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F5 Advanced WAF vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services comparison

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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

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
F5 Advanced WAF
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (1st)
F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
CDN (10th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (20th), API Security (8th)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Ahmed Moamen - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects applications with versatile authentication features
F5 offers a versatile solution that can be integrated with APM in cases where integration with an external IDB is needed. It is useful for authentication backup if the on-prem directory service is unavailable. Additionally, its WAF functionality is valuable for protecting applications from attacks. It is a versatile and strong solution that's easy to understand and deploy.
FM
Protects web applications with comprehensive security features
All features are valuable. In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation. This is a comprehensive package for web application security. The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."
"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"This solution inspects your traffic and based on that, automatically create distinct qualities for you, so you can add this to the policy already created. That's what I like most."
"The web application firewall itself is most valuable. It provides positive security and negative security. In negative security, it blocks a task such as cross-site scripting, code injection, etc. In positive security, it lets you specify and enforce things, such as the parameters allowed in username and password fields and the number of characters allowed in a field."
"The solution isn't too expensive. The license allows you to license what you need and leave out what you don't need."
"The most valuable feature is artificial intelligence and to get extra internal access."
"F5 technical support is excellent. They are experts who always provide the right solution, and they understand the problem. Their response and resolution times are good."
"The whole mechanism of F5 Advanced WAF is effective."
"iRules are quite appealing when it comes to F5."
"F5 Advanced WAF helps our engineers to learn the complete configuration, including fundamental and advanced policies."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."
"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."
"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."
"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."
"I would like to see improved features in the F5 Advanced WAF solution, especially with a focus on enabling Kubernetes fully."
"Most customers encounter stability issues with the product's Big-IP logs."
"F5 Advanced WAF sells perpetual licenses as perpetual assets during sales without informing me that support ends after a few years."
"I would not expect traffic details to pass through the web application firewall across the length of the whole application. I think that there is a web application where it can let the application function without traffic going in into the WAF."
"The reporting could be clearer and embedded to include our movement data."
"The pricing could be more flexible."
"This solution can be made more user-friendly."
"The contextual-based component needs a lot of help to catch up with the next-gen products."
"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 main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't have any issues with the price."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"We are using the free version."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."
"Licensing fees for this solution are paid on a yearly basis."
"Pricing for this solution is higher than average."
"There are different licenses available to use F5 Advanced WAF, such as BT, ASM, and LPM."
"The pricing for F5 Advanced WAF is comparable to a Rolls-Royce. Its price is a bit high when you compare it with other vendors. F5 Advanced WAF is a bit expensive. The customer was on a three-year plan and it was around $560,000."
"As far as the pricing of F5 Advanced WAF I would rate it a four out of five depending on what features I am looking for. Imperva is more expensive."
"The pricing of F5 Advanced WAF is more expensive than other solutions like Radware and CD18, it is quite high."
"The price of F5 Advanced WAF could improve it is expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Insurance Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
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 r...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
I do not have anything in mind right now that needs improvement. Generally, it works well. If we need any specific fe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four...
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
It's a long way to be perfect, of course, as with all solutions. The main issue is integration with other parts or pr...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
There are two main use cases for Distributed Call Services: DDoS or Distributed attacks protection and WAF web applic...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
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Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.