Cloudflare vs. F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cloudflare
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud is a unified platform of cloud-native services designed to help enterprises regain control over their IT environments. Powered by an intelligent, programmable global cloud network, it is built to offer security, performance, visibility, and reliability.
$20
per month
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF leverages F5's Advanced WAF technology, delivering WAF-as-a-Service and combining signature- and behavior-based protection for web applications. It acts as an intermediate proxy to inspect application requests and responses to block and mitigate a broad spectrum of risks stemming from the OW ASP Top 10, persistent and coordinated threat campaigns, bots, and layer 7 DoS.N/A
Pricing
CloudflareF5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Editions & Modules
Pro
$20
per month
Business
$200
per month
Free
Free
Enterprise
Contact sales team
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CloudflareF5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CloudflareF5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Considered Both Products
Cloudflare
Chose Cloudflare
A few years ago, GoDaddy started charging us to be their DNS provider, and Cloudflare didn't charge, so we moved to Cloudflare. Also, Cloudflare was known for security protection, for example DDOS protection, and we haven't had any issues since moving to Cloudflare.
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare is on another level compared to any other CDN provider out there.
One of the reasons is that encompasses all the tools into one big products instead of relying on many different products from many companies - DNS, CDN, WAF are all managed in one place and connected …
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare was better, because we do not have to host or purchase any additional hardware. This means reduced costs for us to have to buy the hardware. Then, hire people to run the hardwar, and support the hardware. And, it also means you need SME's for the tool that have used …
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare's cloud/geo-relative implementation is best-suited for publicly available web resources.
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare's product offering is more mature and has demonstrated success in preventing some of the largest DDoS attacks observed. Cloudflare also continues to reinvest in their core product offering to ensure they maintain a position as leader in the cybersecurity space.
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare knows what they're doing when Load Balancing and Redundancy meet the cloud. AWS is a partner, and we're exploring other solutions which are performing at the highest level.

Peak season is upon us, and we cannot suffer downtime. DDoS Protection is another interesting …
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare has much better interface and is easier to use on a daily basis
Chose Cloudflare
Amazon CloudFront is a highly scalable CDN service integrated with AWS. Couldflare provides us more other functions and services than Amazon CloudFront. Google Cloud CDN offers fast and reliable content delivery with integration into Google Cloud services. But we didn't deploy …
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare is complex to set up but is still better suited to our environment.
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare addresses Pipefy a well-defined cache system with several features to improve the performance of the applications. This is the main focus + excellent reliability and stability.
Chose Cloudflare
Overall we are using Cloudflare as well as AWS cloud across various domains in our organization. To some extent such as DNS management on Route53, CloudFront takes advantage of Cloudflare as it provides a straightforward UI for DNS management. But when it comes to traffic …
Chose Cloudflare
20% of the entire world traffic run through Cloudflare data centers
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare can't compare to the reliability and ease of setup configuration.
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare is much easier to configure compared to these services.
Chose Cloudflare
Low investment, easy setup, great product, and solid security features.
Chose Cloudflare
AWS Cloudfront is so poon in UI, features. Almost you cannot compare them because the scale is too large.
Chose Cloudflare
Better than other software in the same field as per price time to implement easy to learn and use, good simple easy to understand user interface and very few false positives plus our compliance with cyber insurance is right on the money we no longer have to jump extra hopes to …
Chose Cloudflare
It's much cheaper even has free version, easy to use and integrate with our current system, it has so many features in the dashboard that I need.
Chose Cloudflare
ZScaler Private Access and Cloudflare Access are very similar product sets that trade blows when it comes to features and capabilities. In my experience Cloudflare unified dashboard and distributed infrastructure has the upper hand when compared to ZScaler.

