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 #3 with an average rating of 8.6, while Fastly is ranked #25 with an average rating of 7.7. F5 holds a 12.0% mindshare in WAF, compared to Fastly’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of Fastly users who would recommend it.

F5 Advanced WAF

Read 63 F5 Advanced WAF reviews

10,237 Views
8,239 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...

Read 3 The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) reviews

711 Views
547 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

F5 Advanced WAF

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 Advanced WAF and The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Advanced WAF vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

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

October 2024

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Helped 816,636 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

F5 Advanced WAF

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

25th

Average Rating

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 12.0%, up from 10.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

YUSUF TAIWO

Founder roverupgrades.com.ng at 22 TEAM RESOURCES LIMITED

Ensures a robust and unified security approach for our clients

One area for improvement in the product is its SSO integration, which posed challenges and required significant effort to resolve. The complexity of SSO deployment, coupled with high associated costs, could be addressed to enhance usability. Streamlining the SSO process and revisiting cost considerations would contribute to an improved user experience.

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Shashank N

Security Engineer-DevSecOps at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Provides good stability, but the agent-based approach could be more convenient

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. Additionally, the agent-based approach presents challenges with managing agents across versions and dependencies on specific application platforms like Apache or NGINX, leading to compatibility issues and complexity in integration. This agent-based system proved particularly difficult to manage.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Web attack signatures are very important for detecting web attacks."

"In terms of F5 Advanced WAF's most valuable features, I would definitely say its stability. F5 is one the most stable products. Either as the load balancer or the web application firewall, it is very stable."

"Good technology for mitigating different application attacks, e.g. DDoS, DNS, and layer seven attacks."

"Very easy to implement and works well."

"The product is used to secure web applications and has the ability to use API templates and bot protection features, such as blocking requests or presenting CAPTCHA pages to end users."

"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."

"The most valuable features of the F5 Advanced WAF are the enhanced ASM and the performance. Additionally, the usability and effectiveness are very good."

"This solution inspects your traffic and based on that, automatically create distinct qualities for you, so you can add this to the policy already created. That's what I like most."

More F5 Advanced WAF pros

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

"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."

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

Cons

"We usually use a third-party tool for logging and reporting. It would be nice if we could do that right on this solution. They have one, but it's not very stable. Logging and reporting effectively would be a big enhancement."

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

"They could provide better pricing."

"The delay times on firmware patches and software updates could be better and improved."

"The interface is old-looking, it's not modern, which is why it's not always comfortable to use."

"The solution could improve by having an independent capture module. It has a built feature that you can deploy the capture on your published website. However, it's not very user-friendly. When you compare this feature to Google Capture or other enterprise captures, they are very simple. It needs a good connection to the F5 Advanced WAF sandbox. When you implement this feature in the data center, you may suffer some complications with connecting to the F5 Advanced WAF sandbox. This should be improved in the future."

"F5 Advanced WAF could improve the reporting. It's a bit difficult to populate, them. If you're not so familiar with the functions, such as where to find the logs and other settings."

"The contextual-based component needs a lot of help to catch up with the next-gen products."

More F5 Advanced WAF cons

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

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

"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

"F5 Advanced WAF technical support comes at a cost, and it's expensive."

"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."

"The solution is very expensive so should only be used in the right environment."

"I would rate the pricing as seven out of ten"

"The pricing for F5 Advanced WAF is comparable to a Rolls-Royce. Its price is a bit high when you compare it with other vendors. F5 Advanced WAF is a bit expensive. The customer was on a three-year plan and it was around $560,000."

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

"F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."

"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

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

"The product has an affordable cost."

"The pricing is 50% less than Akamai."

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

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816,636 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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 rules per the requirements.

See all answers

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

I don't have direct knowledge of the pricing. From what I know, it is not too expensive compared to other solutions.

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?

The product could be more user-friendly for administrators. The user interface could be easier.

See all answers

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 50% less than Akamai.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Signal Sciences?

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

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 21% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 16% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 15% of the time

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 9% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 5% of the time

More F5 Advanced WAF Competitors

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

Compared 25% of the time

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

Compared 18% of the time

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

Compared 8% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 8% of the time

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

Compared 7% of the time

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

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF

November 2024

Download F5 Advanced WAF product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

November 2024

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

No data available

Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF, Signal Sciences RASP

Learn More

Video not available

Fastly

Overview

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.

Sample Customers

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)

October 2024

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: October 2024.

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