F5 Advanced WAF vs Sucuri comparison

F5 and Sucuri Security are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5, while Sucuri Security is ranked #23 with an average rating of 8.5. Additionally, 98% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Sucuri Security users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Sucuri and F5 Advanced WAF are both strong competitors in web security. While Sucuri offers affordability and strong support, F5 Advanced WAF takes an edge with its advanced security features, which justify its higher price for many buyers.

Features: Sucuri offers comprehensive website protection, effective malware detection, and simplifies performance optimization. Its cloud-based system allows easy integration with minimal maintenance needed. F5 Advanced WAF provides threat intelligence, robust application security measures, and advanced mitigation techniques, catering to enterprises needing deep, specialized protection.

Room for Improvement: Sucuri could enhance real-time threat detection and add features for advanced bot protection. Its customization options also need expansion for varied security requirements. Additional API security features would make its offering more comprehensive. F5 Advanced WAF might improve its deployment process to cater better to users less experienced with complex integrations. Enhancements in user interface intuitiveness and expanded out-of-the-box analytics options would aid users more effectively in understanding complex security events.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sucuri leverages its cloud-based solution for seamless deployment, coupled with excellent customer service. This streamlining allows for easy problem solving and integration. In contrast, F5 Advanced WAF requires more expertise due to its advanced functionalities but compensates with robust support to facilitate configuration and management tasks efficiently.

Pricing and ROI: Sucuri positions itself as a cost-effective solution, providing a good return on investment for small to medium-sized companies not heavily investing in extensive security infrastructure. F5 Advanced WAF, despite its higher initial costs, offers significant benefits and value for larger enterprises investing in top-tier security solutions, providing a substantial return when safeguarding complex infrastructures.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Advanced WAF vs. Sucuri Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF vs. Sucuri

January 2025

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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

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

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Richard Polyak

Sr. Architect at NBC Universal

Easy event identification, highly stable, and customizable

Generally, F5 Advanced WAF initial setup is straightforward. However, our environment was more complex and it took us a little more time to customize the solution to where we needed it to be. Additionally, the customization didn't rectify everything. We had to do customization to a certain event to prevent attacks that it wasn't catching, but that might not necessarily be the solutions' fault. It could be more of our setup than the solution's fault and not being able to run the latest version or the newer version could be more of a limitation on our ability to put it in the right place. The whole implementation to have the solution run at the level we wanted it to take approximately five months. Our company's environment is one that we can't put a canned solution in front of. Our environment, cannot have a canned solution that might fit everybody else because of how customized this environment is. It does need a lot of tuning to meet our environment's requirements. I rate the initial setup of F5 Advanced WAF a three out of five.

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David Shlingbaum

IT Development Manager, Architect, Developer at Miltel Communications LTD

Simple solution and good WAF

Sucuri could provide help for specific security alerts in-line instead of requiring users to search for it in the help section. Users get errors or EBAs, and if they want to read about it, they need to find it in the help section of the site. It would be more helpful to allow users to see more information and tips immediately from within the alert.

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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

"The technical support is good."

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

"Cloudflare has many features."

"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."

"I get a lot of value from Cloudflare's API because it enables you to build a separate environment inside the solution. You can create a domain for performing test requests before you move to the production environment and connect various domains."

"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"

More Cloudflare pros

"It provides web application security and reduces bot attacks."

"The most valuable feature of F5 Advanced WAF is its ability to have a pool of resources that can distribute your traffic, and that is a plus for me. My company tried to look into a competitor, Imperva, but it was lacking that capability, so F5 Advanced WAF outperforms Imperva."

"Good dashboard and reporting."

"The most valuable feature is that it is secure."

"F5 technical support is excellent. They are experts who always provide the right solution, and they understand the problem. Their response and resolution times are good."

"There are a lot of good features."

"The most valuable feature of F5 Advanced WAF is its extensive set of capabilities for application protection, including DDoS prevention, and its ability to work with Pentesters and external scanners to observe user activity and eliminate false positives."

"The AOF solution provides numerous security features."

More F5 Advanced WAF pros

"I use it as a WAF, which is basically a web firewall to monitor and block traffic to our web server."

"Domain name scanning since it allows us to scan all our domain names and determine whether it has malware or if is reported as phishing."

"The initial setup was straightforward. Straight forward because the plugin can simply be installed and then it does its job. It's not complex, there is no learning curve. The online scan is simple, you put in the website address and the scan gives us a report on the browser itself. It's simple to use."

