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F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.8
F5 Distributed Cloud Services offers cost savings, time efficiency, reduced overhead, and fast ROI with enhanced security benefits.
Sentiment score
4.2
Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service reduces security incidents and costs, offering effective protection and noticeable returns on investment.
I would estimate the cost was reduced by approximately 30 percent in the first year.
Information Security at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
There is definitely a return on investment in F5 Distributed Cloud Services.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
I do find F5 Distributed Cloud Services to be cost-effective, as it brings benefits and a strong return on investment.
Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
F5 users praise expertise and reliability but seek improved response times, especially for urgent issues and faster human interaction.
Sentiment score
7.5
Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud support is praised for fast, knowledgeable service, with minor delays manageable and high overall satisfaction.
There is a lot of support from F5 Distributed Cloud Services and the knowledge on the page is very good and reliable.
Engineer Solutions Architect at SCitum
I would provide 9.5 for support.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Email services are good, but they need to have a good human-based interaction with the call centers.
Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
The company provides technical support, and they are mostly available 24/7.
Pre sale engineer at Harnssen Group Limited
The proximity of Fortinet with customers ensures quick issue resolution.
Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Sometimes it could be faster, but generally, their support is reliable.
Principal Network Architect at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
F5 Distributed Cloud Services are highly scalable, efficiently managing complex traffic and handling DDoS attacks with minimal configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
6.2
Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service is scalable, efficient in handling traffic, easy to deploy, and highly rated.
I need the traffic management environments in distributed management, which have a very good goal to manage very difficult traffic in the world.
Engineer Solutions Architect at SCitum
It auto checks everything, and you need to install the certificate.
Pre Sales Architect at network techlab
In my experience, Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service's scalability is quite good, and I would rate it at eight point five out of ten.
Network and Security Engineer (Contractor) at Clymora Technology Limited
We are purchasing Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service from the distributor side, who have provided support and a price discount.
Owner at IT CARE
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
F5 Distributed Cloud Services is praised for its high stability, minimal downtime, and effective load balancing, despite occasional configuration issues.
Sentiment score
8.3
Users highly praise Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service for its stable and reliable performance, rating it highly.
I won't face any issues with stability as a concern because it provides the load balancers and all redundancy, so it's very unlikely that we have any downtime.
Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
The stability of the solution is excellent.
Principal Network Architect at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
 

Room For Improvement

F5 Distributed Cloud Services enhances UI/UX but needs better analytics, API security, pricing, onboarding, and system integration.
Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service needs improved features, security measures, AI, pricing, integration, and reporting enhancements.
The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF.
IT Analyst at Atlas.cz, a.s.
For availability, they have added additional clusters across all the regional edges in the Kubernetes clusters to enhance availability.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
F5 Distributed Cloud Services doesn't have something like that. That is the reason why CloudFlare remains a leader in that space for small customers and those who have just started or are startups.
Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service could be improved with better logging capabilities, as many come with less spacing, necessitating a FortiSIM for enhanced functionality.
Network and Security Engineer (Contractor) at Clymora Technology Limited
The utilization of AI in Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service still needs to be upgraded and improved.
Assistant Technical Director at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
I want them to provide SAML authentication.
Pre Sales Architect at network techlab
 

Setup Cost

Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud offers cost-effective WAF services with flexible payments, appealing to large enterprises despite not being the cheapest.
F5 Distributed Cloud Services is affordable.
Engineer Solutions Architect at SCitum
I believe the prices are much higher than I expected, but for the time being, the customer is still paying.
Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB
It is twice cheaper.
Pre sale engineer at Harnssen Group Limited
I just recommend Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service because it is very expensive.
Pre Sales Architect at network techlab
The price is not the cheapest, but it offers great value for money.
Principal Network Architect at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
 