As a Home Lab …
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare has lower starting cost for backend Workers and good pricing model with steps.
Auto-scaling by default better than microservice/docker or EC2.
Security makes simpler.
Chose Cloudflare
They have the most generous free offering, and after the free offering limit is reached - you're still getting plenty of value for the buck.
They have very good reputation.
They have an ever expanding list of tools that can support multiple scenarios under one roof.
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Imperva Application Firewall
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Do not change IP for DNS distribution to zones around the world
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
waf de azure, pero El waf de azure es mas para empresas pequenas,

Azure WAF, but Azure WAF is more for small businesses
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
F5 Distributed Cloud API Security
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
CoreSecurity
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
good product road map catering to industry needs and requirements
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Azure CDN and Palo Alto Networks Advanced URL Filtering
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
for continuty capacity and funcionality
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
In my previous company we used Akamai WAF. I know that in my previous company with usage of Akamai there were some issues, but as far as technically how they compare, I couldn't really tell you.
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
I have not evaluated any other product like this.
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
This plaform has advanced threat detection technology and mitigation of this tool is also great that's why why it helps us in securing from many attacks including damages from 7 attcks, BOTS Mitigations and DDoS Protection. Also this plaform has customised security management …
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF allowed us to protect internal applications without public exposure, edge routing, or cloud dependency. We gained robust protection without exposing internal systems to the internet and F5 gave us the flexibility, security, and control we needed for a …
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
When comparing F5 Distributed Cloud WAF, Akamai, Cloudflare, and Fastly, Fastly generally stands out for its raw speed and focus on developer-friendly features, while Cloudflare is often considered the best balance of speed, security, and ease of use, making it a popular choice …
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
I could not find fortiwaf in the list. We have to bypass frequently.
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Better WAF protection
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
F5 BIG-IP DNS
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Akamai
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Ease of use. Cost. Features ability to use managed service, in cloud provider and on prem.
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Akamai, Sophos Cloud Optix and Azure Analysis Services
Chose F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
It's comparable to other products like NetScaler and Silverpeak but was easier to implement.
Best Alternatives
CloudflareF5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Cloud Internet Services
IBM Cloud Internet Services
Score 8.8 out of 10
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Akamai App & API Protector
Akamai App & API Protector
Score 8.0 out of 10
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CloudflareF5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CloudflareF5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Likelihood to Recommend
Cloudflare works well as security measure that gives peace of mind without needing to work too hard to get it functioning well. It provides great tools to customize the security experience as well. This is all the same for the caching tools as well. They have a lot of built in tools that make using the caching easy right out of the box, but they provide the customization options to get things just right for your site.
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It is doing its job effectively, and its scalability is superb. So, if you have a mixed environment with cloud and on-premise systems to protect this product, provide a solution to the challenge. However, its management is more suited to DevOps teams rather than to the ones responsible for on-premise systems, making the management a bit more complex.
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Pros
  • Registrar and DNS services are impeccable, with registrations done at cost and without ADs. DNS services setting standards for speed of resolution.
  • DDOS protection. With their content distribution network to back them they have the bandwidth and tools to be both proactive and reactive to bad actors.
  • WAF - Their Web Application Firewall helps mitigate common site vulnerabilities and has active zero-day protection running for breaking exploits
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  • Layer seven attacks are becoming far more common. Traditionally it was always layered three, layer four, where you get an additional firewall, but with the application layer attacks become more frequent, more popular, et cetera. So having the web application firewall protecting us, and then with the recent Log4j, that's the most recent use case when it gave us that instant level of protection whilst we remediated the Log4j that we had that and the F5 Distributed Cloud WAF was protecting us.
  • I have a great relationship with the account manager, my account manager, and I think he drives the best price possible, um, for me, and I'm happy with that price.
  • F5 Distributed Cloud WAF is always innovating and evolving.
  • We run a very competitive proof value where we run numerous competitors against each other, and then we evaluate from that and then make the selection, and F5 Distributed Cloud WAF was the winner.
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Cons
