AWS WAF Reviews

The regular use case is basically for blocking or giving access to different vendors to different domains. We also use it for managing and identifying the attacks and new rules that we should implement for our public domains to tune up the application firewall or tool, whatever makes more sense for us.

We're using it through the web console and API. We're just using the managed service.

Our organization is launching a lot of betas. We are creating a lot of new different systems for different customers. AWS WAF helps us a lot to make sure that the right customer gets the right access to the system.

The access instruction feature is the most valuable. This is what we use the most.

It is sometimes a lot of work going through the rules and making sure you have everything covered for a use case. It is just the way rules are set and maintained in this solution. Some UI changes will probably be helpful.

It is not easy to find the documentation of new features. Documentation not being updated is a common problem with all services, including this one. You have different versions of the console, and the options shown in the documentation are not there. For a new feature, there is probably an announcement about being released, but when it comes out, there is no actual documentation about how to use it. This makes you either go to technical support or community, which probably doesn't have an idea either. The documentation on the cloud should be the latest one.

Finding information about a specific event can be a bit challenging. For this solution, not much documentation is available in the community. It could be because it is a new tool. Whenever there is an issue, it is just not that simple to resolve, especially if you don't have premium support. You have pretty much nowhere to look around, and you just need to poke around to try and make it work right.

I have been using AWS WAF for about six months.

Stability-wise, it works as expected.

I definitely see places where it can be more designed to scale. In addition to amazon resources, there is some stuff from other vendors that we wanted to protect. WAF was not a solution for us because we don't have a way to integrate with those things. That was the biggest challenge that we faced. In terms of the number of users, our end users could be in the thousands.

It is okay.

It was okay. We went for the cloud formation, and our deployments happen probably every week.

Everything is managed through cloud formation. After implementation, three or four hours a week are required for maintenance.

We are kind of doing a POC comparison to see what works best. Pricing-wise, AWS is one of the most attractive ones. It is fairly cheap, and we like the pricing part. We're trying to see what makes more sense operation-wise, license-wise, and pricing-wise.

I won't recommend it at the moment because I don't have a full picture to recommend it or say that it is bad or good. I'll probably just keep testing and go with it for probably another six months or a year, and then I can probably recommend it or not. 

Other vendors are also providing solutions for D-DOS protection and WAF. It would be nice to see something outside the box for AWS WAF to make it compete with other vendors.

I would rate AWS WAF a seven out of ten. It does what it is supposed to do, probably not in the best way and not in the best UI, but it works. We like the pricing part, but management is the thing that we don't love the most. If things keep improving, we're definitely going to scale with AWS WAF.

At the moment, it's just myself working with AWS WAF in my company, and our use case for it is normal, or what you would expect from a Web Application Firewall. That includes basic DoS blocking and malicious IP address blocking. It's not a big thing for us, and just takes care of our baseline security.

As a basic WAF, it's better than having nothing. So if you need something simple out of the box with default features, AWS WAF is good.

I think there's a lot wrong with AWS WAF. Here are the two main areas where I think it could be improved:

Blocking: We don't have much control over blocking, because the WAF is managed by AWS. What happens is that they will put down the rules on their side and we don't have proper visibility on that. So we'll have to track down the issues and see what is wrong or not. For example, with IP address blocking, it's difficult to find out which IPs are getting blocked. If we managed our own WAF completely, we wouldn't have this kind of problem. Right now, this aspect is half managed by us, and half managed by AWS. Because of this, I think it would be far more helpful to us if we went for our own tool instead.

Automation: As in, a lot of separate blocks if something goes wrong. For example, every company will have their own rules for automation, in terms of their goals for the product. Like, "I want my WAF to do this. I want my WAF to do that." But that's the kind of thing that I think we will only see when we do some POCs with our clients. 

I have been working with AWS WAF for around one year now. 

The performance has been good, even though it could be better. At any rate, the WAF has not caused any lag on our side.

It is scalable in my experience, but the lack of features doesn't take it very far in terms of actual usage. Eventually, customers will move away from it. If there's no one interested in managing the WAF, that's fine, then customers may keep using it. But for us, we are not planning to scale it out further.

