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 #16 with an average rating of 9.0, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.5. F5 holds a 1.9% mindshare in WAF, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

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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: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

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

June 2026

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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 Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.0%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 1.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 1.9%, 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	4.0%
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks	1.9%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services	1.9%
Other	92.2%

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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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

"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."

"The most valuable part of the solution for us overall is exactly that it is a Software-as-a-Service product."

"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 is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."

"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."

"The initial setup process is simple."

"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

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

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

"I appreciate the UI of F5 Distributed Cloud Services and the backend cost, alongside the actual value proposition that they provide with the load balancer, which is excellent."

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

"We have never had problems with F5 Distributed Cloud Services and they are doing a very good job."

"Elastic environments are the most valuable features because I can pull these apps and migrate the on-premises environment to the Distributed Cloud environment, and this capability is very strong and the security regarding the apps is really very powerful."

"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."

More F5 Distributed Cloud Services pros

"Syslog CLIs are the best feature."

"I like the scanning features provided by Prisma Cloud, including the image scan and source scan."

"Prisma Cloud offers robust runtime scanning capabilities, which is beneficial for security teams."

"Prisma Cloud is a single tool that we can use to protect all of our cloud resources without having to manage and reconcile several security and compliance reports."

"The most valuable feature of Prisma Cloud for our clients is CSPM, as it helps clients gain visibility into all the assets with their cloud providers."

"The first aspect that is important is the fact that Prisma Cloud is cloud-agnostic. It's actually available for the five top cloud providers: AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, and Alibaba Cloud. The second aspect is the fact that we can write our own rules to try to detect misconfigurations in those environments."

"CSPM is the most valuable feature for any organization that runs its workloads in the cloud."

"The support is excellent."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks pros

Cons

"WAF doesn't directly affect bandwidth costs. It saves costs on protection. However, with the correct setup, it's difficult to determine if it saves costs overall due to the fixed enterprise plan fee."

"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."

"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well. They have documentation for everything you're looking for, but they lack a single piece of documentation to tie everything together. As a new user or beginner, it took us a little bit of time to figure out how to put all these things in place."

"We don't even use Cloudflare Bot Management because it's too expensive; you need to pay per request, and it's much cheaper to get one or two additional machines."

"Its stability could be better."

"Support can be challenging at times."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"The ModSecurity core rules need to be updated."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"The worst experience is that with so many solutions available, it is very complicated to know all of the solution modules, and the offers from F5 Distributed Cloud Services are vast."

"One area where F5 Distributed Cloud Services can be improved is in API security, which can be enhanced."

"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."

"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."

"They are missing some compatibility details in their documentation."

"The feedback that we have given to the Palo Alto Networks team is that the UI can be improved."

"I would like Prisma Cloud to improve its mapping feature to increase usability."

"Prisma is good about compliance, and their support is excellent, but they struggle with automation and integration. They need to stay on top of the newest types of connectors. How can you connect other applications and other tools in order for this to work cohesively? That's a challenge."

"When it comes to compliance, the issue is that when we are exporting the reports, there is only a single compliance option. If I need to report on multiple compliance requirements, that feature isn't available. For example, I made a single report for ISO 27000 but I can't correlate it with GDPR."

"They charge seven workloads for monitoring one compute, and that is quite expensive. This makes it difficult to move fully with the compute part because of the workload."

"While the documentation continually improves, it still has limitations compared to the extensive resources available for older products like hardware firewalls, which have been around for approximately 20 years."

"The UI is good, however, they could improve the experience."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

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

"The solution is expensive."

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

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

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

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

"It is not too pricey."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"Almost all the CSPM tools are pretty expensive."

"You can expect a premium price because it is a premium quality product by a leading supplier."

"Prisma Cloud's licensing system functions as expected with a solid licensing infrastructure."

"Prisma Cloud is a value-back cloud-managed solution; cloud-native solutions are quite expensive."

"Our licensing fees are $18,000 USD per year."

"The pricing of the solution is fair."

"If you pay for three years of Palo Alto, it's better. If you're planning on doing this, it's obviously not going to be for one year, so it's better if you go with a three-year license... The only challenge we have is with the public cloud vendor pricing. The biggest lesson I have learned is around the issues related to pricing for public cloud. So when you are doing your segmentation and design, it is extremely important that you work with someone who knows and understands what kinds of needs you will have in the future and how what you are doing will affect you in terms of costs."

"The pricing is good. They gave us some good discounts right at the end of the year based on the value that it brings, visibility, and the ability to build in cloud, compliance, and security within one dashboard."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	37
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	58

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?

F5 Distributed Cloud Services is affordable. I think it is very affordable. I do not think it is expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

One area where F5 Distributed Cloud Services can be improved is in API security, which can be enhanced.Specifically, ...

See all answers

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

My main use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services is WAF protection.I am using F5 Distributed Cloud Services primari...

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

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

July 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

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Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services

June 2026

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Buyer's Guide

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

July 2026

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks report

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Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

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

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall integrates DDoS protection, load balancing, and firewall capabilities. Its ease of use, configurability, and robust security measures make it a versatile choice for protecting web applications.

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides a comprehensive defense against threats with advanced reporting and robust security measures. It includes DNS integration, rate limiting, and extensive rule sets, all within a SaaS model that allows API configurability. Users value its caching, scalability, and pricing, although enhancements are needed in rate-limiting and third-party integration. Improvements in customer support, especially in India, real-time controls, and user documentation are also desired. Users seek a more intuitive dashboard, better log management, and improved alert systems, along with multitenancy capabilities and enhanced reporting.

What are the key features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

DDoS Protection: Shields applications from denial-of-service attacks
Load Balancing: Ensures efficient traffic distribution
DNS Integration: Enhances domain name system security
Rate Limiting: Controls traffic flow and reduces abuse
Extensive Rule Sets: Offers customizable security rules

What benefits and ROI can users find in reviews?

Scalability: Easily adapts to growing business needs
Pricing: Offers reasonable pricing structure
Caching: Improves application performance and speed
Configurable Security: Provides customizable defense settings
Efficient Management: Simplifies security and application control

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall finds application in industries like banking and retail by acting as a comprehensive security gateway, managing authentication and authorization while protecting web applications from malicious Layer 7 traffic. It also implements load balancing, CDN, and zero-trust policies, supported by advanced reporting, analytics tools, and threat scoring to meet specific industry needs.

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

June 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: June 2026.

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