F5 Advanced WAF vs Fastly comparison

F5 and Fastly are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.4, while Fastly is ranked #20 with an average rating of 9.0. F5 holds a 5.3% mindshare in WAF, compared to Fastly’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Fastly users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Fastly and F5 Advanced WAF are competitors in the web application security market. Fastly has an edge with its superior performance scalability and intuitive integrations, while F5 Advanced WAF leads in offering comprehensive security features.

Features: Fastly offers real-time insights, robust CDN capabilities, and seamless platform integration. F5 Advanced WAF provides extensive security features like enhanced bot protection, DDoS mitigation, and advanced threat detection.

Room for Improvement: Fastly could enhance its zero-trust security solutions and introduce more robust security features. F5 Advanced WAF could improve its deployment speed, ease of use, and expand its configuration options to reduce complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fastly provides an efficient deployment process and offers responsive customer support, making it easy for organizations to start quickly. F5 Advanced WAF, though rich in security features, requires a more complex deployment process that can demand more resources and technical expertise.

Pricing and ROI: Fastly offers a competitive pricing model, emphasizing CDN and scalability, delivering good initial setup value and ROI for performance-focused businesses. F5 Advanced WAF entails a higher initial investment due to its extensive features but provides long-term ROI for companies seeking deep security insights and comprehensive threat management.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fastly Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fastly

April 2026

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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 Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.7%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 5.3%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fastly is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
F5 Advanced WAF	5.3%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	4.7%
Fastly	1.7%
Other	88.3%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. 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. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

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reviewer2797602

Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Granular security policies have protected critical applications and ensure safe user and admin access

Improvements could be made regarding the log information from the backend CLI. There are enhancements needed; if a request gets blocked on the TCP layer, there should be traces or data to verify which source generated these requests, including the source and port information for initiation. These data are missing from F5 Advanced WAF. Besides that, another improvement could be refining the bot detection to minimize false positives; it should be able to verify more granularly between legitimate and non-legitimate clients. Overall, I find everything else good. A wish list feature I have is for the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) to respond more promptly. Their response time needs improvement; while they do not take excessive time, it can be enhanced, especially given it is a security product.

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Pranay Jain

Senior software developer at Simplifyvms

Edge caching has transformed response times and delivers faster candidate data globally

Fastly can be improved in certain areas such as VCL, which is powerful but has a steep learning curve for normal users. A more user-friendly, UI-based configuration could simplify the experience, alongside better templates for common use cases and dashboard improvements, as the current dashboard feels complex for beginners, and pricing can be hard to predict for smaller companies. I chose 8 out of 10 because it has excellent performance and low latency delivery, making it suitable for larger applications, with strong Edge Caching and instant purging capabilities. However, VCL complexity and pricing predictability, especially for smaller companies, along with a user-friendly dashboard are areas impacting my score.

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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

"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."

"For us, the key feature of Cloudflare is DDoS protection and IP hiding, especially since we are a crypto company."

"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."

"There is a huge signature repository"

"The setup process is very simple for me."

"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."

"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."

"This is a good product; it's reliable and scales well."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

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

"There are two main features that we love on F5."

"There is no need to worry about updating signatures because WAF will automatically update the signatures for you."

"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the security features and the protection."

"F5 Advanced WAF has significantly enhanced our organization's security posture by protecting critical banking applications against sophisticated threats."

"The support experience is better than average."

"As far as I am concerned, F5 Advanced WAF is one of the most stable solutions I've ever used, so it's good to implement."

"The most valuable feature of F5 Advanced WAF is its grand unity of the implementation, where you have the freedom to configure based on how it affects your use case or your organization. With the default setting of implicit deny, you can gradually start defining and deploying the tool to align with your environment, whether it is outdated, recent, or futuristic. This allows you to customize the solution to protect you from threat actors. You have the ability to define what the advanced threat act should do - whether it should alert, deny, or both - and it will deliver based on your configuration. Unlike other online solutions, F5 Advanced WAF provides flexibility to deliver to your unique environment the way you want."

More F5 Advanced WAF pros

"Rate limiting is a good feature that protects from volumetric attacks."

"Initially, we faced load time issues, but after deploying Fastly and optimizing our queries, we achieved a response time cut to less than 1 millisecond from an initial 3 to 4 seconds."

"Fastly combines both the CDN side and the Signal Sciences next-generation WAF, which is closely integrated with the CDN, allowing us to use both products seamlessly."

"In summary, this solution is easy to manage, quick to deploy, and all of my customers are happy."

"The product helps our organization to access sites located in different regions quickly."

"Fastly provides CDN, WAF, image optimization, and IP restriction."

"Compute@Edge features are valuable to me."

"Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly."

More Fastly pros

Cons

"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."

"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"

"We don't even use Cloudflare Bot Management because it's too expensive; you need to pay per request, and it's much cheaper to get one or two additional machines."

"The reporting could be more granular."

"They need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long."

"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well."

"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."

"The ModSecurity core rules need to be updated."

More Cloudflare 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."

"Improvements could be made regarding the log information from the backend CLI; if a request gets blocked on the TCP layer, there should be traces or data to verify which source generated these requests, including the source and port information for initiation."

"The solution should include RASP for another level of protection at the code itself."

"It's sometimes difficult to customize APIs with F5 Advanced WAF."

"Everything is good about the F5 WAF, except the reporting. It's really difficult to set records from that device, the UI is kind of hard to work with, and the reporting must be improved."

"The interface is old-looking, it's not modern, which is why it's not always comfortable to use."

"The GUI interface can be confusing due to similar-looking tabs for policy building, traffic learning, and event logs."