AWS technical support is good.

Neutral

The setup is easy and nothing serious. You don't have to do a lot to get set up with it. Compared to other WAFs out there, I think AWS WAF is very simple, especially since most of it is managed by AWS.

We haven't needed anyone from AWS to help us with the deployment or implementation. It's all me at this point.

It's less cost and easy to setup

There are multiple other options which we could have gone for, but it depends on the budget, typically. I am especially interested in a WAF which has serious support for automation and more complex configuration options.

For people who don't have any WAF currently, and who just need something basic, it's not a bad idea to go with AWS WAF for starters. But if you are someone who is looking for a fully-fledged and self-managed WAF, you should look elsewhere for a better tool. You should certainly not stick with AWS WAF if you are serious about managing your security and mitigating your risks.

Overall, I would recommend AWS WAF to others, but only under the conditions I have mentioned. If you have the budget and the resources, however, go for something else.

I would rate AWS WAF a five out of ten.

We use this solution for online web applications.

The most valuable features are the geo-restriction denials and the web ACL.

I enjoy using it because it is very easy.

Also, it's quite efficient.

The service itself is fine. On the UI side, I would like it if they could bring back the conditions view which had geo match, IP sets and etc. When using WAF classic you could see this option on the left side of the console. Currently IP sets and regex strings is there but geo match does not seem to be included, not sure if geo matching is still supported.

I have been using AWS WAF for almost three years.

We are using the newest version of AWS WAF, which is Version 2.

It's a stable solution. I have not experienced any issues.

There are approximately 1,000 people who are using this solution on a daily basis.

It is easy to scale. Just ensure that you cover the relevant resources within it. You can cover multiple resources such as CDN or use them in your AOD.

It's quite scalable.

I have not contacted technical support.

I have always used AWS. It's been the focus for the last three years.

The initial setup was simple.

It took less than an hour to deploy.

The implementation was completed internally.

It's quite affordable. It's in the middle.

Everything is included with the usage that you take up when you implement the service.

The product does not require any maintenance. You need to ensure how you consider your rules. You have to make sure that all of your considerations for your protection are done really well. Do regular updates to improve on the different threats and intrusion.

I would recommend the product because it is very flexible and you are able to use it with multiple services within AWS.

I would rate AWS WAF a solid ten out of ten.

While I cannot say for certain, I believe that we are using the latest version. 

I like the scalability, as it provides platform, infrastructure and software as a service. These are the best features. When it comes to the API Gateway, such as Amazon Web Application Framework, the web application will be protected by all industry standard security aspects. We are talking about encryption, firewalls, SSL and TLS. Basically, all web exploit policies and rules will be applied, so that one's web or mobile app can be highly secured.

In terms of hosting the instances, the solution takes care of all necessary scaling to ensure that the application load is balanced. The horizontal or vertical scaling can be automatically removed. As such, AWS provides many services and features. 

The pricing should be more affordable, especially as it pertains to small clients. 

While the complexity of the installation can vary from one service to another, overall, I would say that it and the configuration and navigation are somewhat complex. These could stand improvement and bring down my rating of the product. 

Customer support should also be improved. 

I have been using AWS WAF for around two years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

While it can vary according to the service involved, installation, configuration and navigation are, broadly speaking, complex. 

The solution could be more cost-efficient for small customers. 

The solution may be expensive for smaller customers and vendors, although it would be recommended for large ones who can afford it. 

Our organization has only a few years, consisting of the internal team, who are making use of the solution. 

I rate AWS WAF as a six out of ten. 

We use AWS WAF to prevent cyberattacks, such as SQL Injection attacks and cross-site scripting attacks. The end users' traffic has more threats and the web application gives good support.

The most valuable features of AWS WAF are its cloud-native and on-demand.

Any customer can leverage AWS WAF immediately, it has a basic set of rules that are available.

The solution could improve by having better rules, they are very basic at the moment. There are more attacks coming and we have to use third-party solutions, such as FIA. The features are not sufficient to prevent all the attacks, such as DDoS. Overall the solution should be more secure.

I have been using AWS WAF for approximately four years.

