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

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.7
F5 Distributed Cloud Services reduces costs by 30%, cuts engineering time, and eliminates data center hardware needs.
Sentiment score
6.8
Prisma Cloud boosts productivity and security through automation, reducing vulnerabilities, saving time, and streamlining compliance for organizations.
I would estimate the cost was reduced by approximately 30 percent in the first year.
Information Security at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
In terms of return on investment for F5 Distributed Cloud Services, we have seen at least a 30% reduction in infrastructure and compute costs.
Senior Network Consultant at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
There is definitely a return on investment in F5 Distributed Cloud Services.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
It eliminates the need for additional hardware, making it a financially and technically sound investment.
Partner at Quasys
There was a cost reduction. That was the benefit that we had visualized while evaluating Prisma Cloud as one of the possible solutions.
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
F5 Distributed Cloud Services support is highly praised for expertise and reliability, yet improvements in email response are needed.
Sentiment score
7.1
Prisma Cloud support quality varies; clients experience quick resolutions or slow responses, with satisfaction depending on region and support level.
There is a lot of support from F5 Distributed Cloud Services and the knowledge on the page is very good and reliable.
Engineer Solutions Architect at SCitum
They understand complex BGP routing, IP security, overlay topologies, and Layer 7 WAF logics, rather than just reading basic script templates.
Senior Network Consultant at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
I would provide 9.5 for support.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
They can respond with technical documentation or pass on the case to the next level because it requires the development of a new feature or changing a feature due to a bug.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Anywhere we raise a tech case, they revert back within an hour.
Cloud Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
I would give them 10 out of 10.
Sector Manager at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.4
F5 Distributed Cloud Services are highly scalable, effectively managing complex traffic and diverse demands with minimal personnel.
Sentiment score
7.5
Prisma Cloud offers scalable, flexible multi-cloud support, efficiently accommodating large enterprises with performance, albeit needing credit purchases for optimal use.
Volumetric DDoS and heavy layer 7 bot attacks are absorbed seamlessly by F5's regional edge SaaS network.
Senior Network Consultant at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
I need the traffic management environments in distributed management, which have a very good goal to manage very difficult traffic in the world.
Engineer Solutions Architect at SCitum
Scalability within the credit limit is good. It is 100%.
Cloud security architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.
Cloud Security Support at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
Cloud Security Engineer (Team lead) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
F5 Distributed Cloud Services delivers stable, reliable performance with 99.99% uptime, despite occasional compliance and configuration issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is highly reliable and trustworthy, with minimal downtime and effective maintenance communication.
I won't face any issues with stability as a concern because it provides the load balancers and all redundancy, so it's very unlikely that we have any downtime.
Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
It has delivered around consistent 99.99% uptime.
Senior Network Consultant at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.
Cloud Security Engineer (Team lead) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
We had issues whenever we were downloading the vulnerability report. It did not include all the information.
Cloud Security Support at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Once the issues were identified, Palo Alto applied the correct solutions to ensure high availability and scalability.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved UI, log retention, integration, pricing, API security, analytics, regional latency, iRule support, and cloud options.
Prisma Cloud needs user interface, integration, automation, cost, and support improvements, with better multi-cloud support and visibility.
The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF.
IT Analyst at Atlas.cz, a.s.
For availability, they have added additional clusters across all the regional edges in the Kubernetes clusters to enhance availability.
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
F5 Distributed Cloud Services doesn't have something like that. That is the reason why CloudFlare remains a leader in that space for small customers and those who have just started or are startups.
Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
Prisma Cloud is an excellent tool.
Technical Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
Cyber Security Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Even though documentation was available, it took a while for a new person to understand what integration meant, what will be achieved after the integration, or how the integration needed to be done on the Azure or AWS side.
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find Prisma Cloud expensive but valuable, with flexible pricing benefiting multi-cloud enterprises despite additional costs.
F5 Distributed Cloud Services is affordable.
Engineer Solutions Architect at SCitum
The cost was not on the higher side.
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
Cloud Security Engineer (Team lead) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The pricing for Prisma Cloud is high.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Valuable Features

F5 Distributed Cloud Services offers unified WAAP integration, enhancing security, efficiency, and resilience through AI-driven protection and multi-cloud networking.
Prisma Cloud enhances cloud security with real-time monitoring, automation, and CSPM for effective DevOps and multi-cloud protection.
The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.
IT Analyst at Atlas.cz, a.s.
F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well.
Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
The best features F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides are all-in-one WAAP integration because it combines the WAAP, API protection, bot defense, and DDoS into a single SaaS control plane, replacing complex fragmented point security tools.
Senior Network Consultant at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
We can see any IAM-related risks, any discovered vulnerabilities, any incidents, or any network-level issues.
Technical Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Its ability to centralize and address security vulnerabilities across these diverse environments makes it a crucial and decisive element within the Prisma Cloud ecosystem.
Partner at Quasys
For CWP, the runtime protection is the most valuable feature. Every tool does vulnerability monitoring through tools such as Qualys, but the additional feature we get here is runtime protection in CWP.
Cloud Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
CDN (6th), API Security (8th)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 1.9%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 1.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks1.9%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services1.9%
Other96.2%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

US
Senior Network Consultant at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
Unified cloud security has reduced bot attacks and is improving multi‑channel protection
There is always room for improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services. Sometimes the UI/UX console navigation is a bit tricky, and the deep configuration menus can feel overly complex and could be simplified. Additionally, expanding regional presence should be done in specific local telecom markets to further lower the latency of our hyper-local load latency workloads. Long-term log retention and cold storage analytics need to improve. Native SIEM log retention on the console is limited. Introducing deeper built-in historical analytics would avoid having to offload all raw security logs to external SIEMs such as Splunk for long-term compliance audits. Regarding backend TLS verification enforcements, custom edge routes strictly enforce TLS validation on backend endpoints, which requires manual management and uploading of private and public root CAs rather than providing simple certificate bypass toggles for development environments.
reviewer2776578 - PeerSpot reviewer
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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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
911,994 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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, the confidence level on API security that F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides...
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 primarily for securing my infrastructure with layer 7 protection, which F5 provides. Th...
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.
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 are able to easily see where our container vulnerabilities lie and and where cl...
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 valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
911,994 professionals have used our research since 2012.