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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

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
F5 Advanced WAF
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (2nd)
NSFOCUS Web Application Fir...
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (46th)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Ahmed Moamen - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects applications with versatile authentication features
F5 offers a versatile solution that can be integrated with APM in cases where integration with an external IDB is needed. It is useful for authentication backup if the on-prem directory service is unavailable. Additionally, its WAF functionality is valuable for protecting applications from attacks. It is a versatile and strong solution that's easy to understand and deploy.
it_user933945 - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"Centralized, full-featured DNS."
"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."
"Good dashboard and reporting."
"F5 Advanced WAF secures our connectivity and combines both the main functions of WAF (balancing and web application security)."
"F5 Advanced WAF is a stable solution, we are satisfied. It is more stable than ForiWeb."
"It is easy to obtain dashboard compliance because security policy views are included."
"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the balancer and you can change policies very easily."
"Very easy to implement and works well."
"With F5 Advanced WAF, it was protection for online publications and for our customers that caused us to choose the platform."
"The most valuable feature is that it is secure."
"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

"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"Technical support is lacking."
"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."
"I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."
"There are some issues with the CDN services."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."
"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."
"F5 Advanced needs to improve its bot protection. The solution needs to have machine learning to learn the behavior of the customer to recognize the human versus the bot. This is a difficult feature to explain to our customers. I would like documentation about the bot feature to make it easier for the customer to understand."
"The user interface (UI) seems a bit outdated. Making it more user-friendly would be beneficial."
"The DDoS capabilities should be enhanced."
"The Sandbox integration feature could be improved."
"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 overall price of F5 Advanced WAF could improve."
"While F5 Advanced WAF does limit the number of partners in certain regions to ensure successful business transactions, they could also benefit from expanding their partnerships and making it easier for more people to learn about and become experts in F5 Advanced WAF. By doing so, they could increase the reach and exposure of their solution, similar to how Cisco has become widely recognized in the security industry."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing."
"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 pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"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."
"The way we deployed it, I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing."
"I think the price is very high."
"I rate F5 Advanced WAF's pricing a three out of ten."
"There is a perpetual license that comes with your hardware. There is also an additional fee for support."
"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."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."
"The cost is slightly above average."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
I do not have anything in mind right now that needs improvement. Generally, it works well. If we need any specific fe...
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Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
NSFOCUS WAF, NSFOCUS Web Application Security
 

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
2016 G20 Summit
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), F5, Microsoft and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.