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F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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
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)
Imperva Web Application Fir...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (7th)
 

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.
Mitesh D Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Effectively defends against threats like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and others
It does bring value. For example, consider a BFSI customer. Their application is critical and represents their brand. Without a WAF, an attack could take their application down, harming their reputation. It leads to hampering the customer's workflow. With an Imperva WAF, they protect against attacks like DDoS or SQL injection, ensuring their application remains available and customers are happy. That's the main benefit for both the customer and the organization. The impact depends on the customer's use case. If their business primarily operates online, a CDN is beneficial for traffic optimization. Moreover, the integration options depend on the specific use case of our customers. Generally, integration capabilities are good with SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) parts.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."
"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick."
"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"Even when there is a high load on our servers, Cloudflare is able to cache the data and serve it to users, ensuring they can still access the website."
"Feature-wise, they are always cutting edge and up-to-date. Many features aren't available via competitors. There's always a lot of enhanced critical features that just aren't available through anyone else, or, if they are, are too lightweight."
"F5 helped to meet compliance and regulatory requirements."
"The most valuable feature of F5 Advanced WAF is its ability to have a pool of resources that can distribute your traffic, and that is a plus for me. My company tried to look into a competitor, Imperva, but it was lacking that capability, so F5 Advanced WAF outperforms Imperva."
"It also has antivirus and DDoS mitigation capabilities. We have enabled these features."
"One of the most valuable features is the Local Traffic Manager."
"Good dashboard and reporting."
"The most valuable features of the F5 Advanced WAF are the enhanced ASM and the performance. Additionally, the usability and effectiveness are very good."
"It ensures compliance with security standards by providing features like PCI DSS checks."
"The solution can scale."
"The solution is cloud-based and offers us good uptime. It has combined web and API security. Therefore, with one license, you access both application security and also API security."
"Imperva is easy to use and deploy. The UI is excellent."
"The solution has been quite stable. I have not seen any bugs at all."
"If you are using the appliance as opposed to the virtual deployment, it can stand as the network layer-two and provide real transparency."
"Configuration for different application sources is most valuable. We can segregate the traffic that an application is carrying and identify the sizing in Imperva."
"Imperva is a Gartner leader, so its scalability, performance, and features are excellent."
"Compared to other web application firewalls in the market, Imperva does things in the most accurate way."
 

Cons

"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."
"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."
"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."
"Eventually, things go sideways and require fixes when it would have been easier to prevent the issue initially."
"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."
"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."
"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"I think the deployment templates can be better."
"Nevertheless, F5 products are generally considered to be hard to deploy."
"There are opportunities for improvement in updating the user interface to a more modern look."
"The delay times on firmware patches and software updates could be better and improved."
"People who want to work with the device have to be pro in Linux"
"They should work on the virtualization of NGINX."
"More legacy protocols should be added to the solution."
"The product could be more user-friendly for administrators."
"There could be some limitations that from the converged infrastructure perspective: when you want to converge with everything and you want Imperva to get there easily because it's not a cloud component. For example, when you want to build servers and you're using OneView to manage your software-defined networks, implementing Imperva right away is not that simple. But if you're doing just a simple cloud infrastructure with servers in there, you're good to go. Also, we are not able, with Imperva, to block by signatures. Imperva by itself needs to be complemented with another service to do URL filtering."
"I don't really use it and therefore can't speak to areas of improvement."
"They can provide an option to create reports, automatically import the entire report, and create rules again. In a real-life crisis, it would be helpful to be able to import a report and generate security rules from that report. I should be able to create a simple query and import the reports automatically. It can maybe also tell us the format of the report."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall can improve by providing better features, such as improved prevention of zero-day attacks. Additionally, it should include a VR meta-analysis."
"The initial setup could be simplified. Every time you have to install the solution you have to get in touch with support or somebody that can to do that for you."
"The Imperva Web Application Firewall automations are good, but there is still room for improvement with them."
"Sometimes our web application firewall will slow down."
"One potential improvement for Imperva is enhancing its alert system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"The price is reasonable."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"F5 Advanced WAF technical support comes at a cost, and it's expensive."
"F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."
"The pricing of F5 Advanced WAF is more expensive than other solutions like Radware and CD18, it is quite high."
"F5 Advanced WAF's pricing is high."
"The price of F5 Advanced WAF could improve it is expensive."
"There is a perpetual license that comes with your hardware. There is also an additional fee for support."
"A yearly license for F5 Advanced WAF is expensive."
"I think the price is very high."
"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."
"The tool is expensive."
"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."
"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."
"The solution's pricing is an issue."
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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%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?
For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you hav...
DDoS solutions: Any other solutions to consider aside from Radware DDoS Protection Service and F5 Silverline DDoS Protection?
You can have a look to Imperva Cloud WAF, the anti-DDoS mitigation is under 1s and works very well. I observed a lot ...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
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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
BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.