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F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs F5 Silverline Managed Services comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.4
F5 BIG-IP AFM offers cost-effective returns with F5 bundles, though standalone returns are moderate, providing practical daily value.
Sentiment score
5.8
F5 Silverline Managed Services improved efficiency by 30%, enhancing revenue, sales, and providing significant time, cost, and security benefits.
Our revenue has grown substantially after the introduction of F5 Silverline Managed Services.
Product Management Consultant at Mafoi Strategic Consultants
I have seen a return on investment in the time saved.
Cloud Support at a security firm with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
F5 BIG-IP AFM support is responsive and praised, though expertise varies; customer service is excellent, communication needs improvement.
Sentiment score
6.4
F5 Silverline's customer service is generally responsive and helpful, though regional support consistency and escalation issues exist.
The responses are generally fast and effective.
System Advisor at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The customer service is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten.
Network Security Engineer at IIPL
I rate the technical support by F5 a ten from one to ten.
Information Security Engineer at BigFish Enterprise Ltd.
I think 24/7 expert support and streamlined compliance management definitely benefit my company's security efforts.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Configuration problems largely arise from customer misunderstanding, leading to cases opened for configuration aspects where AI has become increasingly useful.
Network And Security Consultant at TD SYNNEX
They resolve the issues by joining me to fix them.
Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager is scalable and flexible, supporting diverse environments and thousands of users daily.
Sentiment score
7.2
F5 Silverline excels in scalability, handling traffic spikes effectively with cloud-based adaptive scaling and easy capacity upgrades.
The solution is highly scalable, allowing me to add or remove nodes and manage traffic without interruption, which is essential for meeting application demands.
System Advisor at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The solution is fully scalable, and I would give it a rating of ten on a scale of one to ten for scalability.
Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company
F5 Silverline Managed Services is not a concern due to its scalability.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
F5 Silverline Managed Services has elastic scalability, handling immense traffic spikes effectively.
Lead Engineer at a renewables & environment company with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
F5 BIG-IP AFM is highly rated for stability, reliability, and efficient logging, with no major bugs or issues reported.
Sentiment score
7.5
F5 Silverline Managed Services is reliable, effectively handles incidents, and receives high user ratings despite occasional downtime during maintenance.
I have not seen anything suspicious with its accuracy or output.
Product Management Consultant at Mafoi Strategic Consultants
 

Room For Improvement

F5 BIG-IP AFM needs better GUI, cloud integration, pricing, support, reporting, and zero-day prevention to enhance user experience.
F5 Silverline faces criticism for complex onboarding, high costs, inadequate reports, and needs integration, automation, and compliance improvements.
Having advanced technology similar to other vendors like Palo Alto for zero-day attack prevention would be valuable.
Network Security Engineer at IIPL
The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security.
System Advisor at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
I would assess the importance of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)'s integration with cloud services as significant.
Information Security Engineer at BigFish Enterprise Ltd.
F5 Silverline Managed Services needs to adapt compliances related to India's DPDP.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Localized support could enhance F5 Silverline Managed Services.
Cloud Support at a security firm with 51-200 employees
Radware provides straightforward blocking WAF and TPS, which are important features that are easier to implement.
Senior Security Consultant at kyndryl
 

Setup Cost

F5 BIG-IP AFM is costly yet valued for its stability, functionality, and perceived value for money despite high pricing.
F5 Silverline pricing is reasonable with flexible licensing, though some find it costly; cost-saving opportunities exist through negotiation.
The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive.
System Advisor at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
If considering a one-stop solution that provides load balancing, DNS security, AAA authentication, and firewalling on the same hardware, the cost is reasonable.
Network Security Engineer at IIPL
In Indian currency, it is approximately 25 to 30 lakh.
Senior Security Consultant at kyndryl
The solution is expensive
Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company
Regarding the pricing of F5 Silverline Managed Services, I would say it is quite affordable.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
 

Valuable Features

F5 BIG-IP AFM provides robust security and performance with features like DDoS protection and AI-driven traffic analysis.
F5 Silverline Managed Services offers comprehensive 24/7 security solutions with enhanced efficiency, easy implementation, and user-friendly management.
The solution provides behavioral analysis via AI to detect malicious traffic.
Network Security Engineer at IIPL
The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications.
System Advisor at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
I think the DDoS features are valuable in F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM), and I recommend it usually for certain types of companies.
Information Security Engineer at BigFish Enterprise Ltd.
It allows for centralized management of certificates, protecting applications from top ten attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company
One part is positive security, which allows you to know vulnerabilities in depth, and you can implement CAPTCHA and MFA for logins, while also preventing known threats with included signatures.
Network And Security Consultant at TD SYNNEX
F5 Silverline Managed Services has positively impacted my organization by drastically helping us during a major DDoS attempt or web scraping that was detected, where F5 handled the triage and mitigation entirely.
Lead Engineer at a renewables & environment company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 Silverline Managed Services
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is 2.0%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Silverline Managed Services is 2.8%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Silverline Managed Services2.8%
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)2.0%
Other95.2%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Nawapol Boonlerd - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Engineer at BigFish Enterprise Ltd.
Comprehensive network protection has mitigated DDoS risks and supports secure on-prem operations
Currently, there are no weaknesses or disadvantages in F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) that I have identified. It is a little bit expensive, and I think about additional features they could have in the future to make it even better. For example, I have thoughts about the price. Currently, it does not integrate, and I would assess the importance of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)'s integration with cloud services as significant. Currently, I use only one site, and I cannot tell you about F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) centralized security policies. I have not used F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)'s Threat Intelligence capabilities. I have not used their dynamic traffic shaping feature. So far, the only thing that could be improved is the pricing of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM).
Mohan Janarthanan - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Cloud applications have gained stronger protection and real-time defense against web attacks
What really stands out for me in terms of advantages of F5 Silverline Managed Services is that in a single cloud platform, I can protect my web applications against attacks. I can also use my load balancer in F5 because they are providing and acting as a load balancer too, and they will support the volumetric and DDoS attacks and malicious attacks. Regarding the real-time threat intelligence feature, I do use this aspect in F5 Silverline Managed Services. It blocks malicious IPs or bad IPs for my server, protecting against my applications. For example, if someone is a bad actor trying to access via a malicious IP, I can block it because the threat intelligence has the capability to block the malicious IP. The adaptable and flexible security impacts threat response time positively. It is effective because it blocks my malicious traffic. Whenever I face issues related to that application, it automatically routes my traffic to act as a proxy and routes my traffic to their scrubbing center, especially in case of any volumetric attack.
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913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
11%
Engineering Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive. There are plenty of technical documents and a supportive community available, which helps mana...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
Currently, there are no weaknesses or disadvantages in F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) that I have identified. It is a little bit expensive, and I think about additional features they cou...
What is your primary use case for F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
I am starting to learn and working with F5 team to conduct a proof of concept, and I do have experience with F5 Rules for AWS WAF. I have experience with BIG-IP, not BIG-IQ, and I may have experien...
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 have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Silverline Managed Services?
My company has a business relationship with F5 Silverline Managed Services, as they charge based on services provided. The operational team handles project configuration. We mostly purchase F5 Silv...
What needs improvement with F5 Silverline Managed Services?
The disadvantages of F5 Silverline Managed Services in comparison to Radware include complexities in WAF technology and iRules, which are highly useful. Radware provides straightforward blocking WA...
 

Also Known As

F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager
F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, F5 Silverline DDoS Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.