F5 Advanced WAF Reviews

I was working in sales. We would provide more corporate products. I am not implementing or deploying this solution. I would sell it for projects in the enterprise direction, but it was mostly for financial institutions and some government companies.

It usually used for e-commerce and financial services. Products that banks provide to their customers. It also offers protection of the services.

It is easy to use, and it's also easy to configure. 

The most valuable feature is that it is secure.

The interface is old-looking, it's not modern, which is why it's not always comfortable to use.

I would hope that they provide some updates sooner rather than later.

I have used F5 Advanced WAF for three months in the last year.

We were using the latest version and we update on a regular basis.

It's a very stable solution.

This is a scalable product.

Our customers are in the banking system and we have approximately 200 to a few thousand customers.

We have official support from the distribution channel. One of our distributors is in Ukraine.

They have their own support definition provided with some certifications who are responsible for providing support at the vendor level.

We usually ask for their support and they provide it to us.

Previously, we used BIG-IP and we used Web Application Firewall.

I was not involved in the installation.

I am currently working on a B2C channel, which is more for retail companies.

I have also been working with Apple company for a little bit more than a month.

I am working with all-in-one products with all services included.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it. It's not popular in our country but it's unique in itself. There are some segments that became more important on a regular basis, especially for large companies and enterprise segments.

It's a secure product. I would rate F5 Advanced WAF an eight out of ten.

On-premises

We are a system integrator and we design solutions for our customers. We provide all kinds of networking solutions, as well as security, and we are sometimes responsible for the integration as well.

We are partners with F5 and this is one of the solutions that we provide to our clients.

Our customers are organizations, including government departments, who use their firewall for load-balancing purposes. However, for some time now, they have wanted to add an additional layer of security, which is why they implement this solution.

We normally propose the on-premises deployment model to our customers.

This solution is an enterprise-class firewall that provides both load-balancing and security.  Once it's deployed, it works smoothly and without issue.

I would like to see the pricing of this solution improved. There are a lot of other products that are trying to compete with this solution, and there are a few now that are very good. I know that F5 doesn't always worry about the pricing because of the branding, but if they want to capture more of the market then they need to consider that not everybody thinks about the brand. Some are concerned with the price, and some of the competitors offer solutions at a lower cost. While it is true that price is only one of the things that people consider, it is one of the major factors that can cause them to lose the battle to a competitor.

This solution can be made more user-friendly.

We have been proposing this solution to customers for ten years.

This is an enterprise-class product, and as long it is deployed properly it is quite stable. We have not had any issues post-deployment. This is one of the reasons that customers are paying for F5.

This is a very scalable solution.

Technical support for this solution is good. We have had a couple of tickets, and it was pretty good.

The complexity of the initial setup is on a case-by-case basis.

If the customer is primarily interested in load-balancing then it is straightforward and it takes a few days. Once the customer is ready with all of their information, it doesn't take much time. In more advanced scenarios, it can take months to fully set up and configure.

Keep in mind that this is an enterprise-level product, so many of the competitors will take less time in setup. Not every engineer can configure F5 WAF.

We perform the integration for our clients. We have our own deployment team that keeps up to date with the latest features in the market. They have the latest training materials and are aware of technical changes that are happening when it comes to these solutions.

When we have this kind of project, one person will be dedicated to the deployment and they will ensure that the solution has been deployed properly. After this, things will be taken care of by the general engineering team. We have a pool of resources who can handle maintenance such as upgrades.

Licensing fees for this solution are paid on a yearly basis.

My advice to anybody who is considering this solution is to have clarity with respect to their own scenario, or application. They have to know what they are expecting out of this deployment. As the system integrator, I may not be sure about the client's applications or how they work internally, so I have to rely on them.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use this solution because we provide a platform that requires a lot of security.

The solution is deployed on cloud.

We have thousands of external users.

I like the security features, especially against SQL injection.

I would like to see additional controls.

I have been using this solution for a year.

The stability is reasonably good. There haven't been any major issues so far.

It's scalable. We haven't had any major issues so far.

We went through the managed service partner, so they did the deployment. Deployment took about 15 days.

We have a few IT experts for maintenance. 

Implementation was done in-house.

I would rate this solution eight out of ten. 

My advice is to do a thorough testing of the application.

Public Cloud

We use the F5  Web Application firewall to protect our corporate web server. The security of our web is our absolute highest priority.

We've only been using this solution for six months now, so we can't really see any improvement yet.

The most valuable feature is network detection intelligence and the ability to get extra internal access. I don't have knowledge about all the functions but, because it is a fully automatic process, the devices scan a lot of traffic. It is automatically set up to protect our web.

The administrator's user interface and some of the settings can sometimes be very complicated to understand. It would really help if they could be easier and more user-friendly. Perhaps the developers can add a training video that shows users what to do. I am sure it is a good product and you only need some experience to become familiar with it.

Another thing that may need improvement, is upgrading from one version to another. It is good, but it can be faster. 

We've been testing the F5 -BIG-AWF-VE Web Application for six months now and we plan to implement the solution in July.

It is a very stable solution. We currently have three administrators and about 300 users working on it.

The scalability is great because we can change or set this device up for almost everything. We can even extend to other functions and buy new licenses - this product will automatically adapt to these new functions. For example, we can buy a license and F5 will automatically extend to these functions. It is a very simple process to extend functionality to this device. You only need to install the license and configure it.

