Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
F5 Advanced WAF
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (1st)
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (28th)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Ahmed Moamen - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects applications with versatile authentication features
F5 offers a versatile solution that can be integrated with APM in cases where integration with an external IDB is needed. It is useful for authentication backup if the on-prem directory service is unavailable. Additionally, its WAF functionality is valuable for protecting applications from attacks. It is a versatile and strong solution that's easy to understand and deploy.
Shashank N - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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."
"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."
"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."
"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."
"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."
"There are a lot of good features."
"The solution is easily accessible on mobile and laptop devices."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the WAF protection, Data Safe, and the seven-layer DDoS."
"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are SSL uploading, signature, and anomaly detection. It is overall a high-quality solution."
"The most valuable features of the F5 Advanced WAF are the enhanced ASM and the performance. Additionally, the usability and effectiveness are very good."
"Despite a few issues, F5 Advanced WAF is performing well for me."
"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the balancer and you can change policies very easily."
"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the security features and the protection."
"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

"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."
"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."
"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."
"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"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."
"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."
"For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components."
"I would like to see additional controls."
"The solution should include RASP for another level of protection at the code itself."
"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 delay times on firmware patches and software updates could be better and improved."
"They should work on the virtualization of NGINX."
"I would like to see the API Protection improved."
"The product could be more user-friendly for administrators."
"F5 Advanced WAF sells perpetual licenses as perpetual assets during sales without informing me that support ends after a few years."
"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."
"The UI is not very intuitive and could be better."
"Even if we create some custom rules, Signal Sciences cannot capture some of the malicious traffic."
"Fastly don't support caching for China users. That's the only feature lacking compared to Akamai."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."
"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."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"I rate F5 Advanced WAF's pricing a three out of ten."
"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."
"A yearly license for F5 Advanced WAF is expensive."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."
"There are various plans available for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF as a Service, including a trial version."
"The solution is very expensive so should only be used in the right environment."
"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."
"The price of F5 Advanced WAF could improve it is expensive."
"The pricing is 50% less than Akamai."
"Signal Sciences is pretty cheap compared to other solutions."
"The product has an affordable cost."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
869,883 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise29
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...
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...
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.
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...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
I do not have anything in mind right now that needs improvement. Generally, it works well. If we need any specific fe...
What do you like most about Signal Sciences?
The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily.
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF, Signal Sciences RASP
 

Overview

 

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
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: September 2025.
869,883 professionals have used our research since 2012.