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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 Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 May 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.7%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 5.3%, down from 10.3% 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 WAF5.3%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall4.7%
NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall0.6%
Other89.4%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
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.
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

"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."
"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."
"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."
"Does a good job preventing web application attacks."
"The most valuable part of the solution for us overall is exactly that it is a Software-as-a-Service product."
"This is a good product; it's reliable and scales well."
"The impact of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's integration with existing web technologies on our site's performance and security measures is quite great, actually."
"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."
"The best solution for WAF."
"F5 Advanced WAF is a comprehensive community platform with a strong commitment, making it valuable for businesses."
"It provides web application security and reduces bot attacks."
"It's flexible and powerful, and the users can input their own rules to the system."
"The whole mechanism of F5 Advanced WAF is effective."
"With F5 Advanced WAF, it was protection for online publications and for our customers that caused us to choose the platform."
"There are a lot of good features."
"Identification, ease of use, and ease of modifying it to most of our needs are valuable."
"We really appreciate the hybrid security abilities; we get powerful protection for our application needs."
"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 reporting could be more granular."
"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."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."
"There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules."
"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."
"They need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long."
"The platform's control features related to real-time authentication and response time need improvement."
"On the features I wish existed, Big-IP Advanced WAF is primarily an on-premises solution and in that solution, there are not enough features that need to be there to protect API-based applications."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing."
"Its price should be better. It is expensive."
"The BIG-IQ is supposed to centralize the management for all of the boxes but it's not very effective."
"The solution should include protection against web page attacks like what is available in FortiWeb."
"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."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve on its funding for WAF features. There is a need to be more advanced WAF features."
"The solution's dashboard could be improved. When you're moving from policy to policy, the logs and the integration of the logs in other systems aren't straightforward."
"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."
"There is a need for expanded licensing terms and options. There's also a need for improved and more agile customization features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"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 is expensive."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"It is not too pricey."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"The pricing is too high."
"F5 bundles up services and the bundle is what you pay for rather than individual components."
"The cost is slightly above average."
"F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."
"It's more expensive than other solutions and depending on the modules, there can be additional fees."
"The price of the solution is reasonable when compared with other products, such as FortiWeb. I am very satisfied with the price."
"I would rate the pricing as seven out of ten"
"The pricing of F5 Advanced WAF is more expensive than other solutions like Radware and CD18, it is quite high."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise31
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
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 ...
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 re...
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 preve...
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Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
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: May 2026.
896,467 professionals have used our research since 2012.