Fastly vs Fortinet FortiWeb comparison

Fastly and Fortinet are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Fastly is ranked #20 with an average rating of 9.0, while Fortinet is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.1. Fastly holds a 1.7% mindshare in WAF, compared to Fortinet’s 6.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fastly users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Fastly and Fortinet FortiWeb are both competitors in the web application security and performance optimization market. Fastly has an advantage in speed and simplicity, excelling in dynamic content delivery, while Fortinet FortiWeb is superior in comprehensive security capabilities, making it ideal for complex security requirements.

Features: Fastly provides a real-time CDN and edge cloud platform, allowing instant purging, origin shielding, and VCL configuration. Fortinet FortiWeb offers advanced threat protection, machine learning-based anomaly detection, and detailed analytics for attack prevention.

Room for Improvement: Fastly can enhance its focus on security to provide more comprehensive protection features similar to FortiWeb's offerings, which may include advanced threat detection and machine learning integrations. Fortinet FortiWeb can improve by simplifying its configuration and deployment processes and focusing on enhancing content delivery efficiency to match Fastly's speed.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fastly offers straightforward deployment and responsive customer support, ideal for businesses seeking quick setup. In contrast, Fortinet FortiWeb entails a more involved setup due to its advanced security features, but it offers extensive documentation and in-depth customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Fastly's on-demand pricing model is cost-efficient for businesses prioritizing agility and speed, offering quicker ROI. Fortinet FortiWeb, with its higher initial setup cost, provides long-term ROI through security breach prevention, making it a valuable investment for security-focused enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Fastly vs. Fortinet FortiWeb Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Fastly vs. Fortinet FortiWeb

April 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 May 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.7%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fastly is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiWeb is 6.0%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiWeb	6.0%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	4.7%
Fastly	1.7%
Other	87.6%

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.

Read full review

Pranay Jain

Senior software developer at Simplifyvms

Edge caching has transformed response times and delivers faster candidate data globally

Fastly can be improved in certain areas such as VCL, which is powerful but has a steep learning curve for normal users. A more user-friendly, UI-based configuration could simplify the experience, alongside better templates for common use cases and dashboard improvements, as the current dashboard feels complex for beginners, and pricing can be hard to predict for smaller companies. 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. However, VCL complexity and pricing predictability, especially for smaller companies, along with a user-friendly dashboard are areas impacting my score.

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HameedAhmed

Joint Director at PAA

Security threats have been reduced through seamless deployment and strong integration with other tools

I have used Fortinet FortiWeb's integration features. We have easily integrated all of the applications with the product. Most of the applications we are using are in-house built. My technical team is looking after the best features. I have not used it extensively for maybe two and a half years. I have been involved in the installation, but I am not actually using the product. I work with it from time to time but not extensively. I would assess Fortinet FortiWeb's adaptive machine learning and artificial intelligence as having new patches installed regarding artificial intelligence, but when we bought it, I think the learning feature was there. Now they have installed artificial intelligence features through patches. We have a complete portfolio of Fortinet in our organization, including FortiMail, Fortinet FortiWeb, and FortiGate, along with multi-factor authentication. All of the products are from Fortinet. Fortinet tools integrate with each other and work in conjunction. I think Fortinet FortiWeb has helped us meet regulatory compliance because we are not a regulatory organization, but our sister organization is regulatory. We have regulatory compliance with the International Civil Aviation Authority, whose audit teams have checked our data center and these security products, and they are satisfied with us. The question about leveraging Fortinet FortiWeb's automated policy management does not pertain to my domain because I am not so technical, but I am in a management role now. My engineer is more technical than me. I would rate this product an eight point five out of ten.

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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

"There is a huge signature repository"

"The setup process is very simple for me."

"Technical support has a very fast response time and they are helpful."

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

"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."

"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."

"It is a SaaS solution unlike much of the competition."

"Very glad the WAF rulesets works out of box, and requires very little tuning or maintenance."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"Its initial setup process is straightforward."

"In summary, this solution is easy to manage, quick to deploy, and all of my customers are happy."

"Fastly provides CDN, WAF, image optimization, and IP restriction."

"The product's initial setup phase is straightforward."

"Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly."

