F5 Advanced WAF vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall comparison

F5 and NSFOCUS are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4, while NSFOCUS is ranked #42. F5 holds a 7.8% mindshare in WAF, compared to NSFOCUS’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NSFOCUS users who would recommend it.

F5 Advanced WAF

Read 72 F5 Advanced WAF reviews

7,021 Views
6,600 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

NSFOCUS Web Application Fir...

Read 1 NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall review

296 Views
281 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

F5 Advanced WAF

NSFOCUS Web Application Fir...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 Advanced WAF and NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, F5, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF).

To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

January 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

F5 Advanced WAF

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NSFOCUS Web Application Fir...

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

42nd

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

8.0

Number of Reviews

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 F5 Advanced WAF is 7.8%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
F5 Advanced WAF	7.8%
NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall	0.5%
Other	91.7%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

Application security has protected critical banking services while policy learning minimizes false blocks

F5 Advanced WAF performs well overall, but I have noticed some points that could enhance the solution. Initially, policy tuning could be simpler, as while the learning engine is powerful, initial tuning still requires experienced engineers, which can be challenging for new teams due to the complexity of options and parameters. A more guided and simple tuning workflow would help reduce the learning curve. Additionally, tighter native integration with SIEM or SOAR tools would simplify correlation and investigations for security teams, although log exports are available. Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.

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it_user933945

Desktop Engineer at eros international media ltd

Offers Application Protection Against Web Attacks

There is a need for expanded licensing terms and options. There's also a need for improved and more agile customization features. The user needs to be able to manage each policy as required; the functionality needs to empower the user. There should be a complete suite of desktop provider policies available to users. Overall, it needs to be more user-friendly.

Read full review

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 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."

"Web attack signatures are very important for detecting web attacks."

"With F5 Advanced WAF, it was protection for online publications and for our customers that caused us to choose the platform."

"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the overall capabilities, there is not a comparable solution on the market."

"F5 Advanced WAF has positively impacted my organization by stopping most web application attacks on our web servers."

"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."

"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."

"F5 helped to meet compliance and regulatory requirements."

More F5 Advanced WAF pros

"Since we are using this tool for protection purposes we really appreciate the hybrid security abilities; the main idea here is that we powerful protection our application needs."

Cons

"The solution should include protection against web page attacks like what is available in FortiWeb."

"The user interface (UI) seems a bit outdated. Making it more user-friendly would be beneficial."

"My experience with the technical support from F5 is that on the technical side, we sometimes face issues with reachability and availability."

"For me, an area for improvement in F5 Advanced WAF is the reporting as it isn't so clear. The vendor needs to work on the reporting capability of the solution. What I'd like to see in the next release of F5 Advanced WAF is threat intelligence to protect your web application, particularly having that capability out-of-the-box, and not needing to pay extra for it, similar to what's offered in FortiWeb, for example, any request that originates from a malicious IP will be blocked automatically by FortiWeb. F5 Advanced WAF should have the intelligence for blocking malicious IPs, or automatically blocking threats included in the license, instead of making it an add-on feature that users have to pay for apart from the standard licensing fees."

"F5 Advanced WAF could improve resource usage, it is CPU intensive. Additionally, adding automated remediation would be a benefit. For example, an easy button alerts us of the events that are occurring, and what we want to do at the time. An automated approach where somebody could be alerted very quickly. Instead of going and reconfiguring everything, an automated approach is what I'm looking at."

"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."

"Initially, policy tuning could be simpler, as while the learning engine is powerful, initial tuning still requires experienced engineers, which can be challenging for new teams due to the complexity of options and parameters."

"I would like for there to be a cloud-based solution, this would also help to improve scalability."

More F5 Advanced WAF cons

"There is a need for expanded licensing terms and options. There's also a need for improved and more agile customization features. The user needs to be able to manage each policy as required; the functionality needs to empower the user. There should be a complete suite of desktop provider policies available to users. Overall, it needs to be more user-friendly."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing for this solution is higher than average."

"The solution is very expensive so should only be used in the right environment."

"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."

"It's more expensive than other solutions and depending on the modules, there can be additional fees."

"The cost is slightly above average."

"F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."

"F5 Advanced WAF's pricing is high."

"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."

More F5 Advanced WAF pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	25
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	31

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?

Regarding the price, I think the cost is a bit higher compared to others. Earlier we were using Radware, and compared to Radware, it is very high. However, it is providing more features than Radwar...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?

In terms of additional features I would like to see from them in the future, I think the GTM is a bit complicated to configure, which I observed. Otherwise, LTM and WAF are straightforward. I faced...

See all answers

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Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 28% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 7% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 6% of the time

Radware Alteon vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 5% of the time

More F5 Advanced WAF Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall

Compared 36% of the time

F5 Silverline Managed Services vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall

Compared 36% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall

Compared 28% of the time

More NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF

January 2026

Download F5 Advanced WAF product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

January 2026

Download NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall product report

Also Known As

No data available

NSFOCUS WAF, NSFOCUS Web Application Security

Overview

F5 Advanced WAF is a web application security solution for financial and government sectors, e-commerce, and public-facing websites. It offers protection against various attacks, including botnets, web scraping, and foreign entities. The solution can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud and is often used with other security tools. Its most valuable features include DDoS and DNS attack protection, SSL uploading, anomaly detection, and the ability to input custom rules.

F5 Advanced WAF has helped organizations to expose more services to the public while providing an extra layer of protection, preventing revenue loss, and securing connectivity.

NSFOCUS understands how critical your web servers and applications are to your business and we have designed a closed-loop web application security solution to protect you from web attacks, data breaches and downtime. This solution includes website protection through our Web Application Firewall (WAF) and pro-active vulnerability assessment using our Web Vulnerability Scanning System (WVSS).

NSFOCUS

Sample Customers

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank

2016 G20 Summit

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

January 2026

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