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F5 Advanced WAF vs R&S Web Application Firewall (DenyAll) 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 Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
R&S Web Application Firewal...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
46th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.7%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 5.3%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of R&S Web Application Firewall (DenyAll) 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) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Advanced WAF5.3%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall4.7%
R&S Web Application Firewall (DenyAll)0.5%
Other89.5%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
CTO at PlayNirvana
Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.
reviewer2797602 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Granular security policies have protected critical applications and ensure safe user and admin access
Improvements could be made regarding the log information from the backend CLI. There are enhancements needed; if a request gets blocked on the TCP layer, there should be traces or data to verify which source generated these requests, including the source and port information for initiation. These data are missing from F5 Advanced WAF. Besides that, another improvement could be refining the bot detection to minimize false positives; it should be able to verify more granularly between legitimate and non-legitimate clients. Overall, I find everything else good. A wish list feature I have is for the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) to respond more promptly. Their response time needs improvement; while they do not take excessive time, it can be enhanced, especially given it is a security product.
SS
General Manager at 3R Technologie
Geo-localization and IP reputation help to keep our clients secure and more available
The area that should be improved is licensing. When using an active/passive cluster, we have to pay 70% of the master appliance and license for the passive server that does not work. Since we know that only one server works at a time, we should pay only one license for the appliances and for the support as well. In my opinion, this has to be improved. If possible, the client software should be a web application instead of downloading software for the management. This can avoid login problems when they update or patch.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."
"It's pretty convenient and pretty easy to set up and run. And then kind of for static content, it also offers caching."
"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."
"For us, the key feature of Cloudflare is DDoS protection and IP hiding, especially since we are a crypto company."
"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."
"The most valuable part of the solution for us overall is exactly that it is a Software-as-a-Service product."
"The initial setup process is simple."
"Very glad the WAF rulesets works out of box, and requires very little tuning or maintenance."
"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."
"There is no need to worry about updating signatures because WAF will automatically update the signatures for you."
"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."
"The solution isn't too expensive. The license allows you to license what you need and leave out what you don't need."
"Despite a few issues, F5 Advanced WAF is performing well for me."
"When you choose to go with F5, be sure to size your box properly so that the capacity is taken care of."
"It's scalable and very easy to manage."
"F5 Advanced WAF has significantly enhanced our organization's security posture by protecting critical banking applications against sophisticated threats."
"By publishing the application without fear, my customer has created new revenue by making the website available anytime and anywhere."
"The three most valuable features that I noticed are the geo-localization of the user, the IP reputation, and the compartmental analysis."
 

Cons

"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."
"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."
"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well."
"The reporting could be improved if it were more granular."
"The learning curve was steep initially."
"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"The ModSecurity core rules need to be updated."
"Its stability could be better."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve the reporting. It's a bit difficult to populate, them. If you're not so familiar with the functions, such as where to find the logs and other settings."
"The interface is old-looking, it's not modern, which is why it's not always comfortable to use."
"The price of F5 Advanced WAF could improve; it is expensive."
"I would like for there to be a cloud-based solution, this would also help to improve scalability."
"One improvement for AOF could be focusing on enhancing its AI engine to make it more mature."
"Compatibility with multiple cloud environments needs improvement. Both stability and scalability need to be improved."
"It's a powerful tool yet can be complex for new users."
"This solution can be made more user-friendly."
"The area that should be improved is licensing."
"The area that should be improved is licensing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"It is not too pricey."
"F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."
"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."
"The pricing is too high."
"The price of F5 Advanced WAF could improve it is expensive."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."
"It is a little bit costly, but it has all the features that are required."
"The way we deployed it, I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing."
"After buying the program, you just pay for the support every year."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise31
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?
The pricing for F5 Advanced WAF is a bit higher, but not that high. I would say for a good amount of revenue-generati...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
On the features I wish existed, Big-IP Advanced WAF is primarily an on-premises solution and in that solution, there ...
What is your primary use case for F5 Advanced WAF?
My main use case for F5 Advanced WAF is providing deployment solutions for financial institutions and onboarding thei...
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot mana...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
No data available
Rohde & Schwarz Web Application Firewall, R&S WAF, DenyAll Web Application Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Fortinet, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.