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Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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 ...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
25th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.8%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is 1.2%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall5.8%
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)1.2%
Other93.0%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

AU
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
Effectively protects clients from automated threats and ensures global security
I cannot say much about areas of improvement for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall because I haven't gone through deep understanding of it, as I am still learning. However, they need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long. If I took 48 hours to answer a request at my company, it would be a tough time to see or address the issue, and it would be frustrating.
reviewer2161107 - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Room for improvement with user interface while competitive pricing impresses
It is managed through Infrastructure as Code, so all configurations can be managed in the code itself, which is beneficial. Because it uses rules, it is easy to set up, and we have many different sites where the configurations are straightforward. Though the UI is not very interactive, which is a downside, we can manage many things. The UI is not very intuitive and could be better. However, we manage all the configurations through code, which is easy to maintain. It has extensive anomaly detection capabilities, so the traffic is classified into several categories where thresholds can be defined and customized based on false positives and false negatives. This is advantageous because you do not need to tweak it very often. Once you set it up, an audit once a quarter would suffice. Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."
"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."
"Cloudflare has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple clients; I can easily go in and access their accounts, make changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."
"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."
"It protects web applications efficiently."
"The product has a valuable security control functionality."
"The Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's most valuable feature is its ease of configuration."
"Does a good job preventing web application attacks."
"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily."
"Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate."
"Fastly (Signal Sciences) integrates and tags the intermittent traffic based on patterns. It generates signals and provides them in a dashboard where we can view them and decide whether to allow or deny traffic. It's a more advanced and easy-to-navigate dashboard."
"When configuring a web application firewall using Signal Sciences, we configure a rule whereby no one except a few people can access the application."
 

Cons

"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."
"Its stability could be better."
"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."
"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."
"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."
"The reporting could be more granular."
"The areas that could be improved in Signal Sciences include the effectiveness of rules, as many didn't function optimally and required custom rule-writing to address bypasses for WAF."
"Even if we create some custom rules, Signal Sciences cannot capture some of the malicious traffic."
"The UI is not very intuitive and could be better."
"Fastly don't support caching for China users. That's the only feature lacking compared to Akamai."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."
"It is not too pricey."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"The product has an affordable cost."
"Signal Sciences is pretty cheap compared to other solutions."
"The pricing is 50% less than Akamai."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
The product has a valuable security control functionality.
What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't really use the rule-based logic feature or utilize the WAF's ability to scale as a cloud-based service. I don't have specific areas that could be improved with Cloudflare Web Application Fi...
What do you like most about Signal Sciences?
The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Signal Sciences?
The pricing is very competitive compared to other providers. The pricing is definitely a factor in our decision-making process.
What needs improvement with Signal Sciences?
We do use it, but the UI can be improved as we mostly work through the CI/CD. It provides support, but sometimes it is hard to navigate unless you are very familiar with it.
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF, Signal Sciences RASP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Chef, Adobe, Datadog, Etsy, GrubHub, Vimeo, SendGrid, Under Armour, Duo, AppNexus
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.