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F5 Advanced WAF vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services comparison

 

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

F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
20th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
CDN (10th), API Security (8th), AWS Marketplace (23rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 10.7%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 1.1%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

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

"The whole mechanism of F5 Advanced WAF is effective."
"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."
"Identification, ease of use, and ease of modifying it to most of our needs are valuable."
"F5 Advanced WAF helps our engineers to learn the complete configuration, including fundamental and advanced policies."
"The solution is stable."
"It provides web application security and reduces bot attacks."
"There are a lot of good features."
"The most valuable feature of F5 Advanced WAF is its extensive set of capabilities for application protection, including DDoS prevention, and its ability to work with Pentesters and external scanners to observe user activity and eliminate false positives."
"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and 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."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
 

Cons

"F5 Advanced WAF sells perpetual licenses as perpetual assets during sales without informing me that support ends after a few years."
"F5 Advanced WAF needs better integration within the application, like remote dashboards."
"The reporting portion of F5 Advance WAF is not great. They need to work out something better, as it is very basic. You only see the top IPs, I think there is more they can offer."
"There should be more ability to rate limit certain scenarios. The majority of the time, it is either on or off. For certain types of use cases, there should be the ability to rate limit, not just enable or disable."
"People who want to work with the device have to be pro in Linux"
"The contextual-based component needs a lot of help to catch up with the next-gen products."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve the precision of the scanning. There are many false positives. They should improve their threat database."
"I would like for there to be a cloud-based solution, this would also help to improve scalability."
"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 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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of F5 Advanced WAF could improve it is expensive."
"There is an annual subscription for this solution."
"It is expensive. Its price should be better. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. Its licensing is also based on the model. There are no additional costs."
"F5 Advanced WAF is not a cost-effective solution. Although they are attempting to reduce prices with their VE and cloud options, they are more expensive than other solutions. The solution is more expensive on average."
"Its price is fair. We have done a couple of deals where they were able to give some kind of discount to the customers. The price was initially high for the customers, but after a couple of negotiations, it came within their budget. They were happy with that."
"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."
"F5 Advanced WAF technical support comes at a cost, and it's expensive."
"I think the price is very high."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 rules per the requirements.
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 feature, we approach F5 directly.
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 out of ten since it is not a cheap product.
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 products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the pers...
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 application security or firewall.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.