F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

F5 and Microsoft are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.8, while Microsoft is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.7. F5 holds a 2.0% mindshare in WAF, compared to Microsoft’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 Distributed Cloud Services and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

June 2026

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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 ...

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 3.8%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 2.0%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is 3.0%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	3.8%
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway	3.0%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services	2.0%
Other	91.2%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

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.

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Mohan Janarthanan

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.

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reviewer5599486

Cloud Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Mutual TLS has secured our web services and now needs broader protocol support

The most valuable feature we have found in Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is mutual TLS. We find mutual TLS valuable because we can verify the client securely by setting up the trust certificate of the client, and also if we do it at the client side as well. This successfully develops mutual trust, ensuring that we know the client who is calling our service is a legitimate client. That is a very nice feature.Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has helped manage our traffic efficiently because we have many web services that we can put behind the same URL, and we can have different URLs with the same Application Gateway with a limited number of listeners. We can do host-based routing as well as URL-based routing or path-based routing. It supports both, so we can have even a single URL supporting many applications, or we can have different URLs for different applications respectively. We have both use cases.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."

"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."

"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."

"The impact of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's integration with existing web technologies on our site's performance and security measures is quite great, actually."

"The setup process is very simple for me."

"This solution does a good job of preventing web application attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting attacks."

"We like that there's load balancing, firewall capabilities, DDoS protection, et cetera, all covered by Cloudflare."

"Cloudflare has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple clients; I can easily go in and access their accounts, make changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"I appreciate the UI of F5 Distributed Cloud Services and the backend cost, alongside the actual value proposition that they provide with the load balancer, which is excellent."

"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."

"Elastic environments are the most valuable features because I can pull these apps and migrate the on-premises environment to the Distributed Cloud environment, and this capability is very strong and the security regarding the apps is really very powerful."

"F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well."

"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."

"Technical support from F5 is good compared to Cisco and HP."

"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."

"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."

"Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it."

"Up until this point, it's working great for us; it's excellent at catching attacks and suspicious content and works well for us while offering good performance."

"The solution provides great automation and it is easy to upgrade service."

"The tool helps manage microservices by providing developers with a platform to conduct tests and assessments on the web application. The custom domain option is one of the most valuable features I've found. This feature is incredibly helpful for the end-users of the web application. With the custom domain feature, you can change the lengthy link to a shorter, more memorable one. For example, instead of using a lengthy default link, you can customize it to something like imail.com, which is much easier to remember and share."

"The most valuable feature is WAF."

"We chose this solution in the first place because it has access to Layer 7. I can control the requests and the content, which I can access on my network if I want to even if it's forbidden access to other external resources. If I want to monitor, for example, traffic, and apply this rule on Layer 7, I can do so. This was our main goal when implementing this application. We wanted to take advantage of the Gateway capabilities."

"The production is a valuable feature."

"The pricing is quite good."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pros

Cons

"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."

"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."

"Its stability could be better."

"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."

"Support can be challenging at times."

"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."

"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"For small players, it is completely not worth it."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."

"One area where F5 Distributed Cloud Services can be improved is in API security, which can be enhanced."

"The worst experience is that with so many solutions available, it is very complicated to know all of the solution modules, and the offers from F5 Distributed Cloud Services are vast."

"Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed."

"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."

"It could be more stable, and support could be better. It would also be better if they offered more features. For example, it lacks security features. Before we used another English solution, and we realized that some of the rules were not set up correctly and passed through the Application Gateway's English controllers. But the problem, in this case, is if you send ten rules, for example, six rules hit some issues. IP address blocking could be better. The rules, for example, don't work properly. If you have one issue, one rule or another rule will not work. This sounds like total madness to me."

"Microsoft needs to work on their documentation."

"Overall, it just wasn't a great product. It was lacking in a lot of areas."

"The solution should provide more security for certificate-based services so that we can implement more security on that."

"The support provided for the solution has certain shortcomings that need improvement, especially when it comes to the response time from the support team."

"The solution could improve by increasing the performance when doing updates. For example, if I change the certificate it can take 30 minutes. Other vendors do not have this type of problem."

"It is a bit tricky to configure. You've got to have a very specific format to configure it. They should make it a little bit easier to configure. Mapping the certificates into it isn't easy, and it could be better. Currently, you've to write a bit of automation to pull certificates directly to HTTPS."

