F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

F5 and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #19 with an average rating of 9.0, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.5. F5 holds a 1.8% mindshare in WAF, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and F5 Distributed Cloud Services are competing in cloud security and management. Prisma Cloud seems to have the upper hand in pricing and customer support, offering greater value, while F5 excels in features, possibly justifying its cost for some organizations.

Features: Prisma Cloud offers robust security automation, threat detection, and compliance across multi-cloud environments. F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides comprehensive edge computing capabilities, application security features, and emphasis on edge computing. The key difference lies in Prisma's focus on multi-cloud support versus F5's edge computing excellence.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Prisma Cloud provides intuitive deployment with comprehensive documentation and responsive support. F5 Distributed Cloud Services offers a flexible deployment model with dedicated assistance, which some may find more complex. Prisma's straightforward implementation appeals to those prioritizing simplicity, whereas F5's tailored support suits complex needs.

Pricing and ROI: Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks provides competitive pricing with robust ROI due to inclusive features and lower setup costs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services, despite higher initial costs, offers solid ROI through extensive features and strategic advantages. Prisma is more cost-effective, whereas F5 focuses on a feature-rich pricing model.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

April 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 886,664 peers since 2012

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 Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.7%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 1.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 2.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	4.7%
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks	2.0%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services	1.8%
Other	91.5%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

Read full review

Mohan Janarthanan

Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions

Centralized security has protected APIs and optimized multi‑cloud traffic management

F5 Distributed Cloud Services has been used for two years for DDoS protection, and there is a particular feature called API protection. Within API protection, there is malicious user mitigation, which is one particular technology that has been implemented. This is a kind of advanced bot attack prevention. Malicious user mitigation is an AI/ML-based technology that was introduced by the F5 team, and this particular MUG protects rate limiting. If some users are having anomaly detection or someone is trying to do a bot attack, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge for that particular user alone and not for all users. For example, if someone is trying to act as a rogue, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge in the backend system on that particular system, so they cannot try again and again at the same time. It is for a concurrent session, and it will give the CAPTCHA challenge. This MUG, malicious user mitigation, prevents bot attacks. F5 Distributed Cloud Services includes the real-time intelligence feature, which helps with threat response strategies from a threat intelligence perspective. For example, if there are geo-restrictions or geo-based restrictions, sometimes people may come in through proxy-based servers, and it will prevent that. The load balancing feature optimizes application performance. Observability is the basic piece where F5 got introduced. This observability piece provides end-to-end visibility on the application performance. It gives complete end-to-end visibility across network latency and application performance issues. Sometimes when it is getting more than 200 pages, it throws errors such as 300, 400, or whatever has been configured, including 500 errors. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has helped improve traffic management efficiency. Most applications are hosted in the Check Point and F5 firewall, F5 web application firewall, where applications and traffic management can be accessed in a single dashboard. Automated threat detection is a basic feature of F5 Distributed Cloud Services meant for that purpose. There are two scenarios with automated threat detection, which is provided by F5. It is a completely machine learning solution that came from the bot defense, and it automatically protects against sophisticated attacks.

Read full review

reviewer2776578

Cyber Security Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Image scanning has supported consistent security practices during cloud deployment

On a scale of ten, we would say people are happy with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for the part we use. People are okay with it. We probably would give an eight. We don't give ten because if we don't use the other parts of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, it's because it was difficult to implement from an operational point of view. We could have deployed the runtime monitoring with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, but within our organization at our company, it was very difficult to find who would be the owner for the alerts. People have other tools and in the end, we don't use the full capabilities of a product that we pay for. It's partially related to the difficulty to integrate Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks runtime in our company's support process. We don't use the real-time monitoring part of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks. We don't know about the automated remediation feature of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks.

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

"Does a good job preventing web application attacks."

"Very glad the WAF rulesets works out of box, and requires very little tuning or maintenance."

"Technical support has a very fast response time and they are helpful."

"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."

"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."

"The impact of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's integration with existing web technologies on our site's performance and security measures is quite great, actually."

"Cloudflare has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple clients; I can easily go in and access their accounts, make changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."

"It is a SaaS solution unlike much of the competition."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."

"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."

"Technical support from F5 is good compared to Cisco and HP."

"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."

"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."

"F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well."

"The opportunity in our company is good because we are already using Red Hat at different stages of cloud computing."

"It provides good visibility and control regardless of the complexity."

"The reporting, dashboarding, and filtering capabilities which provide reports we can present to our senior staff are the most helpful features of Prisma Cloud (Annual Contract)."

"I've been really pleasantly surprised with how Prisma Cloud is, over time, covering more and more of the topics I care about, and listening to customer feedback and growing the product in the right directions."

"Prisma Cloud's most valuable asset is its ability to provide detailed visibility into container activity."

"In the GlobalProtect module, we can easily guide users experiencing connection issues through the notification column."

"Prisma Cloud provides the visibility and control that we need, regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environments become, which is very nice."

"The most valuable features are the alerts and auto-remediation because it allows us a lot of flexibility to customize and do things the Palo Alto team never intended. We faced some challenges with certificates because we also have next-gen firewalls. We would like to equip all the traffic because there have been many cases in which the developers have done things by mistake. Deploying certificates on virtual machines can be complex in a development environment, but we managed to do that with Prisma Cloud."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks pros

Cons

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

"If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."

