F5 Silverline Managed Services vs FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) comparison

F5 and Fortinet are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.0, while Fortinet is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.2. Additionally, 100% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

F5 Silverline Managed Services and FortiWeb Web Application Firewall compete in the web application security category. FortiWeb WAF seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced security capabilities, making it an attractive option for businesses requiring extensive protection.

Features: F5 Silverline excels in dynamic scaling, DDoS protection, and maintaining application availability and security. On the other hand, FortiWeb offers automatic threat detection, rich analytical tools, and comprehensive threat prevention, combined with advanced security capabilities and detailed reporting.

Room for Improvement: F5 Silverline could enhance its feature set by incorporating more advanced security options and machine learning capabilities. It could also improve integration with third-party tools. FortiWeb can benefit from easier deployment processes, better user interfaces, and more competitive pricing structures to appeal to a broader range of businesses.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: F5 Silverline is praised for its straightforward cloud-based deployment, offering ease of integration and minimal disruption. Its customer service is responsive and supportive. FortiWeb's traditional deployment can require more configuration, but benefits from detailed documentation and effective technical support.

Pricing and ROI: F5 Silverline offers competitive pricing with a satisfactory ROI for mid-size to large organizations due to its strong security features and ease of deployment. FortiWeb, despite its higher initial setup cost, justifies the investment for businesses prioritizing high-level security, offering a significant ROI for organizations focused on risk management.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Silverline Managed Services vs. FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Silverline Managed Services vs. FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 846,617 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

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

Read full review

DejanBlagojevic

Presales Engineer at Exclusive-networks

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.

Read full review

IgnitiusMolepo

Senior IP Network Defense at MTN

Protects internal applications and prevents target attacks

The tool secures our critical applications, especially the mobile money application, which is often targeted by attacks. The solution provides rapid protection and has proven reliable against various threats. It blocks malicious traffic, including dormant and DDoS attacks, and offers integrated Web Application Firewall features to safeguard against compromises. You can set it up for customer-facing web applications because customers don't necessarily know all the IP addresses. It uses a source-based approach where any source accessing the application is defined by its IP. When accessing the application, it checks if they are using HTTP or HTTPS and blocks them if necessary. The tool's performance and security reporting capabilities contribute positively to IT security management. Consolidating management within the solution makes it easier for IT to handle the solutions. All functionalities managed on a single box reduce the number of boxes needed for management.

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

"Cloudflare has many features."

"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."

"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."

"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."

"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

More Cloudflare pros

"Its flexibility is the most valuable because it is a managed service. The good part is that you don't need to set it up. It just needs DNS routing, which is the easiest thing. Our client had Akamai for certain websites because they were using CDN features. They had NetScaler on the internal zone, F5 AWAFs on the data centers, and no WAF at all in the cloud. One of the main activities of the project was to move all these policies into a single WAF so that we could control and use that as a choke point. That exercise itself was very easy because it was a managed service and F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall does that for you. That's the best thing about F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall. It is easy to apply policies on-premises. If you have AWAF on-premises and you want to replicate some policies on F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, other than the policies that it applies by itself, it is easy because you have a team that supports it. F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall works perfectly fine. It pretty much does everything that an Advanced WAF on-premises should do."

"It's a good front end for public infrastructure"

"We have a lot of businesses that we put behind this solution, and it has really helped us in terms of monitoring the logs and incidents."

"The product’s UI is easy to understand."

"The most valuable feature of F5 Silverline Managed Services is the benchmark performance."

"The most valuable feature of F5 Silverline Managed Services is it becomes similar to a distributed architecture."

"The most important feature is that they have seven firewall protection, to protect our web servers."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

More F5 Silverline Managed Services pros

"The tool's HTTP traffic, website fixing, and blocking are fantastic. It is user-friendly with easy configuration."

"FortiWeb has a very extensive library of known attack signatures, which makes the product fit for any environment, regardless if the customer uses Windows-specific or non-Windows-specific applications."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."

"We use it to secure VMs and applications. It protects against DDoS attacks. It's very user-friendly."

"The solution's integration with other products is easy. Its most valuable feature is the antivirus engine. The tool helps us comply with GDPR and KVKK standards."

"It is good for web tracking applications."

"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtration, web filter, application filter, and IPS."

"The fact that I can log into the platform and see everybody, see logs, authentication failure, and see everything on one platform, is the most valuable feature."

More FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) pros

Cons

"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."

"The pricing could be improved."

"The product needs to improve its automation."

"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."

"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."

"There are some issues with the CDN services."

More Cloudflare cons

"The price is high in comparison to other products."

"The navigation is difficult to use."

"I just hope the price can be cheaper."

"There is room for improvement in the stability of the solution."

"The product could be improved on the global load and the integration with the other solution like Cisco and Dell. As a representor of the operation, we prefer to have one platform which can accommodate all type of integration. We are also looking for more improvements in the security policy configuration."

"Improvements could include the creation of highly optimized profiles, optimization deployments, and compression profiles for better performance."

"F5 Silverline Managed Services can improve by adding features that Palo Alto has."

