Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

F5 Advanced WAF vs Fortinet FortiWeb comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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
7.0
Cloudflare enhances performance, reduces operational costs, and boosts revenue, with reported benefits of $903,000 over three years.
Sentiment score
7.8
F5 Advanced WAF provides high ROI through security, compliance, scalability, and low overhead, justifying investment especially in finance.
Sentiment score
7.3
Users experience significant cost savings, enhanced security, and efficient performance with easy deployment of Fortinet FortiWeb, despite some measurement challenges.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
We have had ROI with the tool's use since it never gave us downtime and made us lose millions.
For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.
Subscription models offer clearer ROI due to a more competitive pricing scheme.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Cloudflare's service is praised for responsiveness, but some users face delays, often relying on extensive documentation for solutions.
Sentiment score
7.1
F5 Advanced WAF is praised for expertise and dedication, though response time improvements for initial queries are suggested.
Sentiment score
6.8
Fortinet FortiWeb's customer support is inconsistent, praised for responsiveness but criticized for slow responses and varying regional satisfaction.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
We'd like a dedicated account manager.
You can get a support engineer with the best qualifications.
I have interacted with F5's support, and while I have no major complaints, they could improve.
The expertise of engineers varies across different time zones, affecting the effectiveness of the support provided, especially during our daytime.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cloudflare's scalable architecture is praised for efficient traffic handling, seamless expansion, and meeting diverse enterprise needs globally.
Sentiment score
7.6
F5 Advanced WAF scales efficiently, supports diverse environments, and suits medium to large enterprises with excellent load balancing.
Sentiment score
7.2
Fortinet FortiWeb effectively scales, supporting thousands, though upfront sizing and hardware constraints are key for optimal performance.
I would rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten since I didn't encounter any issues with it.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten because I had no issues with it.
I rate the scalability a ten out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Users praise Cloudflare for improved reliability, effective DDoS protection, and excellent DNS services despite initial configuration needs.
Sentiment score
8.5
F5 Advanced WAF is highly stable, efficiently handles high traffic, and receives top ratings for reliability and security.
Sentiment score
7.9
Fortinet FortiWeb offers stable performance with rare issues, quickly resolved through support, ensuring reliable high-traffic management.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.
We have not faced any significant issues during deployments.
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare users seek better analytics, integration, support, pricing clarity, and enhanced features like caching and multi-user access.
F5 Advanced WAF requires intuitive UI, clearer reporting, seamless updates, better integration, and improved support with advanced features.
Fortinet FortiWeb needs enhancements in throughput, cloud presence, integration, and user-friendly features to improve competitiveness and scalability.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
the ability to integrate with the on-site active directory instead of just AD through Azure AD
Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.
The cloud-based security service of Fortinet FortiWeb could be enhanced to match the level of providers like Cloudflare.
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers flexible pricing plans from free to $1,500 monthly, ideal for businesses of different sizes and traffic needs.
F5 Advanced WAF is costly but valued for robust features; pricing varies, challenging for small businesses yet negotiable.
Fortinet FortiWeb offers competitive, cost-effective pricing with flexible options, appealing to enterprises for value, transparency, and performance.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
I find it to be cheap.
It's cost-effective, but I think they should have a custom pricing model for enterprise customers based on the features you use.
Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost.
Fortinet FortiWeb is cost-effective compared to solutions like F5.
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare enhances performance and security with CDN, caching, DDoS protection, easy DNS management, analytics, and intuitive interface.
F5 Advanced WAF enhances web security with anti-bot protection, behavior analysis, and flexible policy customization, featuring AI and load balancing.
Fortinet FortiWeb offers advanced security features with seamless integration, intuitive interface, and enhanced threat detection using AI and machine learning.
Our scenario consisted of two web servers in different allocations to control access demands, and the load balancer did the job as expected, bringing security and stability to access points.
For me, the valuable feature is DDoS protection.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
The perpetual license, despite an initial higher cost, lacks transparency regarding support expiration.
The machine learning-based threat detection is significant, as it uses a learning method that eases the configuration burden, making it very useful.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
F5 Advanced WAF
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (2nd)
Fortinet FortiWeb
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)
 

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.
Richard Polyak - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Kacem CHAMMALI - PeerSpot reviewer
Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb
The xFF, or X-Forwarded-For feature, IP reputation, and protected hostname. We can block access using the IP address, so no one can connect to our web server or website using the real IP. They need to use the FQDN instead. Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb and the option to protect the hostname. All traffic passes through FortiWeb. Machine learning capabilities in FortiWeb: I don't use machine learning all the time. In the initial phase of FortiWeb deployment, we use the learning process to detect the traffic passing through FortiGate to our website.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
847,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
41%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
 

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 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?
Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost, leading to amb...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
F5 Advanced WAF sells perpetual licenses as perpetual assets during sales without informing me that support ends afte...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
I would rate the licensing cost as seven out of ten, considering it good value for money. The price is affordable and...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
There is room for improvement in the portability on multi-cloud environments. Enhanced DDoS integration to make Forti...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
No data available
 

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.
MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fortinet FortiWeb and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
847,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.