"The reporting could be more granular."

"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."

"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."

"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."

"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed."

"For small players, it is completely not worth it."

"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."

"For small players, it is completely not worth it."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."

"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."

"It can be too expensive for small companies."

"We'd like to have more native integration with clouds and additional security checks in the future."

"These tools have a set of signatures or rules that will alert you whenever something meets the criteria. In the future, they might include some machine learning or AI feature that allows you to ask questions about the context of the alert, and it will provide you answers based on the data that they have. Most vendors are doing it, and I believe they will do it in the future. The reporting bar could also use AI to add context based on the environment."

"We would like it to have more features from the risk and compliance perspectives."

"This could be one input that its pricing could be adjusted with respect to other competitors regarding any new features that could be added or improvements to be made in Prisma Cloud (Annual Contract)."

"The integration of the Compute function into the cloud monitoring function—because those are two different tools that are being combined together—could use some more work. It still feels a little bit disjointed."

"The access controls for our bank roles were not granular enough. We needed specific people to do particular actions, and we often had to give some people way too much access for them to be able to do what they needed in Prisma. They couldn't do their jobs if they didn't have that level of access, so other people had to do that part for them. It would help to have more granular role-based access controls."

"It would be nice Prisma Cloud merged its modules for CSPM and infrastructure as code. It would simplify the pricing and make it easier for customers to evaluate the solution because there are different modules, and you need to add it to your subscription separately."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

"It is not too pricey."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

"The solution is expensive."

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"It is fairly priced. However, its price can be better so that small banks or small organizations can afford it and adopt it to secure their environment and data."

"Prisma Cloud is affordable."

"Although the cost can be high, the value is worth the price tag."

"The price is high. In the future, when there are more competitors at the same level with different clouds, maybe the position will be different."

"Prisma Cloud is more expensive than some other solutions, but when we consider all of its use cases, the cost averages out."

"Prisma Cloud is cost-efficient, but the credits are on the higher end."

"From my exposure so far, they have been really flexible on whatever your current state is, with a view to what the future state might be. There's no hard sell. They "get" the journey that you're on, and they're trying to help you embrace cloud security, governance, and compliance as you go."

"In general, Prisma Cloud is much cheaper than cloud-native services."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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

See recommendations

886,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	37
Midsize Enterprise	22
Large Enterprise	56

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

There are some gaps between the implementation, expectation, and the reality. The main point is user integration with...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

F5 Distributed Cloud Services works as a Software as a Service based security, networking, and application management...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?

Prisma Cloud helps support DevSecOps methodologies, making those responsibilities easier to manage.

See all answers

What Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform do you recommend?

We like Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, since it offers us incredible visibility into our entire cloud system. We...

See all answers

What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?

Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valu...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

Azure Front Door vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 10% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 9% of the time

Cloudflare vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 9% of the time

Akamai vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 9% of the time

IIS PHP Windows vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 2% of the time

More F5 Distributed Cloud Services Competitors

Wiz vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 8% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 7% of the time

Cyera vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

April 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

CDN

March 2026

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Buyer's Guide

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

March 2026

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks report

Download Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

F5 Distributed Cloud Services excel in enhancing security, optimizing web application delivery, and ensuring robust network performance. Users value its integrated Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, global server load balancing, and intuitive management interface. It boosts organizational efficiency, reduces operational costs, and scales seamlessly, making it essential for businesses operating in distributed environments.

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks provides comprehensive cloud-native security solutions. It covers dynamic workload identity, automated forensics, and multi-cloud protection, ensuring robust security across diverse cloud platforms.

Prisma Cloud delivers advanced capabilities for managing cloud security across AWS, Azure, and GCP platforms. It offers dynamic workload identity creation, real-time monitoring, and seamless integration into CI/CD pipelines. With automation, centralized dashboards, and enhanced visibility, users effectively manage security misconfigurations and vulnerabilities. While optimizing cloud environments through runtime protection and compliance, Prisma Cloud faces challenges with its navigation, pricing, and limited automation capabilities. Users seek improvements in API security, role-based access controls, and documentation quality, emphasizing the need for enhanced customization and reporting features.

What are the important features of Prisma Cloud?

Dynamic Workload Identity: Enables unique workload identities for security purposes.
Automated Forensics: Offers detailed insights into threats and incidents automatically.
Runtime Protection: Provides ongoing detection and blocking of suspicious activities.
Multi-Cloud Security: Protects environments on AWS, Azure, and GCP simultaneously.
Compliance Management: Assists in meeting regulatory standards across cloud platforms.

What benefits or ROI should users consider in reviews?

Enhanced Security Posture: Strengthens cloud defense lines with proactive monitoring.
Centralized Dashboard: Offers unified oversight of multiple cloud environments.
Efficient Misconfiguration Handling: Quickly identifies and addresses security lapses.
Seamless CI/CD Integration: Integrates security within development workflows.
Improved Visibility: Provides transparent insights into security operations and alerts.

Industries like finance and telecom rely on Prisma Cloud for managing cloud security posture and container security. Teams utilize its capabilities across hybrid and multi-cloud settings to ensure compliance and robust threat protection. Features like misconfiguration detection and runtime monitoring are critical in promoting security objectives in these sectors.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Information Not Available

Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

April 2026

Free Report: F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

886,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks report.

See our list of best Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendors.

We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.