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F5 Advanced WAF vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall comparison

 

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)
45th
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 August 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 3.9%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall is 0.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Advanced WAF3.9%
NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall0.6%
Other95.5%
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

"It's scalable and very easy to manage."
"The product is very stable; it is a PCI company, so there are 10,000-12,000 people using the solution, and all of the internet payments are behind the ASM for the F5."
"I like the security features, especially against SQL injection."
"The solution is very robust, and I like the setup."
"The product is very easy to use and they provide great support."
"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."
"With F5 Advanced WAF, it was protection for online publications and for our customers that caused us to choose the platform."
"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 accuracy of the automatic learning feature needs improvement."
"I would say their graphical interface, the GUI. I don't like the GUI as much as before."
"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."
"One thing that can be improved, is to increase the quantity over predefine policy."
"They should work on the virtualization of NGINX."
"Everything is good about the F5 WAF, except the reporting. It's really difficult to set records from that device, the UI is kind of hard to work with, and the reporting must 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 GUI interface can be confusing due to similar-looking tabs for policy building, traffic learning, and event logs."
"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

"There are different licenses available to use F5 Advanced WAF, such as BT, ASM, and LPM."
"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."
"Licensing fees for this solution are paid on a yearly basis."
"A yearly license for F5 Advanced WAF is 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."
"The pricing is too high."
"I am not sure about pricing but licenses are available on Google."
"The cost is slightly above average."
Information not available
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909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
8%
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, Fortinet, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.