"F5 Silverline Managed Services can improve by reducing the price."

More F5 Silverline Managed Services cons

"We haven't faced any significant issues with FortiWeb Web Application Firewall. But they can lower the pricing, since it is a concern, especially in South Africa and the technical support, could be more responsive at times."

"If some of my customers want to migrate from F5 to Fortinet Firewall, or the Fortinet WAF solution, there are some migration issues since I cannot migrate all the elements quickly using Fortinet Firewall."

"There is room for improvement in pricing, and actually, the price is a bit higher because on the same terms I purchased, the support subscription is so high."

"FortiWeb WAF's tuning causes trouble. It's complicated. The solution needs to improve the signature feature as well."

"The technical support team is bad."

"I don't see any issues with the tool apart from the pricing aspect of the product. The price of the product is an area where improvements are required."

"There is room for improvement in the support. The response time could be faster. Plus, they ask for a lot of information. It is not easy to get support."

"It would be good if the solution integrated with other solutions, like SAP."

More FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product's pricing is cheap."

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be reduced."

"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 product’s pricing is reasonable."

"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."

"It is a cheap solution."

"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall is not expensive."

"This product offers two pricing options: a standard package and an advanced package."

"FortiWeb has a good presence because of its price."

"The tool is really expensive."

"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall's pricing is suited for small or medium organizations."

"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."

"It is a cost-effective product. If you need an extra module in the product, there will be an extra cost in addition to the licensing fee."

More FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) 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

846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

21%

Insurance Company

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about F5 Silverline Managed Services?

The initial setup is straightforward.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Silverline Managed Services?

The solution is expensive, however, the quality and performance are good.

See all answers

What do you like most about FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?

The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtration, web filter, application filter, and IPS.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?

FortiWeb uses a subscription-based license, but there is also an option for a perpetual license. It's not the cheapes...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?

There are some issues pertaining to the migration. If some of my customers want to migrate from F5 to Fortinet Firewa...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 23% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 11% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 8% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 8% of the time

More F5 Silverline Managed Services Competitors

F5 Advanced WAF vs FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Compared 54% of the time

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Compared 20% of the time

Azure Front Door vs FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Compared 13% of the time

AWS WAF vs FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Compared 12% of the time

More FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

April 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Silverline Managed Services

April 2025

Download F5 Silverline Managed Services product report

Buyer's Guide

FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)

April 2025

FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) report

Download FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, F5 Silverline DDoS Protection

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Cloudflare

F5's Silverline Managed Services is a SaaS solution delivering DDoS protection, managed Web Application Firewall (WAF) services, and managed Shape Security Fraud and Anti-bot solutions.

Silverline services include 24x7 access to F5's Security Operations Center (SOC). F5's expert security professionals use F5 products with state-of-the-art security tools to ensure the best protection possible. As an add-on to Silverline DDoS or WAF services, Silverline Threat Intelligence integrates dynamic lists of threatening IP addresses to give context for policy decisions.

FortiWeb Web Application Firewall uses machine learning to reduce false positives, detects zero-day threats, and blocks DDoS attacks. It integrates with existing security infrastructure and provides SD-WAN capabilities, offering protection for websites and mobile applications.

FortiWeb WAF secures web applications with features like machine learning-based threat detection, DDoS attack mitigation, and robust integration capabilities. Additionally, it manages HTTP traffic and offers SD-WAN functionalities. Built for GDPR compliance, it supports API protection and bot mitigation while enabling secure mobile and cloud application access. Users implement it across multi-cloud environments and in data centers offering advanced security and compliance, including PCI DSS. Despite feature-rich abilities, users seek enhanced database updates, better enterprise integration, and more accessible analytics. Improvements in support response, documentation, and scalability are desired to strengthen its robust security offering.

What are the key features of FortiWeb WAF?

Machine Learning: Reduces false positives and detects zero-day attacks.
DDoS Protection: Blocks distributed denial of service attacks.
Integration: Seamlessly fits with existing infrastructure.
GDPR Compliance: Ensures data privacy and protection standards.
SD-WAN Capabilities: Manages network distribution effectively.
Mobile and API Security: Protects applications and APIs efficiently.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Cost-Effectiveness: Offers a balance between features and pricing.
User-Friendly: Easy to navigate and manage deployments.
Global Deployment: Supports multi-cloud and cross-data center usage.
Security Compliance: Meets standards like PCI DSS for secure operations.
Enhanced Application Security: Provides comprehensive protection for apps.

FortiWeb WAF is widely implemented in data centers and financial industries, ensuring robust protection for web applications and sites. It supports multi-cloud environments on platforms like AWS and Azure, providing secure access while meeting compliance standards. Users benefit from enhanced application security and load balancing capabilities, making it a preferred choice in financial sectors that require VPN and SD-WAN consistency.

Fortinet

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

F5 Silverline Managed Services vs. FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2025

Free Report: F5 Silverline Managed Services vs. FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Silverline Managed Services vs. FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our F5 Silverline Managed Services vs. FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) 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.