  • In some cases, using Cloudflare can actually lead to slower website speeds if the network is congested or if the website's traffic is particularly heavy.
  • Some website owners may find that the level of customization offered by Cloudflare is limited, especially in comparison to other solutions.
  • While Cloudflare is easy to set up and manage, it may be too complex for users who are not familiar with web technologies.
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  • Better integration between different F5 solutions
  • Fail over between devices feels unstable if there are thousands of objects attached to the traffic-group. Needs to be more simpler.
  • We have seen issues with malicious user detection where we have used open protocols due to legacy applications, and have been caught with legitimate traffic being blocked.
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Likelihood to Renew
CF is a core piece of our cloud infra.
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I would continue using F5 Distributed Cloud WAF because I am highly satisfied with its robust and comprehensive features that effectively protect our applications from evolving cyber threats. The advanced AI capabilities enhance threat detection and response, providing proactive security. Additionally, the excellent customer support ensures quick resolution of any issues, making the overall experience reliable and efficient. Trust in the manufacturer’s innovation and continuous updates further motivates me to keep this solution as a core part of our security infrastructure.
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Usability
Everything is extremely concise and all settings apply immediately and take effect globally. There is no reason to explicitly plan/think in terms of individual regions as one would have to traditional cloud offerings (AWS, OCI, Azure). All Cloudflare products integrate seamless as part of a single pipeline that executes from request to response.
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I believe is a solution that was designed from the start to be simple and easy to use. Coming from Imperva, it simply eased the burden and complexity of managing and securing our apps on different environments (cloud and on-prem). It easy to scale and very quick to deploy (as a cloud waf should be), provide us with DevOps integrations, visibility and automatic insights from multiple events that guarantee peace of mind for us analysts and opp managers.
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Reliability and Availability
In 6+ years of relying on Cloudflare, I think we experienced one or two brief outages that were Cloudflare's fault.
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Seems no issue
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Performance
They are built to be fast and deliver very well on this. Performance has never been a problem.
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Unnoticed slowness
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Support Rating
I have only used their support a few times, and most times, they are responsive and able to resolve my issue with a minimal amount of time and effort. However, there was one instance where I simply asked about how to purchase some more resources (redirect rules), and I received some type of automated/AI response that was very unhelpful and gave me no opportunity to escalate to a person.
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I never contacted support for this product.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
Online training saves me lots of time
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Implementation Rating
Very well executed implementation where our team was able to handle the implementation with guidance.
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Just make sure you origin servers have F5 IPs allowed.
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Alternatives Considered
Nothing like it. Organizations can utilize these Cloudflare products to enhance their online presence by improving security, performance, reliability, and developer efficiency. Cloudflare is an American company that delivers services such as DNS, a content delivery network (CDN), and various other additional services to make websites faster and more secure. Cloudflare is used by over 26 million sites, resulting in the processing of more than 1 billion IP addresses each day.
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This plaform has advanced threat detection technology and mitigation of this tool is also great that's why why it helps us in securing from many attacks including damages from 7 attcks, BOTS Mitigations and DDoS Protection. Also this plaform has customised security management policy to tailor security measures according to our specific needs.
Read full review
Scalability
They are built for scale and have the capacity to handle all the traffic we could ever expect to get.
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Dont see any issue so far
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Return on Investment
  • We have seen reduced usage and downtimes after using Cloudflare for Caching. This has already yielded ROI as minimal downtime ensures consistent user traffic and increases revenue.
  • It can handle significant traffic spikes and shields the website from DDOS attacks. We have prevented a number of DDOS attacks after using Cloudflare and hence we are already seeing an ROI by using it.
  • Some of the integrations with Cloudflare are really painful and we have faced a lot of issues because of not having native integrations to certain 3rd party apps.
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  • This helps us quickly push out applications and security to our applications. It is so simple to perform these tasks in F5 Distributed Cloud WAF.
  • We are also using the MSP side of it so we have support and are able to have F5 manage our solutions that can save us time.
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ScreenShots

F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall) Screenshots

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