Arbor DDoS vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) comparison

NETSCOUT and F5 are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. NETSCOUT is ranked #2 with an average rating of 9.0, while F5 is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.6. NETSCOUT holds a 14.8% mindshare in DDOS, compared to F5’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of NETSCOUT users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of F5 users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Arbor DDoS and F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager compete in the DDoS protection and network security category. Arbor has the upper hand in user-friendliness and traffic visibility, while F5 AFM excels in integration with other F5 modules.

Features: Arbor DDoS includes predefined filters for easy attack mitigation, cloud signaling for coordination between on-premises and service provider protection, and real-time threat intelligence for proactive defense. Its hybrid approach provides multi-layer protection. F5 BIG-IP AFM offers unified network security by integrating with other F5 solutions, advanced WAF capabilities for robust application defense, and simplifies management with its modular integration.

Room for Improvement: Arbor DDoS users seek improvements in auto-mitigation features, scalability of hardware, and better third-party integration. They also suggest enhancements in reporting and reducing false positives. F5 AFM could benefit from a simpler user interface, improved reporting, and enhanced automation capabilities. Customers also desire more intuitive configuration logic and better integration with BIG-IQ.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Arbor DDoS supports on-premises and hybrid cloud deployments and is known for its good technical support, though response times vary by region. F5 AFM also supports both deployment models, with responsive customer service noted for occasional delays. Both products offer strong technical expertise, with Arbor noted for deep product knowledge.

Pricing and ROI: Arbor DDoS is regarded as high-performing but expensive compared to competitors, with costs related to enterprise throughput and managed routers. Its clear licensing is a positive, though overall expenses are a concern. F5 AFM, while also costly, provides value through integrated features. Both deliver significant ROI by mitigating costly DDoS attacks and ensuring service uptime.

To learn more, read our detailed Arbor DDoS vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

January 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 838,640 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 18.8%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Arbor DDoS is 14.8%, up from 12.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is 1.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

Read full review

Tushar Sail

Sr.Manager - IT at Reliance Industries Ltd

A critical solution for security, as it includes features that can automatically detect and prevent DDoS attacks

Arbor DDoS offers security features that automatically detect and prevent DDoS attacks. When a DDoS attack is detected targeting a specific IP, the Arbor device immediately becomes in line with the traffic and actively works to prevent the attack. This auto feature is one of the best aspects of Arbor DDoS, as it ensures timely and effective protection against such attacks.

Read full review

Richard Polyak

Sr. Architect at NBC Universal

Straightforward setup with very good granularity and performance

Our company uses the solution as a data center firewall. It is hard to determine all users within our infrastructure. It depends on systems we put behind the solution. Its internal but also a data center firewall. Sometimes, there are hooks from the solution to our external infrastructure or…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The UI is good."

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."

"Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick."

"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."

"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."

More Cloudflare pros

"Reporting is quite good. There are several pages of reporting on DDoS attacks, and you can find all the details that you need."

"In the GUI, the packet capture is a very good option, as is the option to block an IP address."

"It is fully mitigating the attacks. We've dealt with other ones where we didn't necessarily see that. The detection is very good. It's also very simple to use. Arbor is a single pane of glass, whereas with other solutions you might have a detection pane of glass and then have to go to a separate interface to deal with the mitigation. That single pane of glass makes it much simpler."

"The solution is easy to use."

"The artificial intelligence feature is most appreciated. This solution can lower the throughput and clear the traffic, which is something really important for us. It also provides good protection. It is user-friendly, and its integration has also been really fast. We have many critical applications, and it was easy to integrate Arbor DDoS with our website, mobile application, and web banking."

"Analytics and its attack mitigation capabilities are valuable features of the solution."

"It's just one dashboard with mitigation. You decide which mitigation you want and at what threshold to do this or that. Its operation is pretty simple. It's easy."

"Arbor has the ability to learn and self-create the appropriate profile for each customer."

More Arbor DDoS pros

"It blocks various attacks and mitigates disasters from occurring."

"The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP AFM is all of my workers enjoy using it."

"CGNAT is one of its strong areas."

"The features of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager that have proven most effective in securing the network are significant."

"Its performance and ease of use are valuable."

"I find the signature base is very helpful to see traffic"

"This product excells in every aspect from installation and the interface to providing superior network security."

"The protection is very useful."

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) pros

Cons

"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."

"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."

"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."

"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."

"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."

"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."

More Cloudflare cons

"On the main page there are alerts that we are unable to clear, even though the issue has been resolved."

"Real-case scenarios that have taken too long to resolve or were escalated can be directly converted into articles."

"There is definitely room for improvement in third-party intelligence and integrations."

"The regional support here in African could improve, such as marketing and account managers."

"Implementation could be better."

"Sometimes it blocks legitimate traffic. If a legitimate user is trying to access the server continuously, the product suspects that this is a DoS traffic file. That is a case where it needs to improve. It needs machine-learning."

"They should improve the reporting section and make it a little bit more detailed. I would like to have much better and more detailed reports."

