AWS WAF Valuable Features
Azam S M
Infrastructure Lead at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The features I find most useful in AWS WAF are that we can integrate and write custom regex rules where we can specify URLs or links that cannot be accessed by certain countries or specific IPs. For example, if we have a back-end that is supposed to be accessed only by UAE users, we can say that this specific URL can be accessed only from UAE. If a user is sitting outside UAE, they cannot access the back-end.
AWS WAF helps to address potential threats through monitoring. AWS WAF is used to protect us from users who are not supposed to access our system, so we can configure monitoring here. We can additionally configure CloudWatch to know if some IPs are coming to our application that are not supposed to access it.
The biggest benefit of AWS WAF for us is to filter malicious requests, so we can protect our environment and application from malicious actors.
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Eucharia Okafor
DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
AWS WAF offers a great feature that allows you to blacklist different IP addresses. It is not just one IP address; you can use it to blacklist as many as possible that you are suspecting of malicious activities. It is not just about blocking one particular IP; you use it to block as many as you can. This is one of the best features, and you can also use it to block SQL injections and any abusive IPs.
AWS WAF uses managed and custom rules, so you can easily enable those managed rules and customize the ones you need to customize.
It is pretty much simple, and with a few clicks, you will be able to enable those rules and set them up.
AWS WAF has helped to strengthen the security of my environment. It has also helped to improve the posture of our application, prevent all DDoS attacks, and unnecessary traffic and SQL injection that is reducing the performance of our application.
AWS WAF has helped to speed up our processes because it is all about automation. It helps to speed up our application, and our application works better because all this other traffic was already blocked. When you block that traffic, especially traffic coming from DDoS attacks that are slowing down performance, it makes a significant difference.
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reviewer1340643
Security Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Some valuable features of AWS WAF include its seamless integration and ease of orchestration within the AWS platform. We are an AWS-focused organization, so most of our workloads run on AWS, making integration effortless. Although AWS WAF is not stateful, it offers a time-saving solution with its custom rulesets that enhance security and simplify management.
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Buyer's Guide
AWS WAF
February 2026
Learn what your peers think about AWS WAF. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Abdalla Kenawy
AWS DevOps SRE/Infrastructure Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
The automation of blocking for security attacks is valuable, with AWS applying rate limiting. The custom rules depend on rate limiting and origin address to secure infrastructure. OWASP integration with reverse proxy APIs like Kong API supports security against potential attacks.
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Kavin Kalaiarasu
Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
The cloud-native nature of AWS is crucial since most of our workload is in AWS, making AWS WAF native to Amazon Web Services. This aspect is the most important reason for switching to AWS WAF.
Additionally, the ease of creating and enforcing new rules and studying them is a valuable feature for me. I switched from other vendors to prioritize AWS WAF for better control within our infrastructure.
View full review »EN
Eniyavarman Nandhivarman
OCI/AWS Consultant at a government with 11-50 employees
AWS WAF acts as a barrier, analyzing HTTP communications between external users and web applications. It gives flexibility in HTTP communication, which is a feature I like.
View full review »reviewer2143125
Director of Security Architecture at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
We integrate AWS WAF with several platforms within cloud hosting and other security solutions and provisions in our business. Regarding AI, it's been around for about 20 years, so it's not new. It's just a new buzzword. I've been in security for 30 years and remember using AI when I started 25-30 years ago. We have multiple forms of AI within our business.
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Abdul Qayyum
Software Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The most valuable feature of AWS WAF is its highly configurable rules system. You can set up rules based on specific criteria like SQL injection, general web threats, and even advanced features like DDoS protection and region-based blocking. The richness of available rules, including options for custom rule configurations from third-party partners, enhances its effectiveness.
Sita Thomas
Associate Vice President - Engineering at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
One of the most valuable features of AWS WAF is its ability to filter web app traffic, allowing us to specify conditions such as IP addresses and HTTP headers. We can create rules accordingly to prevent attacks, like SQL injection and cross-site scripting. AWS WAF, combined with firewall manager, enhances security by allowing us to specify security rules. Custom rules are useful for allowing access to specific traffic, and AWS WAF handles false positives by limiting requests from certain IPs or setting geographic match conditions.
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Manikandan-R
Senior Project Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Rule groups are valuable. We use it for DDoS. We do customizations with the help of Managed Rules in AWS. We use AWS WAF’s API to automate security tasks. The rule creation is similar to automation. We have enough understanding of how things work. It’s been one year since we have automated the tasks.