Valuable Features

F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a unified platform with advanced security, optimized performance, and efficient multi-cloud operations.
Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service offers AI-driven security, easy integration, and adaptability with robust threat protection and reporting.
The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.
IT Analyst at Atlas.cz, a.s.
F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well.
Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
Malicious user mitigation is an AI/ML-based technology that was introduced by the F5 team, and this particular MUG protects rate limiting.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
It is possible to easily find vulnerabilities with the WAF.
IT Specialist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
It effectively mitigates web attacks, provides virtual protections, and handles large traffic with minimal processing effort.
Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Its usability is a key aspect as it is very easy to use and deploy in front of new APIs.
Principal Network Architect at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
CDN (6th), API Security (8th)
Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
22nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 1.9%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Distributed Cloud Services1.9%
Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service0.8%
Other97.3%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Mohan Janarthanan - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Centralized security has protected APIs and optimized multi‑cloud traffic management
F5 Distributed Cloud Services has been used for two years for DDoS protection, and there is a particular feature called API protection. Within API protection, there is malicious user mitigation, which is one particular technology that has been implemented. This is a kind of advanced bot attack prevention. Malicious user mitigation is an AI/ML-based technology that was introduced by the F5 team, and this particular MUG protects rate limiting. If some users are having anomaly detection or someone is trying to do a bot attack, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge for that particular user alone and not for all users. For example, if someone is trying to act as a rogue, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge in the backend system on that particular system, so they cannot try again and again at the same time. It is for a concurrent session, and it will give the CAPTCHA challenge. This MUG, malicious user mitigation, prevents bot attacks. F5 Distributed Cloud Services includes the real-time intelligence feature, which helps with threat response strategies from a threat intelligence perspective. For example, if there are geo-restrictions or geo-based restrictions, sometimes people may come in through proxy-based servers, and it will prevent that. The load balancing feature optimizes application performance. Observability is the basic piece where F5 got introduced. This observability piece provides end-to-end visibility on the application performance. It gives complete end-to-end visibility across network latency and application performance issues. Sometimes when it is getting more than 200 pages, it throws errors such as 300, 400, or whatever has been configured, including 500 errors. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has helped improve traffic management efficiency. Most applications are hosted in the Check Point and F5 firewall, F5 web application firewall, where applications and traffic management can be accessed in a single dashboard. Automated threat detection is a basic feature of F5 Distributed Cloud Services meant for that purpose. There are two scenarios with automated threat detection, which is provided by F5. It is a completely machine learning solution that came from the bot defense, and it automatically protects against sophisticated attacks.
NiteshSharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre Sales Architect at network techlab
Comprehensive web protection has secured public apps and supports advanced audit requirements
Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service has multiple valuable aspects. The WAF solution secures whatever public domains have been published by the public platform or internal servers exposed to public users. Firewalls have limitations, which is why I suggest using a WAF solution. The firewall provides the same features but in a limited edition. When discussing the SaaS platform or Layer 7 layer of security, you will receive multiple benefits. Firewalls have limitations with signatures, bot protection, and DOS protection. Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service is a dedicated WAF product that handles all DOS protection, bot protection, API security, endpoint connectivity, signature-based support, and top 10 OWASP support. Multiple features are available. AI and ML-based technology is available in almost every tool today. When discussing troubleshooting, there are AI models that will solve your problem and provide information. AI is helpful because it will give you proper information regarding errors and troubleshooting.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
F5 Distributed Cloud Services is affordable. I think it is very affordable. I do not think it is expensive.
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
One area where F5 Distributed Cloud Services can be improved is in API security, which can be enhanced.Specifically, the confidence level on API security that F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
My main use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services is WAF protection.I am using F5 Distributed Cloud Services primarily for securing my infrastructure with layer 7 protection, which F5 provides. Th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service?
It is expensive. Actually, it is expensive. When discussing small organizations, I would not recommend it to them. I always choose the enterprise because it is expensive. I just recommend Fortinet ...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service?
Currently, I want to add that Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service is offering only two-factor authentication. I want them to provide SAML authentication. If it gets SAML authentication or some...
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service?
When discussing Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service, I always recommend it. Either I can recommend F5. Most users require security via SSL, so I recommend Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Serv...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.