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F5 Advanced WAF vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NSFOCUS Web Application Fir...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
44th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 3.3%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Advanced WAF3.3%
NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall0.6%
Other96.1%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2797602 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
it_user933945 - PeerSpot reviewer
Desktop Engineer at eros international media ltd
Offers Application Protection Against Web Attacks
There is a need for expanded licensing terms and options. There's also a need for improved and more agile customization features. The user needs to be able to manage each policy as required; the functionality needs to empower the user. There should be a complete suite of desktop provider policies available to users. Overall, it needs to be more user-friendly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"F5 Advanced WAF is a stable solution, we are satisfied. It is more stable than ForiWeb."
"After implementing F5 Advanced WAF, nearly 99.9% of requests are legitimate due to the granularity and response verification by attack patterns and request blocking."
"There is no need to worry about updating signatures because WAF will automatically update the signatures for you."
"The level of configurability that I get with F5 Advanced WAF solution is immense, and I have to be a bit aware of how it works and all of its features, but at the end of the day, it is all about the administration expertise that I will require to have and use it to my liking based on the kind of services that I have onboarded on my solution itself."
"In terms of F5 Advanced WAF's most valuable features, I would definitely say its stability, as F5 is one of the most stable products and either as the load balancer or the web application firewall, it is very stable."
"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."
"Good dashboard and reporting."
"The most valuable feature is artificial intelligence and to get extra internal access."
"Since we are using this tool for protection purposes we really appreciate the hybrid security abilities; the main idea here is that we powerful protection our application needs."
 

Cons

"The solution is tedious. It takes a lot of discrete settings so one needs to get detailed and granular when they use the solution. It takes you a whole lot of energy and concentration to configure. It needs to be much more straight-forward, like other web solutions."
"The solution's dashboard could be improved."
"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."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve resource usage, it is CPU intensive. Additionally, adding automated remediation would be a benefit. For example, an easy button alerts us of the events that are occurring, and what we want to do at the time. An automated approach where somebody could be alerted very quickly. Instead of going and reconfiguring everything, an automated approach is what I'm looking at."
"One improvement for AOF could be focusing on enhancing its AI engine to make it more mature."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve the precision of the scanning. There are many false positives. They should improve their threat database."
"The reporting could be clearer and embedded to include our movement data."
"Support is a little slow."
"There is a need for expanded licensing terms and options. There's also a need for improved and more agile customization features."
"There is a need for expanded licensing terms and options. There's also a need for improved and more agile customization features. The user needs to be able to manage each policy as required; the functionality needs to empower the user. There should be a complete suite of desktop provider policies available to users. Overall, it needs to be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the price is very high."
"The cost is slightly above average."
"After buying the program, you just pay for the support every year."
"Pricing for this solution is higher than average."
"Its price is fair. We have done a couple of deals where they were able to give some kind of discount to the customers. The price was initially high for the customers, but after a couple of negotiations, it came within their budget. They were happy with that."
"There is an annual subscription for this solution."
"The price of the solution is reasonable when compared with other products, such as FortiWeb. I am very satisfied with the price."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise31
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?
F5 Advanced WAF is somewhat costly compared to other vendors, but it is worth the investment due to the stability it provides to the environment and infrastructure.
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
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 wh...
What is your primary use case for F5 Advanced WAF?
My main use case for F5 Advanced WAF is to protect external and internal applications from cyber attacks and to prevent malicious payloads and malicious data from reaching servers. Even if maliciou...
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Also Known As

No data available
NSFOCUS WAF, NSFOCUS Web Application Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
2016 G20 Summit
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Radware, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: November 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.