F5 Advanced WAF vs Huawei Cloud WAF comparison

F5 and Huawei are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4, while Huawei is ranked #33 with an average rating of 7.0. F5 holds a 7.1% mindshare in WAF, compared to Huawei’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Huawei users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 Advanced WAF and Huawei Cloud WAF based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, F5, Imperva and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF).

To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

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Helped 884,873 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:

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.4%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 7.1%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei Cloud WAF is 0.5%, up from 0.4% 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	7.1%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	5.4%
Huawei Cloud WAF	0.5%
Other	87.0%

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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Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

Application security has protected critical banking services while policy learning minimizes false blocks

F5 Advanced WAF performs well overall, but I have noticed some points that could enhance the solution. Initially, policy tuning could be simpler, as while the learning engine is powerful, initial tuning still requires experienced engineers, which can be challenging for new teams due to the complexity of options and parameters. A more guided and simple tuning workflow would help reduce the learning curve. Additionally, tighter native integration with SIEM or SOAR tools would simplify correlation and investigations for security teams, although log exports are available. Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.

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Chinedu Omenogor

Cloud Operations Engineer at Galaxy Backbone Ltd

Easy to use, but its feature set could be expanded to mirror what currently exists on the public cloud

We have a private cloud leveraging Huawei technology. We use Huawei Cloud WAF to provide cloud services for governments, ministries, departments, and some private sector organizations The most valuable feature of Huawei Cloud WAF is its ease of use. It would be good if the solution's feature set…

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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

"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."

"There is a huge signature repository"

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

"Technical support has a very fast response time and they are helpful."

"The initial setup process is simple."

"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."

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

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

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"The product has valuable features for load balancing, monitoring tools, and HPXpress services."

"Overall, I believe it has been a good decision to switch because I do not think any other product available on the market can compete with F5 at this time."

"This solution inspects your traffic and based on that, automatically create distinct qualities for you, so you can add this to the policy already created. That's what I like most."

"The most valuable feature is artificial intelligence and to get extra internal access."

"We can monitor IP locations, but we have constraints from each country. It has a replication feature. Licenses can be shared, taking turns with each license."

"This solution is an enterprise-class firewall that provides both load-balancing and security."

"F5 Advanced WAF offers features not available in other products."

"Despite a few issues, F5 Advanced WAF is performing well for me."

More F5 Advanced WAF pros

"The most valuable feature of Huawei Cloud WAF is its ease of use."

Cons

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

"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."

"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."

"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well. They have documentation for everything you're looking for, but they lack a single piece of documentation to tie everything together. As a new user or beginner, it took us a little bit of time to figure out how to put all these things in place."

"There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules."

"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."

"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"The BNS module needs improvement."

"It should be a little bit easy to deploy in terms of the overall deployment session. One of our customers is a bit unhappy about the reporting options. Currently, it automatically deletes event logs after some limit if a customer doesn't have any external Syslog server. It is a problem for those customers who want to review event logs after a week or so because they won't get proper reports or event logs. They should increase the duration to at least a month or two for storing the data on the device. F5 is not a leader in Gartner Quadrant, which affects us when we go and pitch this solution. Customers normally go and take a look at such annual reports, and because F5 is currently not there as a leader, the customers ask about it even though we are saying it is good in all things. F5 is not known for something totally different or unique. They were a major player in ADP, and they are just rebranding themselves into security. They should improve or increase their marketing as a security company now. They have already started to do that, but they should do it more so that when it comes to security, customers can easily remember F5. At the moment, if we say F5, load balancing comes to mind. With rebranding and marketing, all customers should get the idea that F5 is now mainly focusing on the security part of it, and it is a security company instead of load balancing. This is the first solution that should come to a customer's mind for a web application firewall."

"The solution should include protection against web page attacks like what is available in FortiWeb."

"F5 Advanced WAF sells perpetual licenses as perpetual assets during sales without informing me that support ends after a few years."

"I would not expect traffic details to pass through the web application firewall across the length of the whole application. I think that there is a web application where it can let the application function without traffic going in into the WAF."

"It's a powerful tool yet can be complex for new users."

"This solution can be made more user-friendly."

"The delay times on firmware patches and software updates could be better and improved."

More F5 Advanced WAF cons

"It would be good if the solution's feature set could be expanded to mirror what currently exists on the public cloud."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"The solution is expensive."

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

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

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

"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."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"There are different licenses available to use F5 Advanced WAF, such as BT, ASM, and LPM."

"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."

"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."

"The way we deployed it, I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing."

"A yearly license for F5 Advanced WAF is expensive."

"The pricing is too high."

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

"There are various plans available for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF as a Service, including a trial version."

More F5 Advanced WAF pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

No data available

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	26
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	31

No data available

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 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...

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...

See all answers

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 do you like most about Huawei Cloud WAF?

The most valuable feature of Huawei Cloud WAF is its ease of use.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Huawei Cloud WAF?

It would be good if the solution's feature set could be expanded to mirror what currently exists on the public cloud.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Huawei Cloud WAF?

We have a private cloud leveraging Huawei technology. We use Huawei Cloud WAF to provide cloud services for governmen...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

NetScaler vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 23% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 6% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 5% of the time

NetScaler vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 3% of the time

More F5 Advanced WAF Competitors

AWS WAF vs Huawei Cloud WAF

Compared 16% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Huawei Cloud WAF

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Huawei Cloud WAF

Compared 10% of the time

More Huawei Cloud WAF Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

March 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF

March 2026

Download F5 Advanced WAF product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

Download Huawei Cloud WAF product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

F5 Advanced WAF is a web application security solution for financial and government sectors, e-commerce, and public-facing websites. It offers protection against various attacks, including botnets, web scraping, and foreign entities. The solution can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud and is often used with other security tools. Its most valuable features include DDoS and DNS attack protection, SSL uploading, anomaly detection, and the ability to input custom rules.

F5 Advanced WAF has helped organizations to expose more services to the public while providing an extra layer of protection, preventing revenue loss, and securing connectivity.

Huawei Cloud WAF delivers robust web application security features, efficiently protecting against common vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting. It is crafted for businesses seeking reliable web protection solutions.

Huawei Cloud WAF enhances web security by integrating advanced analytics and threat intelligence to detect and mitigate malicious attacks. With customizable policies, it adapts to evolving security needs, ensuring data integrity and availability. Installation is straightforward, with a scalable architecture suitable for diverse environments. Users appreciate its effectiveness and comprehensive coverage but suggest improvements in granular reporting and user interface customization for optimal flexibility.

What are the key features of Huawei Cloud WAF?

Advanced Threat Detection: Utilizes machine learning and AI to identify and mitigate new threats.
Customizable Security Policies: Allows users to tailor configurations for specific web applications.
Real-time Monitoring: Provides instant insights and alerts on web traffic and security status.
Comprehensive Report Generation: Delivers detailed analytics for informed decision-making.

What benefits are users typically looking for?

Improved Security Posture: Enhanced protection against web threats and vulnerabilities.
Reduced Downtime: Consistent performance and decreased risk of service interruptions.
Scalability: Capability to handle increased traffic loads without compromising security.
Cost Efficiency: Offers protection with competitive pricing, integrating seamlessly into existing IT frameworks.

In industries like finance and e-commerce, Huawei Cloud WAF's flexible deployment options allow businesses to secure sensitive transactions and customer data. These sectors benefit from its ability to maintain security compliance and its reliability in high-traffic scenarios. Customizable policies enable businesses to address industry-specific threats effectively.

Huawei

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

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