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

F5 Advanced WAF vs FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
72
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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (2nd)
FortiWeb Web Application Fi...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (16th)
 

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.
IgnitiusMolepo - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects internal applications and prevents target attacks
The tool secures our critical applications, especially the mobile money application, which is often targeted by attacks. The solution provides rapid protection and has proven reliable against various threats. It blocks malicious traffic, including dormant and DDoS attacks, and offers integrated Web Application Firewall features to safeguard against compromises. You can set it up for customer-facing web applications because customers don't necessarily know all the IP addresses. It uses a source-based approach where any source accessing the application is defined by its IP. When accessing the application, it checks if they are using HTTP or HTTPS and blocks them if necessary. The tool's performance and security reporting capabilities contribute positively to IT security management. Consolidating management within the solution makes it easier for IT to handle the solutions. All functionalities managed on a single box reduce the number of boxes needed for management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."
"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."
"Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick."
"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 of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."
"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."
"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."
"The most valuable feature is artificial intelligence and to get extra internal access."
"The most valuable feature is that it is secure."
"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."
"Web attack signatures are very important for detecting web attacks."
"Customers find the load balancer feature as the most valuable."
"The solution isn't too expensive. The license allows you to license what you need and leave out what you don't need."
"I like the security features, especially against SQL injection."
"There is no need to worry about updating signatures because WAF will automatically update the signatures for you."
"The tool secures our critical applications, especially the mobile money application, which is often targeted by attacks. The solution provides rapid protection and has proven reliable against various threats."
"The machine learning feature reduces the false positives."
"We use it to secure VMs and applications. It protects against DDoS attacks. It's very user-friendly."
"The fact that I can log into the platform and see everybody, see logs, authentication failure, and see everything on one platform, is the most valuable feature."
"The initial setup was easy since it was possible to get remote support for the product."
"Their support is truly exceptional when I compare it with similar large-sized companies."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"FortiWeb identified potential DDoS attacks and suspicious domain activity, showcasing the value of its machine-learning capabilities."
 

Cons

"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 tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Support response time could be improved."
"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."
"There are opportunities for improvement in updating the user interface to a more modern look."
"One improvement for AOF could be focusing on enhancing its AI engine to make it more mature."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve on its funding for WAF features. There is a need to be more advanced WAF features."
"We get false positives sometimes."
"Scalability could be improved."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve the precision of the scanning. There are many false positives. They should improve their threat database."
"We usually use a third-party tool for logging and reporting. It would be nice if we could do that right on this solution. They have one, but it's not very stable. Logging and reporting effectively would be a big enhancement."
"Compatibility with multiple cloud environments needs improvement. Both stability and scalability need to be improved."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall needs to improve its performance."
"The technical support team is bad."
"FortiWeb WAF's tuning causes trouble. It's complicated. The solution needs to improve the signature feature as well."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall's signature database updates could be improved."
"We have encountered issues with webhooks and management of FortiWeb Web Application Firewall's on-premise version."
"The price is a little higher than the competitors."
"It would be good if the solution integrated with other solutions, like SAP."
"I don't see any issues with the tool apart from the pricing aspect of the product. The price of the product is an area where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"We are using the free version."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."
"F5 Advanced WAF technical support comes at a cost, and it's expensive."
"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."
"The cost is slightly above average."
"The price of the solution is reasonable when compared with other products, such as FortiWeb. I am very satisfied with the price."
"There is a perpetual license that comes with your hardware. There is also an additional fee for support."
"I think the price is very high."
"FortiWeb WAF is priced well for customers compared to other vendors' solutions."
"The licensing cost of the product is pretty high compared to other OEMs in the market."
"I rate the product price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"This product offers two pricing options: a standard package and an advanced package."
"I would rate the pricing a four out of ten."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall is not expensive."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall's pricing is suited for small or medium organizations."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

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?
The setup cost is normal, yet not the best in terms of the commercial aspect. Other competitors like Fortinet are che...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
One improvement for AOF could be focusing on enhancing its AI engine to make it more mature.
What do you like most about FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtration, web filter, application filter, and IPS.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
FortiWeb uses a subscription-based license, but there is also an option for a perpetual license. It's not the cheapes...
What needs improvement with FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
There are some issues pertaining to the migration. If some of my customers want to migrate from F5 to Fortinet Firewa...
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.