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F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs Neustar UltraDDoS [EOL] comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 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

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (12th)
Neustar UltraDDoS [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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).
JT
Manager Strategic Planning at Endurance International Group
Identifies a request that comes up multiple times, block holds that particular IP, and lets the genuine traffic pass through
Genuine traffic coming in is still getting better. While I understand that it's some sort of algorithm that is written in this scale, that algorithm can be a little bit better because sometimes while we are doing DDoS mitigation, genuine traffic does get blocked. While it is one of the greatest features it can still be improved. I would like to see a dashboard that shows you the data that is transferred from which end. It's where people start looking at abuse management. People keep questioning when the mitigation is on what service it is and how many GBs are passing through. An end user dashboard that will help you identify all of these questions and that can be visible in your entire organization is something that would make sense.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The protection is very useful."
"With controllers plus the firewall, you will only need one device to protect everything."
"The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications."
"It is stable."
"The customer service is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten."
"CGNAT is one of its strong areas."
"It is a highly stable solution."
"We use the solution for load balancing and WAF (web application firewall)."
"In the DDoS it's difficult to validate what is a genuine request from an end user. We've started being able to do that with the logistics that they have set up. With the protection that they have provided, they are able to identify what is valid and what is not valid. We see that a person who is getting DDoS Neustar service is able to block that particular user. However, while they are doing that it doesn't affect other customers on the server."
"Scalability is awesome, and they have grown two folds or three folds since we started using them, with no concerns even as we protect close to 60,000 hosted sites for business and e-commerce customers."
 

Cons

"F5 should increase its capability to prevent zero-day attacks."
"We would have preferred to have support when we first started"
"Currently, we have eighty F5s and we need some kind of management software. It would be very helpful."
"We needed to protect the database but the solution didn't offer a certain feature to do so."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is an expensive solution. They are one of the best in the market, but the price could be cheaper."
"The interface for applying the features could use improvement. There are too many buttons."
"Firstly, geolocation currently relies on manual updates. It has to move to automatic updates. There are no automatic updates for this feature. If some IPs, countries, or service providers move to another country, now you will be allow IPs that you previously denied. This is because you depend on the database, which doesn't update automatically. This is really a very important area that they need to improve."
"For configuring the firewall, every single vendor on the planet has pretty much the same logic when it comes to firewalls, and F5 has a completely different approach and completely different behavior."
"I would like to see a dashboard that shows you the data that is transferred from which end. It's where people start looking at abuse management. People keep questioning when the mitigation is on what service it is and how many GBs are passing through. An end user dashboard that will help you identify all of these questions and that can be visible in your entire organization is something that would make sense."
"Genuine traffic coming in is still getting better because sometimes while we are doing DDoS mitigation, genuine traffic does get blocked."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have purchased a five-year licensing package for the product."
"The price of F5 BIG-IP AFM is a little more expensive than other firewalls on the market."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is an expensive solution. They are one of the best in the market, but the price could be cheaper."
"It's very expensive, and you pay extra for the models."
"F5 BIG-IP AFM is an affordable solution. There were not any additional fees other than the standard licensing."
"The product is expensive."
"We need to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."
"As per pricing, I would not say cheap, but little higher than cheap, but not very expensive. So you can say kind of value for money solutions."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Engineering Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
No data available
 

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...
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Also Known As

F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager
Neustar UltraDDoS, UltraDDoS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Choxi
Find out what your peers are saying about Radware, Cloudflare, Imperva and others in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection. Updated: September 2026.
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