Azure Web Application Firewall vs F5 Advanced WAF comparison

Microsoft and F5 are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Microsoft is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.2, while F5 is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5. Additionally, 91% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of F5 users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

F5 Advanced WAF and Azure Web Application Firewall are two solutions competing in the category of web application protection. F5 Advanced WAF is often preferred due to its comprehensive features and versatility, particularly in complex environments, while Azure WAF is favored for its cost-effectiveness and integration within Azure's ecosystem.

Features: F5 Advanced WAF provides robust application security through DDoS prevention, AI-driven threat detection, and granular policy customization. Its versatility and integration with load balancers allow for enhanced security management. On the other hand, Azure Web Application Firewall offers ease of use with seamless integration within Azure, providing effective fundamental security capabilities with less complexity.

Room for Improvement: Suggestions for F5 Advanced WAF include improving user-friendliness, legacy protocol support, and pricing structures. User interface enhancements and more responsive technical support are also desired. Azure WAF could improve by expanding its documentation, adding advanced features to match competitors, and offering more cost-effective plans for smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: F5 Advanced WAF provides flexibility across hybrid and on-premises environments, though its complexity during deployment and variable support levels can be challenging. Azure Web Application Firewall offers easier deployment in cloud settings and benefits from Microsoft's support infrastructure, yet improvements in response time and documentation clarity are necessary.

Pricing and ROI: F5 Advanced WAF is recognized for delivering significant ROI with its comprehensive security features despite high costs. It is justified in security-critical environments. Azure Web Application Firewall's affordable pricing within the Azure ecosystem makes it a practical option for enterprises with existing Azure services. Both solutions offer favorable ROI, yet Azure provides more cost-effective choices for dedicated Azure users.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Web Application Firewall vs. F5 Advanced WAF Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Web Application Firewall vs. F5 Advanced WAF

January 2025

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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

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.

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Thomas Zebar

Azure Principal Architect at Cloud Computech Consultancy

Is priced well, is stable, and the initial setup is straightforward

I previously used Barracuda Web Application Firewall. I hope that Azure Web Application Firewall will look at other products and replicate some of their functionality. Azure WAF is doing great because it is designed to host web applications in Azure. However, it can be improved with other services. Barracuda is the most advanced firewall in the industry, so Azure WAF could pick some of its features and replicate them into its own application firewall. Barracuda WAF was deployed in parallel to the traffic. Azure WAF should not be deployed in the middle of the traffic. It should support both public and private points of presence. Additionally, like Barracuda, Azure WAF should have an inspection engine that covers not just Microsoft products, but also products from other manufacturers. This would be a great addition to the product and would increase its security functionality.

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Richard Polyak

Sr. Architect at NBC Universal

Easy event identification, highly stable, and customizable

Generally, F5 Advanced WAF initial setup is straightforward. However, our environment was more complex and it took us a little more time to customize the solution to where we needed it to be. Additionally, the customization didn't rectify everything. We had to do customization to a certain event to prevent attacks that it wasn't catching, but that might not necessarily be the solutions' fault. It could be more of our setup than the solution's fault and not being able to run the latest version or the newer version could be more of a limitation on our ability to put it in the right place. The whole implementation to have the solution run at the level we wanted it to take approximately five months. Our company's environment is one that we can't put a canned solution in front of. Our environment, cannot have a canned solution that might fit everybody else because of how customized this environment is. It does need a lot of tuning to meet our environment's requirements. I rate the initial setup of F5 Advanced WAF a three out of five.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

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

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

"I get a lot of value from Cloudflare's API because it enables you to build a separate environment inside the solution. You can create a domain for performing test requests before you move to the production environment and connect various domains."

"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."

"The UI is good."

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"

"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."

More Cloudflare pros

"It's quite a stable product and works well with Microsoft products."

"The initial setup is easy and straightforward...Azure Web Application Firewall is a scalable product."

"The most valuable feature is that it allows us to publish our applications behind the firewall."

"The integration it has with GitHub is great."

"The most valuable feature of Azure Web Application Firewall is its ability to filter requests and block false positives by using custom rules and the OWASP rule set."

"Azure WAF is extremely stable."

"It has been a stable product in my experience."

"The solution has good dashboards."

More Azure Web Application Firewall pros

"Web attack signatures are very important for detecting web attacks."

"I like them because I like the security solution. They get extra marks compared to other solutions or competitors. There are more features than any other product I can think of. They're always monitoring, and the security features offer more than other, lesser products."

