F5 Advanced WAF vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) comparison

F5 and Fastly are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4, while Fastly is ranked #25 with an average rating of 7.3. Additionally, 98% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 60% of Fastly users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Fastly Next-Gen WAF and F5 Advanced WAF are two products in the web application firewall market. Fastly Next-Gen WAF is recognized for pricing and ROI, while F5 Advanced WAF stands out with advanced features.

Features: Fastly Next-Gen WAF provides protection, robust analytics capabilities, and comprehensive security insights. F5 Advanced WAF offers extensive customization, advanced threat intelligence, and adaptability in feature set.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fastly Next-Gen WAF ensures straightforward and swift deployment, complemented by responsive customer service. F5 Advanced WAF, with a more complex deployment process, benefits from robust technical support for integration.

Pricing and ROI: Fastly Next-Gen WAF is appreciated for cost-effectiveness and quick ROI. F5 Advanced WAF requires a higher initial investment, seen as offering long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Advanced WAF vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

December 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

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

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Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

Application security has protected critical banking services while policy learning minimizes false blocks

F5 Advanced WAF performs well overall, but I have noticed some points that could enhance the solution. 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. A more guided and simple tuning workflow would help reduce the learning curve. Additionally, tighter native integration with SIEM or SOAR tools would simplify correlation and investigations for security teams, although log exports are available. Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.

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reviewer2161107

Staff Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Room for improvement with user interface while competitive pricing impresses

It is managed through Infrastructure as Code, so all configurations can be managed in the code itself, which is beneficial. Because it uses rules, it is easy to set up, and we have many different sites where the configurations are straightforward. Though the UI is not very interactive, which is a downside, we can manage many things. The UI is not very intuitive and could be better. However, we manage all the configurations through code, which is easy to maintain. It has extensive anomaly detection capabilities, so the traffic is classified into several categories where thresholds can be defined and customized based on false positives and false negatives. This is advantageous because you do not need to tweak it very often. Once you set it up, an audit once a quarter would suffice. Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate.

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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 most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

"The UI is good."

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."

"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"

"The technical support is good."

"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."

More Cloudflare pros

"The solution uses AI to protect against botnet attacks."

"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 initial setup was was easy to install."

"It ensures compliance with security standards by providing features like PCI DSS checks."

"F5 helped to meet compliance and regulatory requirements."

"It's scalable and very easy to manage."

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

More F5 Advanced WAF pros

"When configuring a web application firewall using Signal Sciences, we configure a rule whereby no one except a few people can access the application."

"Fastly (Signal Sciences) integrates and tags the intermittent traffic based on patterns. It generates signals and provides them in a dashboard where we can view them and decide whether to allow or deny traffic. It's a more advanced and easy-to-navigate dashboard."

"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily."

"Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate."

Cons

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

"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."

"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."

"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."

"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."

"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."

More Cloudflare cons

"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 thing that can be improved, is to increase the quantity over predefine policy."

"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."

"This solution can be made more user-friendly."

"F5 Advanced WAF could improve on its funding for WAF features. There is a need to be more advanced WAF features."

"It's sometimes difficult to customize APIs with F5 Advanced WAF."

"We get false positives sometimes."

"I would say their graphical interface, the GUI. I don't like the GUI as much as before."

More F5 Advanced WAF cons

"Even if we create some custom rules, Signal Sciences cannot capture some of the malicious traffic."

"The UI is not very intuitive and could be better."

"Fastly don't support caching for China users. That's the only feature lacking compared to Akamai."

"The areas that could be improved in Signal Sciences include the effectiveness of rules, as many didn't function optimally and required custom rule-writing to address bypasses for WAF."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"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."

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

"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."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"I rate F5 Advanced WAF's pricing a three out of ten."

"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."

"After buying the program, you just pay for the support every year."

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

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

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

"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 price of the solution is reasonable when compared with other products, such as FortiWeb. I am very satisfied with the price."

More F5 Advanced WAF pricing and cost advice

"The product has an affordable cost."

"Signal Sciences is pretty cheap compared to other solutions."

"The pricing is 50% less than Akamai."

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Retailer

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	30

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...

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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?

Regarding the price, I think the cost is a bit higher compared to others. Earlier we were using Radware, and compared...

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What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?

In terms of additional features I would like to see from them in the future, I think the GTM is a bit complicated to ...

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What do you like most about Signal Sciences?

The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Signal Sciences?

The pricing is very competitive compared to other providers. The pricing is definitely a factor in our decision-makin...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Signal Sciences?

We do use it, but the UI can be improved as we mostly work through the CI/CD. It provides support, but sometimes it i...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Fortinet FortiWeb vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 28% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 8% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 6% of the time

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AWS WAF vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 16% of the time

Sqreen vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 15% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 11% of the time

Azure Front Door vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 9% of the time

Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 6% of the time

More The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF

January 2026

Download F5 Advanced WAF product report

Buyer's Guide

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

December 2025

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) report

Download The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF, Signal Sciences RASP

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

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.

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) provides web application and API protection, RASP, rate limiting, bot protection and DDoS purpose built to eliminate the challenges of legacy WAF.

Fastly

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

Chef, Adobe, Datadog, Etsy, GrubHub, Vimeo, SendGrid, Under Armour, Duo, AppNexus

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

December 2025

Free Report: F5 Advanced WAF vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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