"The initial setup was very easy."

"The most valuable part is the analytics and visualization."

"It significantly eases the workload and streamlines the initial setup required to protect a website."

Cons

"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."

"Technical support is lacking."

"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."

"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."

"The solution could be more user-friendly."

"There are some issues with the CDN services."

"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

More Cloudflare cons

"For me, an area for improvement in F5 Advanced WAF is the reporting as it isn't so clear. The vendor needs to work on the reporting capability of the solution. What I'd like to see in the next release of F5 Advanced WAF is threat intelligence to protect your web application, particularly having that capability out-of-the-box, and not needing to pay extra for it, similar to what's offered in FortiWeb, for example, any request that originates from a malicious IP will be blocked automatically by FortiWeb. F5 Advanced WAF should have the intelligence for blocking malicious IPs, or automatically blocking threats included in the license, instead of making it an add-on feature that users have to pay for apart from the standard licensing fees."

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

"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."

"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."

"F5 Advanced WAF needs better integration within the application, like remote dashboards."

"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."

"One area for improvement in the product is its SSO integration, which posed challenges and required significant effort to resolve."

"Support is a little slow."

More F5 Advanced WAF cons

"Confident score: Currently it does not have one and there are cases that most websites flagged are false-positives."

"The main improvement I would like to see is support for .NET applications. If they could include this feature, I would include more sites in the protection."

"Sucuri could provide help for specific security alerts in-line instead of requiring users to search for it in the help section."

"In terms of improvement, the cost factor is always there."

"It would greatly benefit customers if they implemented an online chat or messaging system for quicker assistance."

"I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. The reason is that we have found sometimes customers or Google saying that there is something wrong with the website but Sucuri says that the site is clean so we do have to look at the site manually which means that the Sucuri scan does not pick up anything and everything."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable."

"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"It's more expensive than other solutions and depending on the modules, there can be additional fees."

"There is a perpetual license that comes with your hardware. There is also an additional fee for support."

"As far as the pricing of F5 Advanced WAF I would rate it a four out of five depending on what features I am looking for. Imperva is more expensive."

"Pricing for this solution is higher than average."

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

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

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

"The pricing of F5 Advanced WAF is more expensive than other solutions like Radware and CD18, it is quite high."

More F5 Advanced WAF pricing and cost advice

"Sucuri offers different plans, both the standard plan and an advanced plan. So there are different plans to choose from."

"It stands out as a more cost-effective option compared to other cloud-based security services like Cloudflare or JetPass."

"The ROI has been very good. Because of the solution, I have a tax break. The site developers were not always experienced people. We used to pay more for cleaning up the site when it was infected. Now, we have peace of mind knowing that the solution will clean up the site and that we won't have to go through the unnecessary process of restoring it from a backup. The protection on the WAF and the measures for backups have also prevented our site from going down."

"I’d simply say it’s really worth it."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

24%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

45%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?

The setup cost is normal, yet not the best in terms of the commercial aspect. Other competitors like Fortinet are che...

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What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?

One improvement for AOF could be focusing on enhancing its AI engine to make it more mature.

See all answers

What do you like most about Sucuri?

The initial setup was very easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sucuri?

The pricing is very reasonable. Sucuri offer other features as an add-on, such as backup, but these have an additiona...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Sucuri?

The main improvement I would like to see is support for .NET applications. If they could include this feature, I woul...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Fortinet FortiWeb vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 22% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 14% of the time

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Front Door vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 4% of the time

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SiteLock vs Sucuri

Compared 18% of the time

AWS WAF vs Sucuri

Compared 17% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Sucuri

Compared 9% of the time

Comodo cWatch vs Sucuri

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Sucuri

February 2025

Download Sucuri product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

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.

Sucuri gives website owners peace of mind with solutions that prevent hackers from abusing websites, and professional response services to those compromised. Sucuri is dedicated to researching the latest and emerging threats affecting websites like yours. Website security should be attainable for all website owners; we focus on making that a reality. Get back to running awesome WordPress websites. Our services are built around three principles – People. Process. Technology.

Sucuri Security

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

The Loft Salon, Tom McFarlin, WPBeginner, Taylor Town, Everything Everywhere, Financial Ducks in a Row, Chubstr, Real Advice Gal, Sujan Patel, Wallao, List25, School the World

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF vs. Sucuri

January 2025

Free Report: F5 Advanced WAF vs. Sucuri

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. Sucuri and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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