Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs F5 Advanced WAF comparison

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8,483 views|6,180 comparisons
93% willing to recommend
F5 Logo
12,122 views|9,561 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cloudflare Web Application Firewall and F5 Advanced WAF 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 Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. F5 Advanced WAF Report (Updated: March 2024).
770,428 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It protects web applications efficiently.""We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches.""We like that there's load balancing, firewall capabilities, DDoS protection, et cetera, all covered by Cloudflare.""It is configurable via API.""Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes.""The initial setup process is simple.""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."

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"The best solution for WAF.""The initial setup was was easy to install.""F5 Advanced WAF has very good stability and scalability. Its initial setup was straightforward.""This solution is an enterprise-class firewall that provides both load-balancing and security.""It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the rules per the requirements.""The product has valuable features for load balancing, monitoring tools, and HPXpress services.""One of the most valuable features is the Local Traffic Manager.""I like the security features, especially against SQL injection."

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Cons
"They have some limitations with third-party integrations.""There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules.""Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features.""The blocked logs are difficult to read at times.""It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms.""Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well. They have documentation for everything you're looking for, but they lack a single piece of documentation to tie everything together. As a new user or beginner, it took us a little bit of time to figure out how to put all these things in place.""The ModSecurity core rules need to be updated.""If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."

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"I would not expect traffic details to pass through the web application firewall across the length of the whole application. I think that there is a web application where it can let the application function without traffic going in into the WAF.""The reporting portion of F5 Advance WAF is not great. They need to work out something better, as it is very basic. You only see the top IPs, I think there is more they can offer.""They should work on the virtualization of NGINX.""It should be a little bit easy to deploy in terms of the overall deployment session. One of our customers is a bit unhappy about the reporting options. Currently, it automatically deletes event logs after some limit if a customer doesn't have any external Syslog server. It is a problem for those customers who want to review event logs after a week or so because they won't get proper reports or event logs. They should increase the duration to at least a month or two for storing the data on the device. F5 is not a leader in Gartner Quadrant, which affects us when we go and pitch this solution. Customers normally go and take a look at such annual reports, and because F5 is currently not there as a leader, the customers ask about it even though we are saying it is good in all things. F5 is not known for something totally different or unique. They were a major player in ADP, and they are just rebranding themselves into security. They should improve or increase their marketing as a security company now. They have already started to do that, but they should do it more so that when it comes to security, customers can easily remember F5. At the moment, if we say F5, load balancing comes to mind. With rebranding and marketing, all customers should get the idea that F5 is now mainly focusing on the security part of it, and it is a security company instead of load balancing. This is the first solution that should come to a customer's mind for a web application firewall.""The pricing could be more flexible.""The BNS module needs improvement.""Scalability could be improved.""Its price should be better. It is expensive."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
  • "We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
  • "The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
  • "Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
  • "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."
  • "The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
  • "Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
  • More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The pricing is too high."
  • "I think the price is very high."
  • "After buying the program, you just pay for the support every year."
  • "Licensing fees for this solution are paid on a yearly basis."
  • "It's more expensive than other solutions and depending on the modules, there can be additional fees."
  • "F5 bundles up services and the bundle is what you pay for rather than individual components."
  • "Its price is fair. We have done a couple of deals where they were able to give some kind of discount to the customers. The price was initially high for the customers, but after a couple of negotiations, it came within their budget. They were happy with that."
  • "There are various plans available for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF as a Service, including a trial version."
  • More F5 Advanced WAF Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The product has a valuable security control functionality.
    Top Answer:Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions.
    Top Answer:The platform's control features related to real-time authentication and response time need improvement.
    Top Answer:It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the rules per the requirements.
    Top Answer:The self-service aspect could be improved. The user interface (UI) also seems a bit outdated. Making it more user-friendly would be beneficial.
    Ranking
    Views
    8,483
    Comparisons
    6,180
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    376
    Rating
    8.2
    Views
    12,122
    Comparisons
    9,561
    Reviews
    22
    Average Words per Review
    415
    Rating
    8.6
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Cloudflare WAF
    Learn More
    Overview

    Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

    F5 Advanced WAF is a web application security solution for financial and government sectors, e-commerce, and public-facing websites. It offers protection against various attacks, including botnets, web scraping, and foreign entities. The solution can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud and is often used with other security tools. Its most valuable features include DDoS and DNS attack protection, SSL uploading, anomaly detection, and the ability to input custom rules. 

    F5 Advanced WAF has helped organizations to expose more services to the public while providing an extra layer of protection, preventing revenue loss, and securing connectivity.

    Sample Customers
    crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
    MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Insurance Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization24%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm34%
    Computer Software Company25%
    Non Tech Company6%
    Media Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Government7%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business61%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise28%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise36%
    Large Enterprise42%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise65%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. F5 Advanced WAF
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. F5 Advanced WAF and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    770,428 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is ranked 7th in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 16 reviews while F5 Advanced WAF is ranked 2nd in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 55 reviews. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is rated 8.2, while F5 Advanced WAF is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall writes "A cloud solution for web application firewall protection with rate-limiting, managed, and custom firewall rules". On the other hand, the top reviewer of F5 Advanced WAF writes "Flexible configuration, reliable, and highly professional support". Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is most compared with Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, Akamai App and API Protector, AWS WAF, Fortinet FortiWeb and Imperva Web Application Firewall, whereas F5 Advanced WAF is most compared with Fortinet FortiWeb, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, AWS WAF, Imperva Web Application Firewall and F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). See our Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. F5 Advanced WAF report.

    See our list of best Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendors.

    We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.