

Fastly and F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager are competing products in content delivery and network security. Fastly excels in pricing and support, whereas F5 BIG-IP AFM offers superior features and security, justifying its higher price point.
Features: Fastly stands out for its real-time logging, caching, and scalability, making it ideal for content-heavy applications demanding quick delivery. F5 BIG-IP AFM is notable for its advanced threat protection, comprehensive firewall capabilities, and traffic management control, making it favorable for enterprises focused on security.
Room for Improvement: Fastly could enhance its zero-trust solutions and signature base to match competitors in web traffic insights. The product's positive model is not simple and requires development team assistance. F5 BIG-IP AFM has room for improvement in simplifying the initial configuration process and reducing the length of setup time. Enhanced ease of use and support for less complex user scenarios would be beneficial.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fastly offers cloud-based deployment for quick and easy integration into existing systems, complemented by responsive customer service. F5 BIG-IP AFM requires more complex on-premises deployment and configuration, which may extend setup duration, but provides extensive support for resolving intricate issues.
Pricing and ROI: Fastly generally offers lower setup costs with considerable ROI due to simple implementation and effective support. F5 BIG-IP AFM, with a higher initial financial commitment, delivers greater ROI to organizations prioritizing its extensive security features, especially where comprehensive network protection is critical.
Reducing infrastructure costs by 40 to 60% because Edge Caching minimizes backend traffic, resulting in lower computing costs.
I have seen a return on investment, particularly in time savings, especially regarding the changes.
The responses are generally fast and effective.
I rate the technical support by F5 a ten from one to ten.
The customer service is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten.
demonstrating the team's technical expertise in CDN and Edge architecture
We have SLAs defined because we opted for enterprise support pricing.
I would describe Fastly's customer support as fast and efficient when I have had to use it.
The solution is highly scalable, allowing me to add or remove nodes and manage traffic without interruption, which is essential for meeting application demands.
Seamlessly handling massive traffic without requiring backend changes due to its globally distributed Edge network and stateless API-driven design.
Highly reliable for enterprise-scale applications with high uptime guarantees.
I would assess the importance of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)'s integration with cloud services as significant.
The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security.
Having advanced technology similar to other vendors like Palo Alto for zero-day attack prevention would be valuable.
I chose 8 out of 10 because it has excellent performance and low latency delivery, making it suitable for larger applications, with strong Edge Caching and instant purging capabilities.
Fastly could improve by improving the documentation and having some code examples.
Fastly should provide features similar to Cloudflare regarding a block list.
The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive.
If considering a one-stop solution that provides load balancing, DNS security, AAA authentication, and firewalling on the same hardware, the cost is reasonable.
Setup costs are low since no infrastructure needs provisioning, mainly focusing on DNS configurations, cache rules, and origin integration.
In terms of price, I find it good.
The solution provides behavioral analysis via AI to detect malicious traffic.
The scalability feature also allows me to manage and allocate resources dynamically without disrupting production traffic.
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.
Fastly has a wide number of configuration features that can be performed, and I emphasize that they can be done from code, which makes it much more traceable.
We observed a 30 to 50% reduction in response time and a significant reduction in backend load of 40 to 60%, improving visibility through a real-time dashboard for monitoring traffic, errors, and performance.
In this project, it is working as a reverse proxy for CDN and WAF, web application firewall, additionally image optimization.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Fastly | 3.7% |
| F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) | 2.0% |
| Other | 94.3% |


| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 9 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 5 |
| Large Enterprise | 14 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 7 |
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager provides robust network protection with advanced DDoS features and efficient load balancing. Its design prioritizes scalability and ease of management, catering to securing data centers and applications.
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager is a strategic choice for combating cyber threats, including DDoS attacks. With powerful network defenses, integrated WAF, and adaptable capabilities, it efficiently handles web services on-premise and in the cloud. Users value its application-level threat defense with IP blocking and AI-enhanced reporting. Advanced integration with SIEM solutions allows comprehensive monitoring and enhanced threat detection through dynamic resource allocation. However, areas for improvement include better dashboard statistics and pricing adjustments. Enhancing integration with BIG-IQ and intuitive configuration would streamline its operation. Automatic geolocation updates and improved support could address current challenges alongside its high cost and complex initial setup.
What are the standout features?F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager is widely used in sectors requiring stringent security measures, such as finance and healthcare. These industries deploy it as a data center and web application firewall to protect against cyber threats, manage client connections, and ensure the security of on-premise and cloud applications.
Fastly is a leading provider of content delivery network services that enhances website performance through efficient caching and real-time architecture capabilities.
Fastly integrates CDN technology with advanced web application firewall for comprehensive security. Its global infrastructure supports performance enhancement, rapid deployment, and rollback capabilities. Utilizing the VCL language allows custom caching solutions. Compute@Edge provides extensive architectural flexibility, aiding in HTML manipulation and script execution. Users benefit from its stability and reliability features for seamless network protection, log management, image optimization, and A/B testing. Challenges include limited support in mainland China, inadequate WebSocket protocol implementation, and complex pricing structures.
What are the key features of Fastly?Fastly is widely implemented in industries needing robust content delivery and security capabilities. Companies use it as a reverse proxy for media delivery, ensuring availability and optimized performance. Its rapid deployment and rollback features are particularly beneficial in technology sectors requiring agile responses to demand shifts.
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