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F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs Salt Security comparison

 

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:
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Ranking in API Security
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
CDN (6th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (16th)
Salt Security
Ranking in API Security
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
AI Security (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the API Security category, the mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 3.8%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salt Security is 7.4%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salt Security7.4%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services3.8%
Other88.8%
API Security
 

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.
Tbaker Baker - PeerSpot reviewer
Risk Advisory Senior Manager at a marketing services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Behavioral AI has protected critical applications and now blocks complex external attacks
I think Salt Security could improve their implementations. The one that I saw was very complex and took quite a bit of time, and if the environment is unique at all, it takes quite a bit of time to figure out how to properly ensure that it will be implemented. A lot of times there is a steep learning curve for someone that hasn't been in it to figure out the APIs and really dig deep into it, but once you get used to it, it is easy. However, that ramp-up period could be tough. I think Salt Security could use a more enterprise focus. Some of the smaller companies that I have referred them to think it is a little bit too complex for them, so if they could come up with a different version or something a little bit easier to simplify their platform, they may be able to find more customers that way.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well."
"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."
"Technical support from F5 is good compared to Cisco and HP."
"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."
"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
"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."
"Salt Security gives you visibility of all your APIs, identifies API security issues, and immediately alerts you of attacks."
"It's really great. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. I haven't encountered any instability issues."
"Salt Security gave me much better visibility into API risk, helping me identify exposed endpoints, misconfigured APIs, and sensitive data flowing through APIs that required additional controls, and it has become an important part of my API security program."
"Salt Security has positively impacted my organization and my client's organization by being able to stop cyberattacks and ensure that they have proper security over all their applications, giving them a sense of peace of mind that they have security over something that could ultimately take down the whole company if not mitigated properly."
 

Cons

"Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed."
"For small players, it is completely not worth it."
"One area where F5 Distributed Cloud Services can be improved is in API security, which can be enhanced."
"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The integration part could be a bit extended."
"Regarding scalability, for users in smaller environments, it is not exactly the best."
"The setup cost was acceptable, but adding additional APIs was actually quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
No data available
 

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 Salt Security?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that I think it was affordable. For smaller companies, it might be a barrier to entry, but for the large enterprise that I was working with,...
What needs improvement with Salt Security?
I think Salt Security could improve their implementations. The one that I saw was very complex and took quite a bit of time, and if the environment is unique at all, it takes quite a bit of time to...
What is your primary use case for Salt Security?
My main use case for Salt Security is that one of my clients uses it as a security vendor for their security across all of their overlying applications. I can give you a specific example of how my ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Salt Security API Protection Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Appsflyer, Armis, City National Bank, Coralogix, Finastra, Gett, Honeybook, Payoneer
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Salt Security and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.