This is a very stable solution.

AWS WAF is scalable.

We have approximately five customers using this solution.

The technical support is very good. They are responsive and knowledgeable, they have always come back with a resolution or a workaround to help us.

The initial setup took approximately 15 mins, it is easy.

We have a team that does the support for the solution.

AWS WAF is pay-as-you-go, I only pay for what I'm using. There is no subscription or any payment upfront, I can terminate use at any time. Which is an advantage.

The first version of AWS WAF was not mature but the second version is very mature.

I would recommend this solution to others because instead of choosing a third-party solution which will take time, and you will have to be in negotiations. It is good to start with AWS WAF for their minimal primary security firewall to save their workload. AWS WAF is available on-demand from day one.

I rate AWS WAF a seven out of ten.

My whole business is cloud cost management. What I do is help people manage expenses. That encompasses everything from cleaning up software as a service subscriptions to optimizing AWS. My use cases for AWS WAF have to do with cloud research only.  

The best part about it is that it is a cloud solution.  

The complexity of deploying turnkey solutions could be simplified.  

They actually have too many different things that you can tinker with and too many different ways to do the same thing. It may be helpful if the product were to be more directed and if it used best practices with technical and non-technical users in mind.  

We have been using WAF (Web Application Firewall) for six months.  

WAF is very stable.  

I believe WAF is very scalable.  

We have only two staff in our organization who are using AWS WAF.  

Technical support is more-or-less fair. That is where most technical support falls these days.  

The initial setup is really sorta complex. That is something which could probably be made easier.  

The licensing costs are variable. For me, it is under a hundred dollars a month.  

The range of your costs with Amazon Web Services is going to be different depending on a lot of factors. It can go as low as actually being free all the way up to millions of dollars. It depends on the organization and how the service is used.  

On a scale of one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as a seven-out-of-ten. A change in the pricing structure that favors the client and simplification is something they would have to do to improve to make that score closer to a ten.  

The most valuable feature of AWS WAF is the extra layer of security that I have when connecting to my web applications.

AWS WAF could improve by making the overall management easier. Many people that have started working with AWS WAF do not have an easy time. They should make it easy to use. 

The AWS WAF documentation sometimes is not clear and could improve for all levels of people using the solution, such as developers. The interface could be easier to use.

I have been using AWS WAF for approximately three years.

AWS WAF is a highly stable solution.

We have approximately 35 applications that are using the AWS WAF.

The support from AWS WAF is good, I have used them often. 

I was previously using Cisco and I switched to AWS WAF because I was working mostly with cloud environments and needed more services. Additionally, I have used Microsoft Azure.

The initial setup is AWS WAF complex. The steps to complete the implementation could be easier, such as making the web traffic go through the WAF and then through the web service. The information for connectivity could be documented or done easier. The whole process can take approximately 20 minutes.

The price of AWS WAF is expensive if you do not know how to manage your software up or down. I price of the solution is average amongst the other competitors but it would be better if it was less expensive.

My advice to others is they should give AWS WAF a try. It works well, secures the applications, and it improves them against attacks.

Support for AWS WAF needs improvement.

I've been using AWS WAF for a very short period, e.g. just a few weeks.

I find AWS WAF to be a stable product.

AWS WAF is a scalable product.

Technical support for AWS WAF could still be improved, e.g. support could be faster, more knowledgeable, and friendlier.

The initial setup for AWS WAF was straightforward. It could take between two days to two weeks.

We implemented AWS WAF through our in-house team and a consultant.

I've been using a mix of AWS products, including AWS WAF.

I'm satisfied with AWS WAF, and I've had no issues with it. I can't really find fault in the product. It's a good product.

We have hundreds of AWS WAF users within our company. We also have plans of increasing the number of users of the product.

The advice I would give to people who want to start using AWS WAF is that it's a good option if they're migrating to the cloud. It can take up a lot of legacy systems, e.g. it's scalable. Most of my customers are on the cloud, and for anyone who's struggling, it would be good to start anytime. Start small and scale, rather than just going fully onto the cloud.

Users need to pay for the product license.

My rating for AWS WAF is eight out of ten.