"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the easy identification of events and customization. We can pinpoint our settings."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the WAF protection, Data Safe, and the seven-layer DDoS."

"I like all of the features, but the main one is the attack signatures."

"This solution is an enterprise-class firewall that provides both load-balancing and security."

"The initial setup was was easy to install."

"Good dashboard and reporting."

More F5 Advanced WAF pros

Cons

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."

"The product needs to improve its automation."

"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."

"There are some issues with the CDN services."

"The solution could be more user-friendly."

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."

"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."

More Cloudflare cons

"The management can be improved."

"Azure WAF should not be deployed in the middle of the traffic."

"I would say that Azure's customer service is not that good...I am not very happy with the support offered."

"Deployment should be simplified so that a non-techie can handle it."

"There is a need to be able to configure the solution more."

"In Brazil, we have some problems with the phone service that affect our connection with the cloud. However, it isn't common."

"We would like to see additional site services using AI to provide information about blocking requests and offer analytics on the origin of calls."

"The support for proxy forwarding could improve."

More Azure Web Application Firewall cons

"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."

"One area for improvement in the product is its SSO integration, which posed challenges and required significant effort to resolve."

"F5 Advanced WAF could improve on its funding for WAF features. There is a need to be more advanced WAF features."

"One thing that can be improved, is to increase the quantity over predefine policy."

"The overall price of F5 Advanced WAF could improve."

"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 contextual-based component needs a lot of help to catch up with the next-gen products."

"More legacy protocols should be added to the solution."

More F5 Advanced WAF cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

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

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

"A free version of the solution is available."

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

"We are using the free version."

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

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month."

"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."

"We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft and the pricing is good."

"The price is for this solution is fair and there is a license needed."

"Azure WAF has price advantages over other WAF solutions. The pricing model is flexible because you pay on a scale based on the level of protection you need."

"The price of the solution depends on your architecture and how you manage it. You can control the cost in Azure quite well. The costs do not directly correlate to expenses in the features we are using."

"F5 Advanced WAF is not a cost-effective solution. Although they are attempting to reduce prices with their VE and cloud options, they are more expensive than other solutions. The solution is more expensive on average."

"F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."

"Its price is fair. We have done a couple of deals where they were able to give some kind of discount to the customers. The price was initially high for the customers, but after a couple of negotiations, it came within their budget. They were happy with that."

"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."

"Pricing for this solution is higher than average."

"The pricing of F5 Advanced WAF is more expensive than other solutions like Radware and CD18, it is quite high."

"I rate F5 Advanced WAF's pricing a three out of ten."

"The pricing is too high."

More F5 Advanced WAF pricing and cost advice

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

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

What do you like most about Azure Web Application Firewall?

The integration it has with GitHub is great.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Web Application Firewall?

The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month. This cost is one of the main reasons why we selecte...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Web Application Firewall?

Microsoft is constantly working on improvements. We would like to see additional site services using AI to provide in...

See all answers

What do you like most about F5 Advanced WAF?

It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the r...

See all answers

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

The setup cost is normal, yet not the best in terms of the commercial aspect. Other competitors like Fortinet are che...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?

One improvement for AOF could be focusing on enhancing its AI engine to make it more mature.

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

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

AWS WAF vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 43% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 3% of the time

More Azure Web Application Firewall Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 22% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 16% of the time

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 7% of the time

NetScaler vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 1% of the time

More F5 Advanced WAF Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

December 2024

Download Azure Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF

January 2025

Download F5 Advanced WAF product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

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Cloudflare

Microsoft

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

Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides centralized protection of your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities. Web applications are increasingly targeted by malicious attacks that exploit commonly known vulnerabilities. SQL injection and cross-site scripting are among the most common attacks.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

F5 Advanced WAF is a web application security solution for financial and government sectors, e-commerce, and public-facing websites. It offers protection against various attacks, including botnets, web scraping, and foreign entities. The solution can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud and is often used with other security tools. Its most valuable features include DDoS and DNS attack protection, SSL uploading, anomaly detection, and the ability to input custom rules.

F5 Advanced WAF has helped organizations to expose more services to the public while providing an extra layer of protection, preventing revenue loss, and securing connectivity.

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank

Buyer's Guide

Azure Web Application Firewall vs. F5 Advanced WAF

January 2025

Free Report: Azure Web Application Firewall vs. F5 Advanced WAF

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