


AWS WAF and F5 Advanced WAF are leading competitors in the web application firewall market. While AWS WAF offers a cost-effective, scalable cloud-native solution that's easily deployable, F5 Advanced WAF is favored for its advanced protection features and comprehensive security capabilities.
Features: AWS WAF provides scalability, ease of use, and integration with AWS services, allowing quick deployment and rule management. F5 Advanced WAF offers anti-bot protection, DDoS protection, and advanced configuration options, excelling in behavior analysis and traffic learning.
Room for Improvement: AWS WAF could benefit from better automation, third-party integrations, and more thorough documentation. Enhancements in support for user-defined rules and a more predictable pricing model are also desired. F5 Advanced WAF has room to improve its interface and reporting features, integration capabilities, and policy configuration simplicity, along with adopting more transparent pricing models.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS WAF is praised for its easy deployment within AWS's ecosystem, though support varies in depth and speed. F5 Advanced WAF, often deployed on-premises or in hybrid models, provides good customer service but faces challenges with initial deployment complexity.
Pricing and ROI: AWS WAF's pay-as-you-go pricing is attractive for its affordability and flexibility, although unexpected costs can occur with increased usage. F5 Advanced WAF is more expensive, aligning with its extensive feature set. Despite higher costs, it is suited for high-demand environments, providing ROI in enterprise setups, whereas AWS WAF is seen as budget-friendly with scalable costs.
My experience with the pricing or licensing of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is that many features can be accessed for free, so the pricing is definitely reasonable.
With AWS WAF, it is easier for us to block unwanted malicious DDoS attacks and threats from coming into our web application.
Time savings in daily operations come from the automatic learning and signature update reducing the need for constant manual rule management, allowing the security and network teams to spend significantly less time handling false positive application-related escalations.
Subscription models offer clearer ROI due to a more competitive pricing scheme.
The amount of attacks it protects against is immense, more than F5 Advanced WAF itself costs.
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.
The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.
Resolving issues can take time because the support personnel may lack product expertise, leading to delays.
They reach out when you send them a ticket, and within 24 hours or less, someone is able to get back to you to solve your problem.
Both response time and availability need to be improved.
If there is a bug, the support is usually understanding and resolves issues.
I have interacted with F5's support, and while I have no major complaints, they could improve.
The scalability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between 8 to 9, as it depends upon the use cases and what exactly the client needs.
AWS WAF does scale in the sense that it is fully managed and has automatic scaling.
I can run it in HA mode or even divide the traffic volume to the number of instances that I have based on their resource sizing.
The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.
Since it protects web applications from common attacks such as SQL injection and XSS, it is very stable.
In terms of reliability, I would rate AWS WAF about six out of ten due to the need for improved signature sets.
We faced issues with AWS WAF when writing the custom rules.
F5 Advanced WAF has been very reliable and consistent for us; in our on-premise enterprise setup, it has been stable and predictable in day-to-day operations without any unexpected crashes or WAF-related downtime in production.
F5 Advanced WAF is pretty stable.
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.
I think they're doing a good job with DNS and as support for any domains that I create or that my clients create, it's mandatory for me to ensure they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider.
And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network.
Compared to firewalls, WAFs generally provide limited stateful analysis capabilities.
The way we see it now is just mentioned as a percentage from bots and actual users, which should include proper graphs and detailed information.
Features like bot protection or DDoS mitigation, available with other WAF vendors, do not come natively with AWS WAF.
Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.
Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.
There is excellent clarity in the LTM and the WAF.
Due to our status as an AWS shop, AWS WAF is cost-effective for us, and we benefit from discounts due to our extensive use of AWS services.
The licensing cost for AWS WAF is just pay-as-you-go; it is a service-based model.
Licensing is capacity-driven, so you need careful planning based on traffic volume and use cases, and adding features such as Bot Protection impacts costs; once licensing is clear and sized correctly, there are no surprises.
Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost.
The price is affordable and satisfactory.
The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.
The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools add a layer that we're able to visualize and see before it actually hits the local firewall.
The biggest benefit of AWS WAF for us is to filter malicious requests, so we can protect our environment and application from malicious actors.
It has also helped to improve the posture of our application, prevent all DDoS attacks, and unnecessary traffic and SQL injection that is reducing the performance of our application.
The cloud-native nature of AWS is crucial since most of our workload is in AWS, making AWS WAF native to Amazon Web Services.
The Advanced Attack Signature database is very strong and regularly updated, effectively blocking SQL injections, cross-site scripting, command injections, and file inclusion attacks while allowing selective enabling or disabling of signatures to avoid blocking genuine traffic.
The perpetual license, despite an initial higher cost, lacks transparency regarding support expiration.
It contains the logic of both negative and positive security combined.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| F5 Advanced WAF | 5.3% |
| Cloudflare Web Application Firewall | 4.7% |
| AWS WAF | 4.8% |
| Other | 85.2% |


| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 16 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 6 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 22 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 12 |
| Large Enterprise | 26 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 26 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 15 |
| Large Enterprise | 31 |
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall integrates DDoS protection, load balancing, and firewall capabilities. Its ease of use, configurability, and robust security measures make it a versatile choice for protecting web applications.
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides a comprehensive defense against threats with advanced reporting and robust security measures. It includes DNS integration, rate limiting, and extensive rule sets, all within a SaaS model that allows API configurability. Users value its caching, scalability, and pricing, although enhancements are needed in rate-limiting and third-party integration. Improvements in customer support, especially in India, real-time controls, and user documentation are also desired. Users seek a more intuitive dashboard, better log management, and improved alert systems, along with multitenancy capabilities and enhanced reporting.
What are the key features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?Cloudflare Web Application Firewall finds application in industries like banking and retail by acting as a comprehensive security gateway, managing authentication and authorization while protecting web applications from malicious Layer 7 traffic. It also implements load balancing, CDN, and zero-trust policies, supported by advanced reporting, analytics tools, and threat scoring to meet specific industry needs.
AWS WAF provides configurable rules, integration with AWS services, and scalable protection against web threats like SQL injections and DDoS attacks. Its automation and reliable performance are highly valued by users.
AWS WAF is a web application firewall offering significant security features like geo-restriction, custom rules, and IP filtering. Designed for seamless orchestration within AWS environments, it facilitates easy configuration and threat automation. Users benefit from its security policies, enhancing application performance by protecting against threats such as cross-site scripting. Despite its strengths, there is a call for enhanced user interfaces, better documentation, flexible pricing, and improved support. Expanding features like real-time analysis, bot protection, and AI integration can further elevate its utility.
What are the key features of AWS WAF?AWS WAF is extensively used in industries hosting applications on AWS, protecting sensitive data, and monitoring for unauthorized access. Custom and managed rules help cater to infrastructure needs, serving a vital role in maintaining application security across various sectors.
F5 Advanced WAF delivers robust web security with features like signature-based threat protection and behavior analysis, ensuring app stability and security.
F5 Advanced WAF integrates advanced security with functionalities such as SQL injection defense and real-time threat intelligence. It enhances security for applications with load balancing, bot detection, and DDoS protection alongside comprehensive attack monitoring capabilities. Popular among diverse sectors, its usability and easy integration make it a practical choice by providing a stable security infrastructure across both on-premises and cloud environments.
What are the key features?Particularly relevant in banking and financial services, F5 Advanced WAF safeguards applications from threats like SQL injections and DDoS attacks, ensuring compliance and API security. Its capabilities are leveraged for both load balancing and application defense, offering a versatile deployment model suited for protecting critical infrastructure in competitive and demanding industries.
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.