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Rohit Kesharwani
Manager, Engineering at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Our retail application is vulnerable to a lot of bot attacks. AWS WAF helps mitigate different kinds of bot attacks and SQL injection that happen within the retail industry.
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AshishGautam
IT Project Manager at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Due to security concerns or reasons, I recommend others to use AWS WAF and control the requests from multiple countries from a hacking point of view.
Aravind D
Senior Cloud Engineer at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
WAF filters based on IPs. If hackers try to insert bugs, the tool blocks it.
View full review »UU
Ullas U K
Manager - Cyber Security and SOC at a recreational facilities/services company with 10,001+ employees
The ease of deployment of the product is valuable to me. AWS WAF might be one of the easiest WAFs that can be deployed. The only constraint is that our application must be running in AWS.
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Aditya Mehta
Director at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
AWS WAF is very easy to use and configure on AWS. It is easy to make rules and very fast to set it up on AWS.
View full review »KO
Kolawole-Olowoporoku
DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The most valuable feature is that it is very easy to configure. It just takes a couple of minutes.
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Akshit Malik
Junior Associate - IT at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The addition of managed tools that help us create customizable rules. In case we want to block a particular request, we can make use of those rules.
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Aravindhan Suresh
DevOps Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
What I like best about AWS WAF is that it's a simple tool, so I could understand the basics of AWS WAF in two to three hours. From the start, I know its purpose and its use case.
AWS WAF also has documentation. It's a user-friendly tool, and it's easy to know how to block the IPs and endpoints.
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Venkatesh VRH
Cloud Security Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
AWS WAF is something that someone from a cloud background or cloud security background leverages. If they want to natively use a solution in the cloud, AWS WAF comes in handy. It's very useful for that, and the way we can fine-tune the WAF rules is also nice.
Kavin Kalaiarasu
Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
I believe the most impressive features are integration and ease of use. The best part of AWS WAF is the cloud-native WAF integration. There aren't any hidden deployments or hidden infrastructure which we have to maintain to have AWS WAF. AWS maintains everything; all we have to do is click the button, and WAF will be activated. Any packet coming through the internet will be filtered through.
Adrian Milea
Raiffeisen at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
The most important aspect for us is that AWS WAF is easy to deploy. The ease of implementation, ease of management, and flexibility are great. We like the potential for pay as you grow as you have instant deployment, infrastructure as a code, or any other automation tools that can leverage these deployments. The most important thing for us is that it stays flexible and scalable. That is true not only with WAF but with all the cloud services where you can provision any product in minutes.
With the cloud, you have these integrated tools that provide a single glass pane.
You have automation, ease of export, or ease of seeing the logs and exporting to a SIEM; these aspects are also great. The agility is great for us in terms of cloud services in general.
Usually, if we're talking about standard WAF, this is easy to deploy and is good at protecting low to medium applications.
View full review »reviewer1953606
Senior Administrator at a media company with 51-200 employees
The most valuable feature of AWS WAF is the OWASP filtering rules. They filter a lot of attacks out. Moreover, the service includes DDoS protection.
View full review »IP
Ibru PP
Group IT Manager
Custom rules are valuable to us. We have country-specific rules that we apply. The solution meets all our requirements. We never had a problem with the tool. The interface is good. We never had downtime. The solution does its job.
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Amr Kassem
Security implmentation engineer at a security firm with 51-200 employees
We do not have to maintain the solution. Amazon maintains the product.
View full review »RG
Rajneesh Gupta
Chief Technology Officer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The web solution effectively protects from vulnerabilities and cyber attacks.
The solution is menu driven and operates with no coding.
It is easy to manage and use the solution.
reviewer2231622
Infrastructure Engineer
The most valuable feature is the capability to limit access based on geographical location by restricting specific IP addresses.
View full review »it_user1399293
Superintendent of Cloud Platforms at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We preferred the product based on its cost. AWS WAF is an out-of-the-box solution and integrates with the AWS services that we use. It's natively integrated with AWS.
View full review »KU
KarthikU
Linux admin at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
AWS WAF is a firewall we use from time to time in my company.
Prasanth MG
Software Engineer at a tech company with 11-50 employees
The solution allows us to set up rules for blocking malicious requests. We can configure a pool of such sources and choose what to do (allow/block/count) when a request comes from them.
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Dale Ellwood
IT Infrastructure Architect at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
The solution's price is affordable compared to Fastly.
View full review »PC
Prajith Chowthee
Independent Consultant at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
AWS WAF is a great solution. We can host any DB or application on the solution.
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Trivikram Rajendreaprabhu
Senior security engeneer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The customizable features are good. For example, we can write our own rules and match character and size limits.
