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

Cloudflare and F5 are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. Cloudflare is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8, while F5 is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.3. Cloudflare holds a 16.7% mindshare in DDOS, compared to F5’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cloudflare users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of F5 users who would recommend it.

Cloudflare

Read 77 Cloudflare reviews

37,802 Views
5,670 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...

Read 25 F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) reviews

1,062 Views
1,062 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Cloudflare

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 2025

Cloudflare and F5 BIG-IP AFM compete in the IT security sector. Cloudflare's affordability and ease of use provide leverage for small to medium businesses, while F5 BIG-IP AFM's sophisticated security features cater more to larger enterprises.

Features: Cloudflare offers CDN caching, DDoS protection, and DNS management, including automatic SSL, making it versatile for various security needs. F5 BIG-IP AFM specializes in advanced application protection, strong traffic management, and scalability focused on larger security infrastructures.

Room for Improvement: Cloudflare could enhance speed and improve support responsiveness. Its CDN features face competition, and user feedback indicates the need for better technical support and response times. F5 BIG-IP AFM's initial deployment complexity and lack of intuitive interface are noted areas requiring improvement. Geolocation updates and smoother integration with other products are also needed.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cloudflare's cloud-based models offer straightforward setup and efficient customer service, praised for integration and scalability. F5 BIG-IP AFM, typically on-premises, provides a robust security framework but poses deployment challenges, requiring user training. Although customer support is knowledgeable, handling complexity requires enhancement.

Pricing and ROI: Cloudflare provides flexible pricing with a free tier for essential functions, leading to favorable ROI in performance and cost savings. F5 BIG-IP AFM, while a significant investment, is deemed valuable for its comprehensive feature set. Its pricing includes perpetual licenses and subscriptions, offering long-term value with extensive application security.

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

Buyer's Guide

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

December 2025

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Helped 880,255 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.5

Cloudflare users experienced increased performance, security, and cost-effectiveness, leading to improved loyalty and revenue despite difficult ROI calculations.

Sentiment score

7.2

F5 BIG-IP AFM offers ROI and cost efficiency when integrated, but standalone ROI is below average, despite perceived value.

For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.

Wellington Malagutti

Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

In terms of return on investment with Cloudflare, it costs my time to set them up, but basically once they're set up, it's done.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.0

Cloudflare's customer service is quick, but technical support feedback is mixed, with improvement needed in responsiveness and detailed assistance.

Sentiment score

6.5

F5 BIG-IP AFM support is praised for professionalism but needs faster ticket resolution and improved recommendation accuracy.

Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.

reviewer1245303

Senior Consultant CDN at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to call them.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

I have primarily worked not with the tool's customer support but with the product's sales engineers and technical sales engineers, who seem to know their stuff.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

The responses are generally fast and effective.

Pawel Augustyn

System Advisor at CRIF SpA

The customer service is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten.

AbdulSami

Network Security Engineer at IIPL

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Users praise Cloudflare for seamless scalability, effective traffic management, easy upgrades, and robust global infrastructure without disruptions.

Sentiment score

7.3

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager offers scalable, efficient management for hybrid setups, supporting organizational growth and cloud migration.

It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

The tool offers very good performance, even during high-traffic periods.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

Prajith Chowthee

Independent Consultant at Unaikui

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

The solution is highly scalable, allowing me to add or remove nodes and manage traffic without interruption, which is essential for meeting application demands.

Pawel Augustyn

System Advisor at CRIF SpA

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Cloudflare is highly rated for stability and uptime, with few past issues, especially on higher-tier plans.

Sentiment score

8.4

F5 BIG-IP AFM is lauded for its stability and reliability, with high user ratings and minimal operational issues.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

Prajith Chowthee

Independent Consultant at Unaikui

The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

Room For Improvement

Enhancements needed in Cloudflare: analytics, CDN latency, API integration, user support, DNS, pricing, documentation, server coverage, WAF, and cache.

F5 BIG-IP AFM is costly, complex, needs dashboard improvements, enhanced features, better integration, and concerns over CPU and support.

Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.

Bilal Mujahid

Managed Services Manager at Adapture Technology Group

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.

Darryl Wethington

Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)

There are some performance considerations when it comes to dynamic content that involves fetching data from databases or using APIs.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

Having advanced technology similar to other vendors like Palo Alto for zero-day attack prevention would be valuable.

AbdulSami

Network Security Engineer at IIPL

The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security.

Pawel Augustyn

System Advisor at CRIF SpA

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers scalable pricing, from free to enterprise plans, providing significant value especially for mid-sized companies.

F5 BIG-IP AFM is costly but justified by its features, with pricing for licenses and potential extra feature fees.

I find it to be cheap.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

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

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive.

Pawel Augustyn

System Advisor at CRIF SpA

If considering a one-stop solution that provides load balancing, DNS security, AAA authentication, and firewalling on the same hardware, the cost is reasonable.

AbdulSami

Network Security Engineer at IIPL

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

Valuable Features

Cloudflare enhances performance and security with CDN caching, DDoS protection, and an easy-to-use dashboard, benefiting many users.

F5 BIG-IP AFM offers robust network security, ease of use, and supports cloud migration with AI-driven features.

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

Darryl Wethington

Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)

Techniques like minification and image compression reduce the size of assets, leading to better performance and faster user load times.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

The solution has been able to compare it to the market, and I think the product has taken great strides in automating quite a bit of things, and they use a lot of AI.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

The solution provides behavioral analysis via AI to detect malicious traffic.

AbdulSami

Network Security Engineer at IIPL

The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications.

Pawel Augustyn

System Advisor at CRIF SpA

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare

Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (4th), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...

Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

13th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 16.7%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is 1.2%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cloudflare	16.7%
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)	1.2%
Other	82.1%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

Read full review

Pawel Augustyn

System Advisor at CRIF SpA

Provides outstanding resource management and application security across multiple geographies

The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications. The solution also monitors and blocks unconventional requests and maintains security efficiently. The scalability feature also allows me to manage and allocate resources dynamically without disrupting production traffic.

Read full review

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.

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Comparison Review

it_user68487

Security Expert with 51-200 employees

Nov 6, 2013

CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall

CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

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 GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds ...

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 that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...

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 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 standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive. There are plenty of technical documents and a supportive community available, which helps mana...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?

The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security. Some features like the WAF ( /categories/web-application-firewall-waf ) firewall may seem expensive compared t...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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

Compared 44% of the time

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Compared 26% of the time

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Compared 19% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

January 2026

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

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

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

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.

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

Buyer's Guide

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

December 2025

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

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