"Compute@Edge features are valuable to me."

"Fastly combines both the CDN side and the Signal Sciences next-generation WAF, which is closely integrated with the CDN, allowing us to use both products seamlessly."

"Initially, we faced load time issues, but after deploying Fastly and optimizing our queries, we achieved a response time cut to less than 1 millisecond from an initial 3 to 4 seconds."

More Fastly pros

"I have recently been looking at the SSL certificate features and the learning mode of the appliance. This appliance learns from the pattern of SSL attacks."

"When we had Cisco we had around thirty thousand entries on our firewalls, now we are down to three thousand because Fortinet has a mechanism to detect all of your entries which are not used, and it can clean it up."

"Other than the additional security with exploit protection, we have simpler certificate handling, as we can keep internal servers using internal certificates continuously distributed and updated by Active Directory Group Policy, while the public certificates become updated only in a single place, FortiWeb itself."

"It's the extra security that is the most valuable feature; you have insight into your traffic, there are some great insights into what utilities hackers are trying to exploit, and it blocks a lot of stuff from the internet."

"The ease of configuration is valuable. We have Azure WAF, we have OCI WAF, and we also have Cloud Armor for GCP, but their configuration isn't very easy. It's pretty simple in FortiWeb, and we can enable or configure whatever we want."

"FortiWeb is easy to operate with a reasonably high level of protection. FortiWeb provides multiple deployment options with a physical or virtual (FortiWeb-VM) appliance, and acts either as a reverse/transparent proxy or out-of-band. It is also available on AWS and Azure."

"Fortinet FortiWeb is priced well."

"The initial setup was straightforward, and it takes less time to deploy compared with other competitors."

More Fortinet FortiWeb pros

Cons

"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well."

"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."

"Its stability could be better."

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

"The reporting could be more granular."

"A key challenge arises when dealing with numerous integrations with HVAC systems. Depending on the specifics, there might be some configuration mismatches, which necessitate specific support."

"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."

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

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"It is missing a "staging" platform to deploy a test configuration with all of the real settings, which would allow us to properly test before putting it into production."

"The product should provide improved bot detection and management."

"Fastly's customer service area needs improvement."

"It's not easy to start with Fastly if you don't have VCL knowledge, so it appears very complex at the beginning."

"What I don't like about Fastly is that they charge a heavy price."

"The solution's pricing could be better."

"Fastly can be improved in certain areas such as VCL, which is powerful but has a steep learning curve for normal users."

"Support is not that great."

More Fastly cons

"In terms of performance, it needs to be more robust."

"There is room for improvement in pricing, and actually, the price is a bit higher because on the same terms I purchased, the support subscription is so high."

"One of our customers recently experienced a stability problem. The customer has two FortiWeb appliances in an HA cluster (A-P). Something happened and both FortiWeb units became MASTER."

"We would like the interface to be easier to use and more user-friendly. The interface needs to be enhanced."

"Technical support is average; it could improve."

"I would like to have an antivirus option."

"HA Architecture needs improvement. I would improve it by working on AP HA."

"It would be good if the solution integrated with other solutions, like SAP."

More Fortinet FortiWeb cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

"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."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"In my opinion, Fastly is priced competitively."

"Fastly is less expensive than one of its competitors."

"The solution is cheaper than other products in the market."

"It is an expensive solution."

"I've generally found Fastly to be very competitive in pricing, especially around Compute@Edge."

"You need to pay a premium price for the tool."

"The pricing has been very competitive."

"The costs are standard. We pay around $1,600 yearly."

"The pricing is in the middle. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten. It feels like a justified cost for the features."

"It's an expensive solution, although there are no additional costs."

"It is an expensive suite and it is an expensive solution, but it is a manageable one for an enterprise."

"This product offers two pricing options: a standard package and an advanced package."

"The solution gives us the best price to performance ratio."

"The cost isn't expensive."

"FortiWeb can be purchased in VM mode for a lower price and the same features."

More Fortinet FortiWeb pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

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	6
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	60
Midsize Enterprise	27
Large Enterprise	36

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fastly?

You need to pay a premium price for the tool.

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What needs improvement with Fastly?