The technical support is perfect. Our company is a corporate partner, and we can also use services directly from other international support centers.

It was a very difficult decision to find the right solution. We used open source software before to protect our system's open source architecture.
We switched to F5 WAF because, for us, professional services are absolutely necessary. There are other cheaper options on the market, but when you need support, it can sometimes be a problem. 

We've incorporated our partner and he initiated the setup of this device. He used both the manual and the automatic setup options, and then he compared the two options. And now, as we are in production, we choose either automatic setup or manual setup. The automatic setup is quite easy, but the manual setup is complicated. It all depends on what you want from the product.

Our partner was responsible for the initial setup. 

I will rate the product a nine out of ten. 

I work for a bank and our use case of WAF is to protect our applications, including mobile ones. We are users of this solution and I am an IT specialist engineer. 

Protection from attacks is the best feature of this product. 

We sometimes get pages with false positives. The F5 team does its best to deal with this problem. I'd like to see this product compatible with more mobile applications, like protecting something devices from a malicious server or from the mobile application itself.

We've been using this solution for one year. 

The stability is good. 

The version we are using is not very scalable. 

The technical support is generally good although in some cases they take a long time to respond and we then need to escalate the case to get an answer from a higher level. The team is mature and they are able to solve our problems.

Positive

F5 has good documentation available on their website so deployment is relatively straightforward. 

This is a mature solution and a very powerful device for protecting web applications. I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

On-premises

We have many types of service, provided by the company.

We can monitor IP locations, but we have constraints from each country. It has a replication feature. Licenses can be shared, taking turns with each license.

The reporting could be clearer and embedded to include our movement data. The product could improve the interface by reducing the bookmarking more frequently and some other features. Ideally, it could do with a brand new interface. There is sometimes information overload in the logs. It is sometimes difficult to detect attacks on the firewall because it is hidden amongst many other data. The logs are not always helpful in this regard. I was disappointed in the reporting.

We have been using F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall for about one year and the same for Fortinet FortiWeb.

Scalability is fine, and we don't have any complaints so far. It's flexible once you want to expand it, but that includes the license upgrade for additional features.

We use a reseller for technical support. Technical support is very good.

We have looked at other options, but they have different solutions to the F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall.

Setup and installation are easy.

We use the reseller to implement it from scratch until it is fully deployed. Implementation does not take long.

There are various plans available for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF as a Service, including a trial version. You are only charged by the total data transferred, and there are hourly charges for the protected web application.

We are constantly looking out for features which are not available in the current product. We have set alerts to flag when these features become available.

I would rate this solution as 9 out of 10. They can combine firewall software with other software solutions with this product. It has a good community to see what other ideas for the product are out there.

Public Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

I worked with the solution before starting at this new company and I'm now implementing it in my new job. I'm head of security at our company and we are a customer of NGINX Web Application Firewall. 

The product is very easy to use and they provide great support. I like the dashboard and reporting. 

The scalability could be improved. There is a version with 25 and 200 Mbps, no options in between

I've been using this solution for one year.

It's a stable solution. I haven't had any problems with it. 

The technical support is good, I'm happy with it.  

The initial setup is straightforward. 

I would rate this product an eight out of 10. 

On-premises

We use this program 24/7 as a firewall to block malicious requests. We update regularly.

The solution speeds up our web application speed. This increases the availability of our services, because of the web base load balancer. It also improves our application security because of the additional features of the web application firewall. So our website works faster and better and it has a lower impact on our servers.

The features I find most valuable is the behavior analysis and the additional subscription for global threats. It's an additional feature, which I haven't seen in another solution. I also like the DDos protection behavior too, because some DDos are quite a problem and we have problems with it.

I am very happy with the interface, the dashboard, and the reports. Whenever I see a malicious request, I can see if I blocked it and then I can decide if I want to accept or decline. I am therefore completely happy with the ability to report and so on. 

This solution is the best out there on the market. One thing that can be improved, is to increase the quantity over predefine policy. I know it's impossible to do it all, but what I would have liked to increase the ready-to-deploy templates with only a few clicks.

I've been using the solution for four months on our premises now.

I have had no issues with the stability. Even my friends with bigger installation systems are satisfied with the stability. I believe it depends on how many features you use. I have also had no issues with clusters or software update signature updates. I believe this program is even more stable than the Windows server.

Whenever I need more performance, I just buy upgrade licenses and additional license keys. So scalability is a question of paying more. It is simple. Everybody who uses the site employs external clients. 

When I asked support for help they answered the same day with the answer. But it was small issues. I haven't had any serious bugs or any troubleshooting.

I have used different products with lower segments in other solutions. Some were magic when it comes to security and availability but they don't provide visibility on how it works, how it secures and so on. And there is no additional protection from both ends to have a behavior analysis. That is why we chose Advanced WAF. We chose it because of its additional features. We need a solution that is stable and that can offer deep analysis.  

The installment was straightforward and it took us about two hours. Deployment took a week or maybe two to complete. Complete installation for such a complex system is quite fast. 

After buying the program, you just pay for the support every year.

I definitely recommend this solution because of the time you save on analysis. It is a stable program and you get additional features. The more you work on it, the more features you discover. I rate this solution ten out of ten.