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Azure Web Application Firewall vs F5 Advanced WAF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Azure Web Application Firewall
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (13th), Microsoft Security Suite (19th)
F5 Advanced WAF
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Thomas Zebar - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ahmed Moamen - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects applications with versatile authentication features
F5 offers a versatile solution that can be integrated with APM in cases where integration with an external IDB is needed. It is useful for authentication backup if the on-prem directory service is unavailable. Additionally, its WAF functionality is valuable for protecting applications from attacks. It is a versatile and strong solution that's easy to understand and deploy.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical support is good."
"The UI is good."
"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."
"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."
"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."
"We have found the most valuable features to be the web application, minimal skills required for management, control through policies, and automation."
"It has been a stable product in my experience."
"Azure WAF is extremely stable."
"It's quite a stable product and works well with Microsoft products."
"The most valuable feature is that it allows us to publish our applications behind the firewall."
"It's a good option if you want a solution that's ready to go and easy for your team to learn. It's cloud-based, so you don't need to buy or maintain any hardware infrastructure."
"The initial setup is easy and straightforward...Azure Web Application Firewall is a scalable product."
"The solution has good dashboards."
"Identification, ease of use, and ease of modifying it to most of our needs are valuable."
"The product has valuable features for load balancing, monitoring tools, and HPXpress services."
"Web attack signatures are very important for detecting web attacks."
"It protects and mitigates damage in the network."
"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 most valuable feature is that it is secure."
"The initial setup was was easy to install."
"I appreciate the way F5 Advanced WAF builds policies by configuring a basic policy and queuing it in learning mode."
 

Cons

"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."
"There are some issues with the CDN services."
"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"Technical support is lacking."
"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."
"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"The management can be improved."
"There is a need to be able to configure the solution more."
"I would say that Azure's customer service is not that good...I am not very happy with the support offered."
"The support for proxy forwarding could improve."
"The knowledge base could be improved."
"The documentation needs to be improved."
"From a reporting perspective, they could do more there."
"In Brazil, we have some problems with the phone service that affect our connection with the cloud. However, it isn't common."
"Compatibility with multiple cloud environments needs improvement. Both stability and scalability need to be improved."
"The product could be more user-friendly, particularly the user interface for administrators."
"The BIG-IQ is supposed to centralize the management for all of the boxes but it's not very effective."
"You have to buy another module with an extra license, to have the authentication feature."
"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."
"There is a learning curve that extends the time of implementation."
"This solution can be made more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"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."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month."
"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."
"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."
"I rate F5 Advanced WAF's pricing a three out of ten."
"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."
"Licensing fees for this solution are paid on a yearly basis."
"The cost is slightly above average."
"It is expensive. Its price should be better. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. Its licensing is also based on the model. There are no additional costs."
"As far as the pricing of F5 Advanced WAF I would rate it a four out of five depending on what features I am looking for. Imperva is more expensive."
"F5 Advanced WAF's pricing is high."
"The pricing of F5 Advanced WAF is more expensive than other solutions like Radware and CD18, it is quite high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?
The pricing and support service levels affect response times from customer service, depending on whether the support ...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
The main improvement needed is related to IP intelligence. Once we start receiving traffic from repetitive IP address...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
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Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Web Application Firewall vs. F5 Advanced WAF and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.