Staff Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 5
Aug 1, 2025
The CDN is for caching and The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is for protecting the servers from malicious traffic. They both perform different jobs and serve different purposes, so they complement each other. We actually tried both deployment methods, but the cloud option is easier. For the on-premises option, you need to have all sensors installed in your cluster, which was not suitable for our use case. We wanted to control everything through the cloud and then hit our servers before classifying whether the traffic is malicious or not. We wanted to have that logic offloaded to the cloud so we wouldn't have to manage it. We tried both options but decided to go with the cloud deployment.
Learn what your peers think about The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF powered by Signal Sciences offers advanced protection against sophisticated cyber threats, ensuring robust and scalable security for web applications. It integrates seamlessly into existing environments, blocking malicious traffic efficiently.Designed for optimal web application protection, The Fastly Next-Gen WAF distinguishes itself through its ability to dynamically learn traffic patterns, providing comprehensive security without compromising speed. It is engineered...
The CDN is for caching and The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is for protecting the servers from malicious traffic. They both perform different jobs and serve different purposes, so they complement each other. We actually tried both deployment methods, but the cloud option is easier. For the on-premises option, you need to have all sensors installed in your cluster, which was not suitable for our use case. We wanted to control everything through the cloud and then hit our servers before classifying whether the traffic is malicious or not. We wanted to have that logic offloaded to the cloud so we wouldn't have to manage it. We tried both options but decided to go with the cloud deployment.
We use it to protect all our public-hosted sites. It's a replacement for Akamai. We migrated from Akamai to Fastly.
We used Signal Sciences to implement a web application firewall for some of our applications.