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

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs F5 Silverline Managed Services comparison

Sponsored
 

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
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 Distributed Cloud Services
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
CDN (10th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (20th), API Security (5th)
F5 Silverline Managed Services
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (23rd), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (14th)
 

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.
FM
Protects web applications with comprehensive security features
All features are valuable. In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation. This is a comprehensive package for web application security. The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.
DejanBlagojevic - PeerSpot reviewer
Mitigates more bot activity when defending web applications than any other vendor but comes at a price
F5 Silverline Managed Services is expensive. You do get world-class quality of mitigation, but I think it is still pricey. You can find similar services, potentially of slightly lower quality, from other vendors like Cloudflare or Akamai for about half the price. When you compare what you get for the money you spend at Cloudflare or Akamai, you do get less protection but you are not dishing out too much for it. On the other hand, at F5 Silverline Managed Services, you do get better protection but, but you are paying double for it. We have had mixed feedback from our clients about this. Most of them would rather pay less for a bit of a lower-quality defense than overshoot their budget. The most common piece of feedback we receive is that the difference in protection levels is not reflected in the price.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."
"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."
"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."
"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The technical support is good."
"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."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."
"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."
"The most valuable features are the configuration and configuring the process."
"The most valuable feature of F5 Silverline Managed Services is the benchmark performance."
"F5 technical support is really good."
"The product’s UI is easy to understand."
"F5 Silverline offers load balancing, flexibility, and reliability."
"The most important feature is that they have seven firewall protection, to protect our web servers."
"The most valuable feature of F5 Silverline Managed Services is its cloud-native functionality and the high level of protection it provides."
"It's a good front end for public infrastructure"
 

Cons

"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."
"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."
"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."
"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."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."
"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."
"There is a lot of room for improvement with their tech support. I am not sure F5 Silverline Managed Services can be classified as having tech support."
"I just hope the price can be cheaper."
"F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, being a new product in the market or comparatively related to a new product, currently supports less number of PoPs. They should introduce more PoPs. The current number of PoPs that they have is around 10 or 12, which is still relatively less as compared to 2,400 plus PoPs that Akamai offers. The user latency or the number of hops a user needs before reaching the actual web application is less in Akamai because it has its internal fabric to route the traffic. They need to spin up more data to increase its traffic handling capability. They can also include the bot detection capability, though it is a pretty advanced functionality. If they could include DataDome like functionality, that is, bot prediction, then F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall will be top-notch in the market."
"Automating processes could enhance F5 Silverline Managed Services."
"F5 Silverline Managed Services can improve by reducing the price."
"In terms of the scalability, this part is always so confusing because they are checking for packet count. Also, after an attack, they said that the throughput must be from gigabits but then I check my bandwidth and it is already done in gigabits. So it is a little bit confusing."
"The price is high in comparison to other products."
"You need to have Linux knowledge in order to use the shell."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"We are using the free version."
"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 pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"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."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
Information not available
"The price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be reduced."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall works based on your bandwidth. They look at the clean bandwidth and do the pricing. 20% of a total pipe would be a clean bandwidth. The list price or a non-negotiated price for F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall would be around $2,200 per application per year for everything that you need. When you get into an enterprise kind of a setup, they negotiate this to the last bit. I would easily take 20% on that, which would be the cost, but it should cover all your Advance WAF features, bot protection, tech campaign, etc. It is built as a package and gives you most of the capability. You don't get the mobile SDK, which is an additional license. Mobile SDK is required only if you're buying or if you have a mobile application, and you are going to instrument F5 or Imperva into your mobile appliance. This anyways would be an additional module. It doesn't come within the WAF, but it is a WAF feature."
"The price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be better, they are not very flexible. The price of the solution is based on the requirements of the enterprise."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
872,846 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Insurance Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four...
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
It's a long way to be perfect, of course, as with all solutions. The main issue is integration with other parts or pr...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
There are two main use cases for Distributed Call Services: DDoS or Distributed attacks protection and WAF web applic...
Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?
For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you hav...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Silverline Managed Services?
The solution is quite reasonably priced, with costs being lower in comparison to competitors. On a scale where ten is...
What needs improvement with F5 Silverline Managed Services?
Automating processes could enhance F5 Silverline Managed Services. For example, introducing preemptive support prompt...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, F5 Silverline DDoS Protection
 

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.
Information Not Available
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,846 professionals have used our research since 2012.