We performed a comparison between F5 Advanced WAF and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, F5 Advanced WAF seems to be the superior solution. Our reviewers find that the questions concerning Microsoft Azure Application Gateway’s stability and scalability make it a riskier investment than F5 Advanced WAF.
"Identification, ease of use, and ease of modifying it to most of our needs are valuable."
"F5 Advanced WAF has very good stability and scalability. Its initial setup was straightforward."
"iRules are quite appealing when it comes to F5."
"It is easy to obtain dashboard compliance because security policy views are included."
"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the overall capabilities, there is not a comparable solution on the market."
"The solution isn't too expensive. The license allows you to license what you need and leave out what you don't need."
"F5 technical support is excellent. They are experts who always provide the right solution, and they understand the problem. Their response and resolution times are good."
"The solution is easily accessible on mobile and laptop devices."
"The health probe is pretty good for your backend health. It tells you whether it's communicating and talking to the endpoint correctly. It is quite useful."
"The solution's most valuable feature is an HTTP solution and SSL certificate. It is also easy to use."
"I rate Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's scalability a ten out of ten. My company has more than 1000 users who use it daily."
"Good customization; able to report and take action on alerts."
"I find Application Gateway’s WAF module valuable because it helps prevent layer 7 attacks."
"I like the tool's stability and performance."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"In my experience, Microsoft products have a smooth integration and facilitate easy management and monitoring. Using Azure Application Gateway allows us to efficiently handle the system loads."
"Its price should be better. It is expensive."
"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."
"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 deployment side is quite complex."
"I would like to see a better interface and better documentation compatibility with other products. It's more complicated with OWASP."
"They could provide better pricing."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve the reporting. It's a bit difficult to populate, them. If you're not so familiar with the functions, such as where to find the logs and other settings."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve on its funding for WAF features. There is a need to be more advanced WAF features."
"The solution could improve by increasing the performance when doing updates. For example, if I change the certificate it can take 30 minutes. Other vendors do not have this type of problem."
"Needs easier integration with the existing SIAM."
"The product's performance should be better."
"One of the challenges we faced was the solution does not support any other PCP protocols apart from HTTP and HTTPS."
"The tool's pricing could be improved."
"The solution has many limitations. You cannot upgrade the VPN to the application gateway. So I started with version one, which has limited capabilities, and they provided version two. And unfortunately, I cannot upgrade from v one to v two like other services. So I have to decommission the version one and create a new one with version two. Also the version one was complex with the certificates uploading the SQL certificates."
"The working speed of the solution needs improvement."
"It could be easier to change servicing."
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Pricing and Cost Advice →
F5 Advanced WAF is ranked 2nd in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 55 reviews while Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is ranked 3rd in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 40 reviews. F5 Advanced WAF is rated 8.6, while Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is rated 7.2. The top reviewer of F5 Advanced WAF writes "Flexible configuration, reliable, and highly professional support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway writes "High stability with built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure". F5 Advanced WAF is most compared with Fortinet FortiWeb, AWS WAF, Imperva Web Application Firewall, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, whereas Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is most compared with AWS WAF, Citrix NetScaler, Azure Front Door, Cloudflare Web Application Firewall and HAProxy. See our F5 Advanced WAF vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway 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.