"For the first-time user, it is difficult to understand so the user-interface needs to be improved."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"It is not too pricey."

"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 pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"I rate the pricing seven out of ten because some third-party solutions are even costlier than this."

"We use the tool's basic subscription. Its licensing costs are monthly."

"The solution is reasonably priced."

"The solution is fairly priced."

"There is a need to pay a fixed price per month to use the product. There are no additional payments to be made to Microsoft apart from the charges paid towards the monthly licensing costs attached to the solution."

"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is expensive."

"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a pretty affordable product. My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs of the solution. The additional costs apart from the licensing costs of the solution vary."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

Construction Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	24

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

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...

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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...

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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.

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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, ...

See all answers

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 primari...

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What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?

We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides...

See all answers

How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Regarding the pricing and licensing of Application Gateway, it is not cheap because the version we are using is WAF V...

See all answers

Comparisons

Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

AWS WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

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Azure Front Door vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 12% of the time

Akamai vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 9% of the time

Cloudflare vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 7% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 4% of the time

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F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

NetScaler vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 5% of the time

Amazon Elastic Load Balancing vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

August 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services

August 2026

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

July 2026

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Download Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall integrates DDoS protection, load balancing, and firewall capabilities. Its ease of use, configurability, and robust security measures make it a versatile choice for protecting web applications.

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides a comprehensive defense against threats with advanced reporting and robust security measures. It includes DNS integration, rate limiting, and extensive rule sets, all within a SaaS model that allows API configurability. Users value its caching, scalability, and pricing, although enhancements are needed in rate-limiting and third-party integration. Improvements in customer support, especially in India, real-time controls, and user documentation are also desired. Users seek a more intuitive dashboard, better log management, and improved alert systems, along with multitenancy capabilities and enhanced reporting.

What are the key features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

DDoS Protection: Shields applications from denial-of-service attacks
Load Balancing: Ensures efficient traffic distribution
DNS Integration: Enhances domain name system security
Rate Limiting: Controls traffic flow and reduces abuse
Extensive Rule Sets: Offers customizable security rules

What benefits and ROI can users find in reviews?

Scalability: Easily adapts to growing business needs
Pricing: Offers reasonable pricing structure
Caching: Improves application performance and speed
Configurable Security: Provides customizable defense settings
Efficient Management: Simplifies security and application control

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall finds application in industries like banking and retail by acting as a comprehensive security gateway, managing authentication and authorization while protecting web applications from malicious Layer 7 traffic. It also implements load balancing, CDN, and zero-trust policies, supported by advanced reporting, analytics tools, and threat scoring to meet specific industry needs.

Cloudflare

F5 Distributed Cloud Services excel in enhancing security, optimizing web application delivery, and ensuring robust network performance. Users value its integrated Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, global server load balancing, and intuitive management interface. It boosts organizational efficiency, reduces operational costs, and scales seamlessly, making it essential for businesses operating in distributed environments.

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway offers advanced traffic management and security features for web applications. It includes built-in rules, Layer 7 control, autoscaling, and integration options, providing flexibility and security for managing application traffic efficiently.

Azure Application Gateway is utilized by organizations for securing and managing web traffic with its comprehensive web application firewall, load balancing capabilities, and Layer 7 firewall rules. Known for its ease of setup and integration, the platform facilitates external application access and deploys secure services. While it enhances security with customized configurations, users note areas for improvement such as configuration complexity, pricing, third-party tool integration, and automation. Addressing these aspects can improve user experience and performance.

What are the key features of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Built-in Rules: Pre-configured rules help streamline traffic management and enhance security.
Layer 7 Control: Offers detailed traffic routing and policies based on application-level information.
Real-Time Autoscaling: Automatically adjusts resources to meet demand and optimize performance.
Comprehensive WAF Protection: Guards against web vulnerabilities and potential threats.
Seamless Integration: Easily integrates with Azure services for enhanced workflow efficiency.

What benefits do users look for in reviews?

Traffic Routing: Efficiently directs application traffic based on defined rules for improved performance.
Security: Provides robust protection for internet-facing applications.
Ease of Setup: Simplifies deployment and management of applications.
Flexibility: Supports different application scenarios with customizable configurations.

Industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail implement Azure Application Gateway to protect sensitive data and manage significant web traffic. Its application deployment support and security capabilities make it suitable for businesses needing to ensure secure data exchange and reliable access to online services.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Information Not Available

Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

June 2026

Free Report: F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

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