We performed a comparison between Cloudflare and F5 Advanced WAF based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host."
"The technical support is good."
"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."
"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."
"This solution inspects your traffic and based on that, automatically create distinct qualities for you, so you can add this to the policy already created. That's what I like most."
"This solution is an enterprise-class firewall that provides both load-balancing and security."
"The solution is easily accessible on mobile and laptop devices."
"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the overall capabilities, there is not a comparable solution on the market."
"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the balancer and you can change policies very easily."
"F5 Advanced WAF has very good stability and scalability. Its initial setup was straightforward."
"Good technology for mitigating different application attacks, e.g. DDoS, DNS, and layer seven attacks."
"The solution isn't too expensive. The license allows you to license what you need and leave out what you don't need."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."
"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."
"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."
"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."
"The product needs to improve its automation."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve resource usage, it is CPU intensive. Additionally, adding automated remediation would be a benefit. For example, an easy button alerts us of the events that are occurring, and what we want to do at the time. An automated approach where somebody could be alerted very quickly. Instead of going and reconfiguring everything, an automated approach is what I'm looking at."
"People who want to work with the device have to be pro in Linux"
"There should be more ability to rate limit certain scenarios. The majority of the time, it is either on or off. For certain types of use cases, there should be the ability to rate limit, not just enable or disable."
"The BIG-IQ is supposed to centralize the management for all of the boxes but it's not very effective."
"The reporting could be clearer and embedded to include our movement data."
"I would say their graphical interface, the GUI. I don't like the GUI as much as before."
"I would like to see the API Protection improved."
"The interface is old-looking, it's not modern, which is why it's not always comfortable to use."
Cloudflare is ranked 1st in Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection with 57 reviews while F5 Advanced WAF is ranked 2nd in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 55 reviews. Cloudflare is rated 8.4, while F5 Advanced WAF is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cloudflare writes "It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of F5 Advanced WAF writes "Flexible configuration, reliable, and highly professional support". Cloudflare is most compared with Akamai, Azure Front Door, Imperva DDoS, AWS Shield and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, whereas F5 Advanced WAF is most compared with Fortinet FortiWeb, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, AWS WAF, Imperva Web Application Firewall and Fastly. See our Cloudflare vs. F5 Advanced WAF report.
We monitor all Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection 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.
