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F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) pros and cons

Vendor: F5

4.2 out of 5

23 reviews
95% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) excels in preventing downtime and maintaining application performance with effective attack prevention and disaster mitigation. It offers access control, IP intelligence, and DDoS protection with key functionalities like load balancing and WAF. Despite high pricing and manual geolocation updates posing risks, it is praised for performance and ease of deployment. However, deployment's complexity and the dashboard's limited statistics during attacks require attention.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) provides valuable network security by blocking various attacks and preventing disasters.

The IP intelligence and DDoS safety features are highly effective for access control.

F5 BIG-IP AFM's iRules allow for customizable configurations, enhancing its overall utility.

The load balancing and web application firewall features are crucial for maintaining application performance and protecting against hacks.

F5 BIG-IP AFM offers reliable performance and stability, appreciated by all users.

CONS

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager lacks automatic geolocation updates, leading to potential security risks.

The configuration process is complex and requires detailed observation of network traffic, extending deployment times.

Pricing is notably high, rendering it less competitive compared to other network security solutions.

A dedicated management software for large-scale deployments is absent, despite its necessity.

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager's firewall configuration deviates significantly from standard practices, complicating adoption.

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) Pros review quotes

Systems Engineer at Datasure Solutions

Sep 2, 2019

This product excells in every aspect from installation and the interface to providing superior network security.

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DejanBlagojevic

Presales Engineer at Exclusive-networks

Dec 14, 2022

The protection is very useful.

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reviewer1306038

Contracted IP Development Engineer at a media company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 23, 2020

The decryption is great.

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F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.

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RETIRED at Banque du Caire

Dec 29, 2022

The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP AFM is the iRules where I can customize the configuration.

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Sr. Architect at NBC Universal

Jun 24, 2022

Its performance and ease of use are valuable.

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reviewer1189323

Senior Security Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Dec 4, 2019

We use three main features. The first one is access control. The second feature we use is called IP intelligence. Finally, we have a DDoS safety feature.

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JM

Head: Cyber and Information Research Centre at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

May 8, 2022

The most valuable features of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) are the web gateway, load balancing, services, and applications available.

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Lead Infrastructure Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 11, 2023

It is stable.

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William Gonzalez

Director Comercial at Ngeek Consulting "Suigeneris Tech"

Dec 12, 2023

It excels in preventing downtime and maintaining application performance, which is crucial for our clients' security and operational continuity.

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Sr. Architect at NBC Universal

Dec 21, 2022

The setup and functionality are fairly straightforward.

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F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) Cons review quotes

Systems Engineer at Datasure Solutions

Sep 2, 2019

This would be absolutely the best network security solution if the price were not so high.

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DejanBlagojevic

Presales Engineer at Exclusive-networks

Dec 14, 2022

For configuring the firewall, every single vendor on the planet has pretty much the same logic when it comes to firewalls, and F5 has a completely different approach and completely different behavior.

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reviewer1306038

Contracted IP Development Engineer at a media company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 23, 2020

Deployment times vary according to the customer. It needs to be heavily configured. You need to look and you need to observe the behavior of the traffic before you can start configuring everything. It can take time.

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F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.

824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.

RETIRED at Banque du Caire

Dec 29, 2022

F5 BIG-IP AFM can improve the reporting interface in relation to advanced troubleshooting depending on CLI. They should have enhanced troubleshooting with the use of GUI.

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Sr. Architect at NBC Universal

Jun 24, 2022

There should be simplified and better integration with BIG-IQ.

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reviewer1189323

Senior Security Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Dec 4, 2019

Firstly, geolocation currently relies on manual updates. It has to move to automatic updates. There are no automatic updates for this feature. If some IPs, countries, or service providers move to another country, now you will be allow IPs that you previously denied. This is because you depend on the database, which doesn't update automatically. This is really a very important area that they need to improve.

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JM

Head: Cyber and Information Research Centre at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

May 8, 2022

The web gateway feature could improve in F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM).

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Lead Infrastructure Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 11, 2023

Some spam can go by the firewall.

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William Gonzalez

Director Comercial at Ngeek Consulting "Suigeneris Tech"

Dec 12, 2023

There is room for improvement in Advanced Firewall Manager's dashboard statistics, especially during attacks.

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Sr. Architect at NBC Universal

Dec 21, 2022

The solution doesn't really meet our requirements for an edge firewall.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 23)

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Popular Comparisons

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Cloudflare vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

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