AWS WAF vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Oct 30, 2022

We performed a comparison between AWS WAF and F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager LTM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Some AWS WAF users consider the setup to be simple while others find it complex. The majority of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager LTM find the deployment to be complex.
  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability.

    AWS WAF users like the solution’s access instructions feature, its flexibility, and that it doesn’t require hardware resources because it’s in the cloud. Reviewers mention the documentation could be improved, as could the solution’s UI.

    F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager LTM users like that the solution is easy to use and has good load balancing features. Users say they would like to see fewer false positives and better reporting. Like AWS WAF, they mention that the UI needs improvement.
  • Pricing: AWS WAF users consider the pricing to be affordable. In contrast, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager LTM users say the pricing is very expensive.
  • Service and Support: AWS WAF users feel the support could be better. In contrast, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager LTM users find the support to be very good.
  • ROI: Users of AWS WAF do not mention ROI. In contrast, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager LTM users report a positive one.

Comparison Results: AWS WAF's  pricing is more affordable, but users find that technical support for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager LTM is better, and mention a positive ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS WAF vs. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Report (Updated: January 2023).
765,234 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
"The product's initial setup phase was very simple.""AWS WAF is a stable solution. The performance of the solution is very good.""The interface is good.""The most valuable feature is the scalability because it automatically scales up or scales down as per our requirements.""The most valuable feature is the capability to limit access based on geographical location by restricting specific IP addresses.""The solution is stable.""The customized billing is the most valuable feature.""The product’s availability, ease of configuration, and documentation are valuable."

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"The setup is pretty easy.""It supports APIs and virtual additions for cloud and VMware.""The initial setup is easy.""The v11 clustering is a new technology they have brought in that does not require improvement. They are the leader in it.""Great load balancing.""The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP LTM is brand image and recognition and the application delivery controller.""The combination of ADC and WAN is the most valuable feature.""Currently, it's distributing the load perfectly, as per my understanding of our requirements."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Pros →

Cons
"Technical support for AWS WAF needs improvement.""It is sometimes a lot of work going through the rules and making sure you have everything covered for a use case. It is just the way rules are set and maintained in this solution. Some UI changes will probably be helpful. It is not easy to find the documentation of new features. Documentation not being updated is a common problem with all services, including this one. You have different versions of the console, and the options shown in the documentation are not there. For a new feature, there is probably an announcement about being released, but when it comes out, there is no actual documentation about how to use it. This makes you either go to technical support or community, which probably doesn't have an idea either. The documentation on the cloud should be the latest one. Finding information about a specific event can be a bit challenging. For this solution, not much documentation is available in the community. It could be because it is a new tool. Whenever there is an issue, it is just not that simple to resolve, especially if you don't have premium support. You have pretty much nowhere to look around, and you just need to poke around to try and make it work right.""An improvement area would be that it's more of a manual effort when you have to enable rules. That's one of the downsides. If that can be done in an automated way, it would be great. That's a lagging feature currently.""I would like to be able to view a graphical deployment map in the user interface that will give me an overview of the configuration and help to determine whether I have missed any steps.""On the UI side, I would like it if they could bring back the geolocation view on the corner.""They should make the implementation process faster.""There is room for improvement in pricing.""I would like to see it more tightly integrated with other AWS services."

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"For a future release, I would like to see more features in the cloud.""The pricing model has caused some frustration. My clients implemented the solution and later wanted to upgrade the features but the pricing structure was complicated. There are other solutions with better pricing models.""A lot of functions that are attributed to iRules can actually be simple profile changes. iRules do have a certain performance impact. Therefore, instead of writing simple iRules, they can create certain profiles for classes that will perform the same function.""Implementing whitepapers with a lot more applications could easily be added.""It is a hardware load balancer, and its installation procedure is more complex than a software load balancer. There are pros and cons of using hardware load balancing. You have to have specific hardware deployed in your data center to activate this load balancer. They never came up with any software-based load balancing solution. It is all hardware-based.""LTM would be improved with the inclusion of signature-based blocking.""We would like to see load balancing between the cloud and the on-premise, a straightforward deployment feature.""It would possibly help to get more training, even better in local languages."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It's an annual subscription."
  • "There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
  • "There are different scale options available for WAF."
  • "AWS is not that costly by comparison. They are maybe close to $40 per month. I think it was between $29 or $39."
  • "It has a variable pricing scheme."
  • "We are kind of doing a POC comparison to see what works best. Pricing-wise, AWS is one of the most attractive ones. It is fairly cheap, and we like the pricing part. We're trying to see what makes more sense operation-wise, license-wise, and pricing-wise."
  • "It's quite affordable. It's in the middle."
  • "The pricing should be more affordable, especially as it pertains to small clients."
  • More AWS WAF Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Though functionality is high, its cost can be considered slightly higher than its competitors​."
  • "The licensing pricing seems relatively easy enough to get your head around. I would advise anyone to ensure that you have a conversation with an F5 consultant before purchasing, as you would with most products."
  • "Take a look at the modules that you are going to use. Look into the best bundles for them."
  • "The only area that has room for improvement would be pricing, so its competitors do not have a say."
  • "If your IT budget is good, go for it."
  • "This product is costly from a licensing perspective considering its competitors."
  • "Check other vendors like Cisco, Citrix or A10 Networks. There are plenty in the market with which you can achieve same thing."
  • "Great product for the money. But they can get really expensive, so get what meets your needs."
  • More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Hi Varun I have had experienced with several WAF deployments and deep technical assessments of the following: 1. Imperva WAF 2. F5 WAF 3. Polarisec Cloud WAF Typical limitations on cloud WAF… more »
    Top Answer:Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft Azure Application Gateway web application firewall software was the better fit for… more »
    Top Answer:AWS WAF helps mitigate different kinds of bot attacks and SQL injection that happen within the retail industry.
    Top Answer:The support from F5 BIG-IP LTM is good.
    Top Answer:There are a few licensing options available for F5 BIG-IP LTM. You can have a perpetual license which is a lifetime license. You then only need to renew the support, if you choose to open a ticket… more »
    Top Answer:The pricing must be more flexible. We get billed for firewalls based on the usage. It will be helpful if the solution provides such flexibility.
    Ranking
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    Average Words per Review
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    Rating
    8.5
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    Average Words per Review
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    Rating
    8.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    AWS Web Application Firewall
    F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP
    Learn More
    Overview

    AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a firewall security system that monitors incoming and outgoing traffic for applications and websites based on your pre-defined web security rules. AWS WAF defends applications and websites from common Web attacks that could otherwise damage application performance and availability and compromise security.

    You can create rules in AWS WAF that can include blocking specific HTTP headers, IP addresses, and URI strings. These rules prevent common web exploits, such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting. Once defined, new rules are deployed within seconds, and can easily be tracked so you can monitor their effectiveness via real-time insights. These saved metrics include URIs, IP addresses, and geo locations for each request.

    AWS WAF Features

    Some of the solution's top features include:

    • Web traffic filtering: Get an extra layer of security by creating a centralized set of rules, easily deployable across multiple websites. These rules filter out web traffic based on conditions like HTTP headers, URIs, and IP addresses. This is very helpful for protection against exploits such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting as well as attacks from third-party applications.
    • Bot control: Malicious bot traffic can consume excessive resources and cause downtime. Gain visibility and control over bot traffic with a managed rule group. You can easily block harmful bots, such as scrapers and crawlers, and you can allow common bots, like search engines and status monitors.
    • Fraud prevention: Effectively defend your application against bot attacks by monitoring your application’s login page with a managed rule group that prevents hackers from accessing user accounts using compromised credentials. The managed rule group helps protect against credential stuffing attacks, brute-force login attempts, and other harmful login activities.
    • API for AWS WAF Management: Automatically create and maintain rules and integrate them into your development process.
    • Metrics for real-time visibility: Receive real-time metrics and captures of raw requests with details about geo-locations, IP addresses, URIs, user agents, and referrers. Integrate seamlessly with Amazon CloudWatch to set up custom alarms when events or attacks occur. These metrics provide valuable data intelligence that can be used to create new rules that significantly improve your application protections.
    • Firewall management: AWS Firewall Manager automatically scans and notifies the security team when there is a policy violation, so they can swiftly take action. When new resources are created, your security team can guarantee that they comply with your organization’s security rules.

    Reviews from Real Users

    AWS WAF stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its user-friendly interface and its integration capabilities.

    Kavin K., a security analyst at M2P Fintech, writes, “I believe the most impressive features are integration and ease of use. The best part of AWS WAF is the cloud-native WAF integration. There aren't any hidden deployments or hidden infrastructure which we have to maintain to have AWS WAF. AWS maintains everything; all we have to do is click the button, and WAF will be activated. Any packet coming through the internet will be filtered through.”

    F5 BIG-IP LTM optimizes the speed and reliability of your apps via both network and application layers. Using real-time protocol and traffic management decisions based on app and server and connection management conditions, and TCP and content offloading, BIG-IP LTM dramatically improves application and infrastructure responsiveness. BIG-IP LTM's architecture includes protocol awareness to control traffic for the most important applications. BIG-IP LTM tracks the dynamic performance levels of servers and delivers SSL performance and visibility for inbound and outbound traffic, to protect the user experience by encrypting everything from the client to the server.

    BIG-IP LTM provides enterprise-class Application Delivery Controller (ADC). You get granular layer 7 control, SSL offloading and acceleration capabilities, and advanced scaling technologies that deliver performance and reliability on-demand. The highly optimized TCP/IP stack combines TCP/IP techniques and improvements in the latest RFCs with extensions to minimize the effect of congestion and packet loss and recovery. Independent testing tools and customer experiences show LTM's TCP stack delivers up to a 2x performance gain for users and a 4x increase in bandwidth efficiency.

    Sample Customers
    eVitamins, 9Splay, Senao International
    Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company25%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Energy/Utilities Company8%
    Media Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider20%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Media Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government9%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise44%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise64%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise68%
    Buyer's Guide
    AWS WAF vs. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)
    January 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about AWS WAF vs. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and other solutions. Updated: January 2023.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    AWS WAF is ranked 1st in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 51 reviews while F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is ranked 1st in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 116 reviews. AWS WAF is rated 8.2, while F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of AWS WAF writes "A highly stable solution that helps mitigate different kinds of bot attacks and SQL injection attacks". On the other hand, the top reviewer of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) writes "Helps deliver applications to users in a reliable, secure, and optimized way". AWS WAF is most compared with Azure Web Application Firewall, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, Imperva Web Application Firewall and F5 Advanced WAF, whereas F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is most compared with Citrix NetScaler, Fortinet FortiADC, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, NGINX Plus and HAProxy. See our AWS WAF vs. F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report.

    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.