

"I have thousands of exposed websites and APIs. Being able to control what is happening and try to prevent any attack is the best feature."

More Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) pros

"Technical support from F5 is good compared to Cisco and HP."

"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."

"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."

"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."

"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."

"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."

Cons

"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."

"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well."

"The reporting could be more granular."

"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."

"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."

"Its stability could be better."

"The reporting could be improved if it were more granular."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall 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."

"I have faced issues with the tool's blocking aspects. It is hard to open or block web services due to the multitude of cloud centers. I have to do the process manually at times. We have a bug which is hard to solve."

"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."

"I am pretty happy with the current version. I have not yet used it to its full potential, but there could be improvements as I explore it further."

"CloudGuard for Application Security, like the other Check Point applications, has been presenting major latency problems when entering their administrative portal."

"We would like to have a solution of this type for the administration of applications from mobile devices."

"The negative aspect is that Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) uses Check Point Harmony in its management console, which sometimes creates latency when connecting to or opening the platform."

"You need to know exactly the system. You cannot have someone running the system if they don't have the knowledge to do so."

More Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) cons

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."

"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."

"For small players, it is completely not worth it."

"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."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"The solution is expensive."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

"It is not too pricey."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"I work for an Indian banking client. In India, companies are on a budget. The company liked Check Point very much, but it was a little bit costly compared to FortiWeb. However, it had more features compared to FortiWeb."

"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"

"The base solution costs approximately 30,000 euros, with an additional 2,000 euros per year for licenses and support."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly and competitive."

"Check Point CloudGuard Application Security's pricing is comparable to other products in the market."

"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."

"I find the pricing to be reasonable."

More Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

21%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	37
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...

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What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudGuard for Application Security?

Pricing is a little bit high compared to other OEMs, and the setup cost was handled by a partner.

See all answers

What needs improvement with CloudGuard for Application Security?

Check Point CloudGuard WAF can be improved in several ways. We have faced slowness issues in our network after onboar...

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What is your primary use case for CloudGuard for Application Security?

I use Check Point CloudGuard WAF for web application and API protection. I can provide a scenario where I used Check ...

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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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

I need to think about this for the future. F5 Distributed Cloud Services needs to create links with Amazon and Google...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

I collect reviews for F5 Distributed Cloud Services and F5 Silverline Managed Services. I work with F5 Distributed Cl...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

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Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF)

Compared 11% of the time

AWS WAF vs Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF)

Compared 10% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF)

Compared 9% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF)

Compared 8% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF)

Compared 6% of the time

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Azure Front Door vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 12% of the time

Akamai vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 9% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 8% of the time

Cloudflare vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 8% of the time

F5 Silverline Managed Services vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 7% of the time

More F5 Distributed Cloud Services Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

May 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF)

May 2026

Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) report

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Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services

May 2026

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard AppSec

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall integrates DDoS protection, load balancing, and firewall capabilities. Its ease of use, configurability, and robust security measures make it a versatile choice for protecting web applications.

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides a comprehensive defense against threats with advanced reporting and robust security measures. It includes DNS integration, rate limiting, and extensive rule sets, all within a SaaS model that allows API configurability. Users value its caching, scalability, and pricing, although enhancements are needed in rate-limiting and third-party integration. Improvements in customer support, especially in India, real-time controls, and user documentation are also desired. Users seek a more intuitive dashboard, better log management, and improved alert systems, along with multitenancy capabilities and enhanced reporting.

What are the key features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

DDoS Protection: Shields applications from denial-of-service attacks
Load Balancing: Ensures efficient traffic distribution
DNS Integration: Enhances domain name system security
Rate Limiting: Controls traffic flow and reduces abuse
Extensive Rule Sets: Offers customizable security rules

What benefits and ROI can users find in reviews?

Scalability: Easily adapts to growing business needs
Pricing: Offers reasonable pricing structure
Caching: Improves application performance and speed
Configurable Security: Provides customizable defense settings
Efficient Management: Simplifies security and application control

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall finds application in industries like banking and retail by acting as a comprehensive security gateway, managing authentication and authorization while protecting web applications from malicious Layer 7 traffic. It also implements load balancing, CDN, and zero-trust policies, supported by advanced reporting, analytics tools, and threat scoring to meet specific industry needs.

Cloudflare

Check Point WAF uses AI-driven threat prevention with seamless API integration, offering advanced DDoS protection. It auto-learns attack patterns, updates protection, and minimizes false positives. Its interface simplifies policy management for secure web applications across cloud environments.

Check Point WAF combines AI-driven threat detection with streamlined policy management to provide effective security for web applications and APIs. It offers zero-day protection, threat intelligence, and advanced DDoS protection. Users enjoy robust logging and compliance management across multi-cloud environments. Integration is smooth, with reduced reliance on signatures, facilitating multi-layer security. Despite its strengths, users note areas for improvement, such as latency and pricing, and call for enhancements in API security, real-time monitoring, and reporting. Challenges include integration complexity and limited technical support accessibility. Effective application security across dynamic environments is a key offering.

What are Check Point WAF's key features?

AI-Driven Threat Prevention: Utilizes AI to identify and block threats, minimizing false positives.
Seamless API Integration: Ensures integration into existing infrastructures without delays.
Advanced DDoS Protection: Safeguards against large-scale attacks to maintain service availability.
Auto-Learning Capability: Continuously adapts to new threat patterns for improved security.
User-Friendly Management: Simplifies policy and compliance management tasks.

What benefits can users expect from Check Point WAF?

Extensive Logging: Enables comprehensive analysis and auditing through detailed records.
Reduced Total Cost of Ownership: Provides cost-effective security measures in cloud environments.
Zero-Day Protection: Offers proactive defense against unidentified vulnerabilities.
Streamlined Deployment: Reduces deployment times with easy integration processes.
Robust Multi-Layer Security: Reinforces application security without heavy reliance on signatures.

Check Point WAF finds particular relevance in industries requiring robust cybersecurity measures such as finance, healthcare, and e-commerce. These sectors benefit from its advanced threat detection and adaptive security policy management, crucial for securing sensitive data across multi-cloud infrastructures. By managing API usage efficiently, it helps maintain regulatory compliance while ensuring optimal operation. Enhanced traffic logging and malware threat management add to its appeal for organizations focusing on securing transactions and sensitive information.

Check Point Software Technologies

F5 Distributed Cloud Services excel in enhancing security, optimizing web application delivery, and ensuring robust network performance. Users value its integrated Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, global server load balancing, and intuitive management interface. It boosts organizational efficiency, reduces operational costs, and scales seamlessly, making it essential for businesses operating in distributed environments.

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Orange España, Paschoalotto

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

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

April 2026

Free Report: Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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