"The support got worse after NETSCOUT acquired Arbor."

More Arbor DDoS cons

"We needed to protect the database but the solution didn't offer a certain feature to do so."

"Apart from the price, I feel no other areas need improvement."

"It doesn't compare to next generation firewalls"

"Some spam can go by the firewall."

"F5 could provide a distributed cloud version."

"We would have preferred to have support when we first started"

"There is room for improvement in Advanced Firewall Manager's dashboard statistics, especially during attacks."

"The pricing of the solution could be a little bit better."

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is slightly on the higher side."

"I don't know about the pricing details as our company's service provider offers us the solution as an inbuilt feature within the internet bandwidth they provide us."

"The price is a little high."

"The solution is a bit costly if you're a small organization, but I think it's worth the price that they are charging."

"As far as I know, they are the best in this sector, in DDoS protection. They know it, I know, because their service prices are too high. They provide cloud DDoS protection for ISPs, but that is also too expensive."

"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is expensive when compared to other tools."

"Start with a small license. Measure your bandwidth requirements."

"Our customers always complain about the price of the product."

More Arbor DDoS pricing and cost advice

"As per pricing, I would not say cheap, but little higher than cheap, but not very expensive. So you can say kind of value for money solutions."

"The solution is slightly on the higher priced side."

"We have purchased a five-year licensing package for the product."

"It's very expensive, and you pay extra for the models."

"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager is not an expensive solution."

"F5 BIG-IP AFM is an affordable solution. There were not any additional fees other than the standard licensing."

"The price of F5 BIG-IP AFM is a little more expensive than other firewalls on the market."

"We need to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

24%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

18%

Insurance Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?

Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cloudflare?

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

See all answers

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other soluti...

See all answers

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would...

See all answers

What do you like most about Arbor DDoS?

The quality of the technical support provided by Arbor DDoS is premium.

See all answers

What do you like most about F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?

CGNAT is one of its strong areas.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?

The price of the solution presents a challenge.

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?

I have encountered challenges with the price of the solution. Apart from the price, I feel no other areas need improv...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

AWS Shield vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Radware DDoS Protection Service vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 21% of the time

Corero vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 9% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 7% of the time

A10 Thunder TPS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 6% of the time

Nexusguard DDoS Protection vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 4% of the time

More Arbor DDoS Competitors

AWS Shield vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 16% of the time

Radware DDoS Protection Service vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 15% of the time

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

February 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS

February 2025

Download Arbor DDoS product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

February 2025

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

Download F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Arbor Networks SP, Arbor Networks TMS, Arbor Cloud for ENT

F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“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. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Cloudflare

Arbor DDoS provides effective mitigation against DDoS attacks with a user-friendly interface, integrating cloud and on-premise solutions for real-time traffic control and reporting. It supports large traffic volumes without latency, making it ideal for protecting online infrastructure.

Known for its intuitive GUI and rapid response, Arbor DDoS defends against complex DDoS threats using AI-driven anomaly detection and traffic categorization. It offers packet capture, robust reporting, and deployment flexibility, helping users maintain network stability and performance. While improvements in auto-mitigation, interface modernization, and scalability are needed, its hybrid protection approach efficiently secures networks for service providers and enterprises.

What are the key features of Arbor DDoS?

User-friendly GUI: Simplifies DDoS attack monitoring and management.
Real-time traffic visualization: Allows continuous analysis of network traffic.
BGP support: Facilitates secure routing for network infrastructure.
AI-driven anomaly detection: Identifies unusual traffic patterns promptly.
Automated threat response: Executes fast mitigation strategies.
Hybrid protection: Combines cloud and on-premise defenses.

Which benefits and ROI should users consider?

Effective DDoS mitigation: Enhances network uptime and resilience.
Large traffic processing: Handles high volumes without latency.
Flexible deployment: Adapts to different operational environments.
Comprehensive reporting: Provides insights into network security status.
Scalability: Supports growth in network demand and complexity.

Internet Service Providers and managed service providers utilize Arbor DDoS to secure network infrastructure and service availability. It's implemented in government and finance sectors for safeguarding customer websites and managing server traffic thresholds. Organizations deploy Arbor DDoS both on-premise and via cloud for extensive network protection.

NETSCOUT

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is a high-performance, full-proxy network security solution designed to protect networks and data centers against incoming threats that enter the network. Built on F5’s industry-leading BIG-IP hardware and software platforms, BIG-IP AFM provides a scalable platform that delivers the flexible performance and control needed to mitigate aggressive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and protocol attacks before they overwhelm and degrade applications and infrastructure availability.

For service providers, BIG-IP AFM IPS does even more, protecting the network edge and performing traffic inspection and protocol adherence for prevalent service provider protocols such as SS7, Diameter, HTTP/2, GTP, SCTP and SIP traffic coming into the network over UDP, TCP, and SCTP.

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Xtel Communications

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

January 2025

Free Report: Arbor DDoS vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Find out what your peers are saying about Arbor DDoS vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Arbor DDoS vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report.

See our list of best Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection vendors.

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.