I believe that Fastly should provide guidelines for their WAF blocking rules. It should be public what the rules are ...

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What is your primary use case for Fastly?

I am using Fastly in the Adobe Commerce Cloud project. In this project, it is working as a reverse proxy for CDN and ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?

The pricing for Fortinet FortiWeb varies with different models having different prices. It depends on the requirement...

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What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?

There is room for improvement in Fortinet FortiWeb. The team was only from FortiGate itself. They are making new firm...

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What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiWeb?

Fortinet FortiWeb is very good as a web application solution. I have been working with Fortinet FortiWeb since 2020.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 7% of the time

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Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

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Cloudflare vs Fastly

Compared 19% of the time

Akamai vs Fastly

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Imperva Application Security Platform vs Fastly

Compared 9% of the time

Uplynk vs Fastly

Compared 5% of the time

Radware DDoS vs Fastly

Compared 2% of the time

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F5 Advanced WAF vs Fortinet FortiWeb

Compared 15% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Fortinet FortiWeb

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs Fortinet FortiWeb

Compared 5% of the time

Fortinet FortiOS vs Fortinet FortiWeb

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Fortinet FortiWeb

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

May 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

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Buyer's Guide

Fastly

May 2026

Download Fastly product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiWeb

May 2026

Download Fortinet FortiWeb product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)

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

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?

CDN Integration: Delivers content quickly across global Points of Presence.
Signal Sciences’ WAF: Manages security threats effectively.
VCL Language: Offers customizable caching solutions.
Compute@Edge: Enables flexible architecture for HTML manipulation.
Image Optimization: Enhances performance with dynamic image delivery.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Performance Enhancement: Boosts website speed and response time.
Rapid Deployment: Allows for swift implementation and rollback.
Real-Time Visibility: Provides insights into cached content management.
Security and Stability: Ensures reliability against DDoS attacks and other threats.
Flexibility: Offers diverse network protection and infrastructure capabilities.

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.

Fastly

Fortinet FortiWeb provides advanced web application protection, using AI-driven threat detection and seamless integration with Fortinet products, ensuring robust security and easy management. It's favored for its scalability in protecting websites, mobile apps, and APIs from threats like SQL injection.

Fortinet FortiWeb offers robust web application security with features like machine learning-driven threat detection, load balancing, and OWASP protection. Its comprehensive security measures include web traffic filtering and DDoS protection, making it ideal for securing APIs and web servers. Cost-effectiveness and easy deployment further enhance its appeal as it serves banking, e-commerce, and industrial sectors. Areas needing enhancement include load balancing capabilities, comprehensive documentation, and improved support response times, addressing user-reported issues such as false positives and integration challenges. Documentation for cloud deployment is crucial for enhanced logging and performance stability.

What are Fortinet FortiWeb's Key Features?

Machine Learning: Detects threats using advanced algorithms.
AI-Driven Threat Detection: Provides automated responses to vulnerabilities.
Load Balancing: Distributes traffic across servers for efficiency.
Anti-Defacement: Protects websites from unauthorized alterations.
OWASP Protection: Guards against common web security vulnerabilities.

Why Consider Fortinet FortiWeb for Web Security?

Cost-Effectiveness: Provides affordable security solutions.
Reliability: Offers consistent performance in threat protection.
Easy Deployment: Simplifies the integration process into existing systems.
Robust Security: Delivers comprehensive protection against cyber threats.
Integration: Ensures compatibility with Fortinet's broader security ecosystem.

Companies across banking, e-commerce, and financial sectors implement Fortinet FortiWeb for its comprehensive security features in protecting web applications from SQL injection and cross-site scripting. Its use as a web application firewall provides essential protection and load-balancing capabilities, ensuring compliance with standards like PCI DSS in cloud environments and industrial settings.

Fortinet

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Twitter, Airbnb, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, The New York Times, Ticketmaster, The Drupal Association, Opera, about.com, imgur, Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, New Relic, shopify, Shazam, Firebase

Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG

Buyer's Guide

Fastly vs. Fortinet FortiWeb

April 2026

Free Report: Fastly vs. Fortinet FortiWeb

Find out what your peers are saying about Fastly vs. Fortinet FortiWeb and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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