View full review »it_user1143783
Advisory and IT Transformation Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature of AWS WAF is the extra layer of security that I have when connecting to my web applications.
View full review »reviewer1498707
Solution Architect at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees
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.
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Uddeshya Kumar
Product Owner at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
All the features are good. AWS Lambda and S3 are valuable tools. We have to use these tools when we build applications.
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Ashish Paikrao
Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
The product’s availability, ease of configuration, and documentation are valuable.
View full review »TM
Thoko Mathenjwa
AWS Security Specialist at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most valuable feature of the solution is the ability to integrate central sets. It protects from intrusion attacks such as scripting and SQL injections.
View full review »
Prakash-Kumar
CEO at a tech consulting company with 11-50 employees
The stability of AWS WAF is valuable.
View full review »reviewer1940067
Regional Security Team Lead at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The simple configuration and the scalability have been most valuable. We are able to scale across all of our different AWS instances.
View full review »reviewer939417
IT Auditor & Compliance Officer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
AWS WAF has a lot of integrated features and services. For example, there are security services that can be integrated very well for our customers.
View full review »reviewer1234011
Cloud architect at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
The most valuable feature is that it is integrated with other AWS services.
View full review »reviewer1230804
Principal Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
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.
View full review »reviewer1530864
Engineer at a renewables & environment company with 501-1,000 employees
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.
it_user1556748
Jefe subdepartamento Operaciones at a government with 10,001+ employees
We haven't had any issues with the solution so far.
The pricing of the product is very good. They make it very reasonable and it's very easy to afford.
Their technical support has been quite good.
The performance is excellent. It's reliable.
We've found the solution to be quite stable.
View full review »reviewer1515378
AWS Security Specialist at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
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.
View full review »RG
Rodrigo Garcia
Physical Designer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The access instruction feature is the most valuable. This is what we use the most.
View full review »reviewer1410801
President at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
The best part about it is that it is a cloud solution.
View full review »VS
Vinamra Singhai
Principal Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The most valuable feature is the ability to use the product to enhance security in deploying web applications.
View full review »it_user1376373
Cloud security Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
There are two models. One is, you can use the free services which you can download from the AWS website. There is also a paid version, where you can go for individual vendors, like Impala, Fortinet, and different vendors, which helps you to attain the top end web application security. It helps them to update the security patches, etc.
AWS has flexibility in terms of WAF rules. Users can choose from using a free service, which you can do from your own end, or a third-party vendor if you want to as well by choosing a paid version. WAF rules can be managed either by your own self or you can go for a third party.
The best thing with the solution is there is no hard and fast route and when I go for AWS. It's not a monopoly environment.
View full review »it_user753234
IT Governance at a tech company with 51-200 employees
The most valuable aspect is that it protects our code. It's a bit difficult to overwrite code in our application. It also protects against threats. It's important to protect the code against the threats on the internet. It redirects any threat, any attack, to a Fail2ban mechanism.
View full review »reviewer1275378
Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature is the scalability because it automatically scales up or scales down as per our requirements.
View full review »it_user1220484
Manager, IT Infrastructure & Information Security at a transportation company with 201-500 employees
The best features are the security firewall and the features that protect against database injections or scripting, and against overall OWASP top 10, but I have concerns about the cloud front which doesn't handle bot attacks properly, so it's not as effective as I would like it to be.
ND
DigitalProd67
Head of Digital Product Office at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
The ability to take multiple data sets and match those data sets together is the solution's most valuable feature. The data lake that comes with it is very useful because that allows us to match data sets with different configurations that we wouldn't normally be able to match.
The AI functionality and the machine learning are very good.
View full review »it_user1143783
Advisory and IT Transformation Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Fast deployment and auto-manage are the most valuable aspects of the solution. The auto-manage primarily reacts and has to do all the little things like putting in the ACL, etc.
View full review »Develope2e0c
Developer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
The customized billing is the most valuable feature.
View full review »Founder4214
Founder at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Protection and WAF.
View full review »Engineera5be
Engineer at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
- It's simple, easy to use.
- Integration.
CL
Carlo Lainer
Senior Information Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most valuable feature is the way it blocks threats to external applications.
View full review »NetworkAf67c
Network Analyst
The most valuable feature is the security, making sure that files are protected, preventing unauthorized users from accessing the system. These are the best.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
AWS WAF
February 2026
Learn what your peers think about AWS WAF. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free AWS WAF Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: February 2026
Product Categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF)Popular Comparisons
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free AWS WAF Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
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