"The BIG-IQ is supposed to centralize the management for all of the boxes but it's not very effective."

More F5 Advanced WAF cons

"What I don't like about Fastly is that they charge a heavy price."

"The solution's pricing could be better."

"It's not easy to start with Fastly if you don't have VCL knowledge, so it appears very complex at the beginning."

"The product should provide improved bot detection and management."

"Fastly can be improved in certain areas such as VCL, which is powerful but has a steep learning curve for normal users."

"Fastly's customer service area needs improvement."

"It is missing a "staging" platform to deploy a test configuration with all of the real settings, which would allow us to properly test before putting it into production."

"Support is not that great."

More Fastly cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"The solution is expensive."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

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

"It's more expensive than other solutions and depending on the modules, there can be additional fees."

"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."

"After buying the program, you just pay for the support every year."

"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."

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

"F5 Advanced WAF technical support comes at a cost, and it's expensive."

"I am not sure about pricing but licenses are available on Google."

More F5 Advanced WAF pricing and cost advice

"I've generally found Fastly to be very competitive in pricing, especially around Compute@Edge."

"The pricing has been very competitive."

"In my opinion, Fastly is priced competitively."

"It is an expensive solution."

"The solution is cheaper than other products in the market."

"You need to pay a premium price for the tool."

"Fastly is less expensive than one of its competitors."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

17%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	16
Large Enterprise	31

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

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

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...

See all answers

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

The pricing for F5 Advanced WAF is a bit higher, but not that high. I would say for a good amount of revenue-generati...

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What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?

On the features I wish existed, Big-IP Advanced WAF is primarily an on-premises solution and in that solution, there ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for F5 Advanced WAF?

My main use case for F5 Advanced WAF is providing deployment solutions for financial institutions and onboarding thei...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fastly?

You need to pay a premium price for the tool.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fastly?

I believe that Fastly should provide guidelines for their WAF blocking rules. It should be public what the rules are ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Fastly?

I am using Fastly in the Adobe Commerce Cloud project. In this project, it is working as a reverse proxy for CDN and ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

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Fortinet FortiWeb vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 20% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 5% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 5% of the time

Prophaze WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 2% of the time

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Cloudflare vs Fastly

Compared 20% of the time

Akamai vs Fastly

Compared 17% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Fastly

Compared 9% of the time

Uplynk vs Fastly

Compared 5% of the time

Radware DDoS vs Fastly

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

May 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF

May 2026

Download F5 Advanced WAF product report

Buyer's Guide

Fastly

May 2026

Download Fastly product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

Overview

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?

DDoS Protection: Shields applications from denial-of-service attacks
Load Balancing: Ensures efficient traffic distribution
DNS Integration: Enhances domain name system security
Rate Limiting: Controls traffic flow and reduces abuse
Extensive Rule Sets: Offers customizable security rules

What benefits and ROI can users find in reviews?

Scalability: Easily adapts to growing business needs
Pricing: Offers reasonable pricing structure
Caching: Improves application performance and speed
Configurable Security: Provides customizable defense settings
Efficient Management: Simplifies security and application control

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.

Cloudflare

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?

Signature-Based Protection: Defends against SQL injections and other cyber threats with up-to-date signature detections.
Behavior Analysis: Reduces false positives by monitoring patterns and behaviors.
Load Balancing: Ensures application stability and optimal performance.
Bot Detection: Identifies and mitigates bot traffic to secure applications.
DDoS Protection: Guards against distributed denial of service attacks, maintaining service availability.
Real-time Threat Intelligence: Offers live updates and insights into potential security threats.

What benefits and ROI can organizations expect?

Enhanced Security: Comprehensive protection against an array of web-based threats.
Improved Performance: Raises application availability and user experience.
Deployment Flexibility: Supports diverse environments, from on-premises to cloud settings.
Ease of Integration: Simple incorporation into existing security frameworks.

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.

Fastly is a leading provider of content delivery network services that enhances website performance through efficient caching and real-time architecture capabilities.

Fastly integrates CDN technology with advanced web application firewall for comprehensive security. Its global infrastructure supports performance enhancement, rapid deployment, and rollback capabilities. Utilizing the VCL language allows custom caching solutions. Compute@Edge provides extensive architectural flexibility, aiding in HTML manipulation and script execution. Users benefit from its stability and reliability features for seamless network protection, log management, image optimization, and A/B testing. Challenges include limited support in mainland China, inadequate WebSocket protocol implementation, and complex pricing structures.

What are the key features of Fastly?

CDN Integration: Delivers content quickly across global Points of Presence.
Signal Sciences’ WAF: Manages security threats effectively.
VCL Language: Offers customizable caching solutions.
Compute@Edge: Enables flexible architecture for HTML manipulation.
Image Optimization: Enhances performance with dynamic image delivery.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Performance Enhancement: Boosts website speed and response time.
Rapid Deployment: Allows for swift implementation and rollback.
Real-Time Visibility: Provides insights into cached content management.
Security and Stability: Ensures reliability against DDoS attacks and other threats.
Flexibility: Offers diverse network protection and infrastructure capabilities.

Fastly is widely implemented in industries needing robust content delivery and security capabilities. Companies use it as a reverse proxy for media delivery, ensuring availability and optimized performance. Its rapid deployment and rollback features are particularly beneficial in technology sectors requiring agile responses to demand shifts.

Fastly

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

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

Twitter, Airbnb, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, The New York Times, Ticketmaster, The Drupal Association, Opera, about.com, imgur, Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, New Relic, shopify, Shazam, Firebase

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fastly

April 2026

Free Report: F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fastly

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fastly and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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