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Akamai App and API Protector vs F5 Advanced WAF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare WAF offers quick ROI, crucial protection for e-commerce, saves bandwidth, and balances cost with valuable free features.
Sentiment score
4.8
Akamai App and API Protector offers superior traffic management, security, and cost savings for large infrastructures, despite higher costs.
Sentiment score
7.6
F5 Advanced WAF boosts ROI by enhancing security, reducing overhead, and protecting assets in sectors like finance and banking.
My experience with the pricing or licensing of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is that many features can be accessed for free, so the pricing is definitely reasonable.
Owner at Hga consulting
Time savings in daily operations come from the automatic learning and signature update reducing the need for constant manual rule management, allowing the security and network teams to spend significantly less time handling false positive application-related escalations.
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Subscription models offer clearer ROI due to a more competitive pricing scheme.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The amount of attacks it protects against is immense, more than F5 Advanced WAF itself costs.
Security Solutions Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Cloudflare WAF support is mixed; responsive for some, but Indian customers face call availability and administrative issues.
Sentiment score
7.7
Customer service is excellent, while technical support has mixed reviews with praise for expertise but needs improved availability.
Sentiment score
6.9
F5 Advanced WAF's support is professional and helpful, though response times vary based on service level and issue priority.
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.
Owner at Hga consulting
The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
Both response time and availability need to be improved.
Project Manager at IBM
If there is a bug, the support is usually understanding and resolves issues.
CEO at CyberApp
I have interacted with F5's support, and while I have no major complaints, they could improve.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers impressive scalability and automated management, but additional features may incur costs for smaller organizations.
Sentiment score
7.8
Akamai App and API Protector excels in scalability, seamlessly handling extensive user demands and large-scale deployments with stability.
Sentiment score
7.5
F5 Advanced WAF is adaptable, scalable, and supports diverse business needs with robust load balancing and cloud capabilities.
The scalability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between 8 to 9, as it depends upon the use cases and what exactly the client needs.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
I can run it in HA mode or even divide the traffic volume to the number of instances that I have based on their resource sizing.
Security Solutions Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is praised for stability, high performance, effective protection, daily use, and minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
8.1
Akamai App and API Protector is highly stable and reliable, with no reported outages or issues over years of use.
Sentiment score
8.4
F5 Advanced WAF is praised for its stability and reliability, handling substantial workloads effectively with minimal bugs.
The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
F5 Advanced WAF has been very reliable and consistent for us; in our on-premise enterprise setup, it has been stable and predictable in day-to-day operations without any unexpected crashes or WAF-related downtime in production.
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
F5 Advanced WAF is pretty stable.
Security Solutions Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare WAF needs feature enhancements, better usability, improved support, advanced DDoS protection, and solutions for latency and alerts.
Akamai App and API Protector needs enhancements in flexibility, UI, customer support, documentation, and advanced protection features.
F5 Advanced WAF needs a user-friendly interface, better integration, competitive pricing, and improved automation, scalability, and documentation.
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.
Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
I think they're doing a good job with DNS and as support for any domains that I create or that my clients create, it's mandatory for me to ensure they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider.
Owner at Hga consulting
And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network.
CTO at PlayNirvana
Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
There is excellent clarity in the LTM and the WAF.
Project Manager at IBM
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers affordable, flexible pricing with no upfront costs, noted for competitiveness and included support services.
Akamai App and API Protector is expensive yet considered worth the cost by large enterprises for its quality services.
F5 Advanced WAF's high cost is justified by its robust features, appealing to enterprises needing comprehensive protection.
Licensing is capacity-driven, so you need careful planning based on traffic volume and use cases, and adding features such as Bot Protection impacts costs; once licensing is clear and sized correctly, there are no surprises.
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The price is affordable and satisfactory.
CEO at CyberApp
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides comprehensive security features, easy setup, scalability, and competitive pricing with praised performance and stability.
Akamai App and API Protector delivers scalable security, ease of use, and cost-effective protection with advanced features like DDoS defense.
F5 Advanced WAF excels in detection, customization, and reporting, providing comprehensive web application security and user-friendly operation.
The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.
Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools add a layer that we're able to visualize and see before it actually hits the local firewall.
Owner at Hga consulting
The area in which Akamai excels compared to other competitors with a WAF is in threat intelligence, as threats continually evolve, requiring ongoing updates to backend algorithms to effectively capture smart bots.
Privacy & Risk Management Vice President, Information Security at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
The Advanced Attack Signature database is very strong and regularly updated, effectively blocking SQL injections, cross-site scripting, command injections, and file inclusion attacks while allowing selective enabling or disabling of signatures to avoid blocking genuine traffic.
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
The perpetual license, despite an initial higher cost, lacks transparency regarding support expiration.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It contains the logic of both negative and positive security combined.
CEO at CyberApp
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...
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Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Akamai App and API Protector
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), Cloud and Data Center Security (12th)
F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.6%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 3.0%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 7.5%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
F5 Advanced WAF7.5%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall5.6%
Akamai App and API Protector3.0%
Other83.9%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
CTO at PlayNirvana
Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.
Gavin Pinho - PeerSpot reviewer
Privacy & Risk Management Vice President, Information Security at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Has provided strong protection against evolving threats but still needs support for configuration fine-tuning
The standout features of Akamai App and API Protector are rooted in it being the Web Application Firewall, where all traffic gets scanned, including the implementation of web firewall rules, and after this phase, traffic proceeds through the BMP, which is Bot Management. Akamai App and API Protector exceeds expectations in terms of AI capabilities, and it genuinely combines a plethora of advanced features. The area in which Akamai excels compared to other competitors with a WAF is in threat intelligence, as threats continually evolve, requiring ongoing updates to backend algorithms to effectively capture smart bots, and Akamai's commitment in that regard is backed by an excellent team, while other providers are still catching up.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Application security has protected critical banking services while policy learning minimizes false blocks
F5 Advanced WAF performs well overall, but I have noticed some points that could enhance the solution. Initially, policy tuning could be simpler, as while the learning engine is powerful, initial tuning still requires experienced engineers, which can be challenging for new teams due to the complexity of options and parameters. A more guided and simple tuning workflow would help reduce the learning curve. Additionally, tighter native integration with SIEM or SOAR tools would simplify correlation and investigations for security teams, although log exports are available. Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
8%
Performing Arts
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't really use the rule-based logic feature or utilize the WAF's ability to scale as a cloud-based service. I don...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I'm using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall on all my domains and any client domains I have; I set them up with a C...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai Web Application Protector?
The price is higher than others. It could be about 80% to 70% more expensive than other tools. So, it’s not just a sl...
What needs improvement with Akamai Web Application Protector?
There are no significant areas for improvement on the WAF side or for Akamai App and API Protector solution; they are...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Web Application Protector?
The main use case for Akamai App and API Protector is serving as the WAF, Web Application Firewall.
What do you like most about F5 Advanced WAF?
It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the r...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?
The pricing for F5 Advanced WAF is a bit higher, but not that high. I would say for a good amount of revenue-generati...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
On the features I wish existed, Big-IP Advanced WAF is primarily an on-premises solution and in that solution, there ...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. F5 Advanced WAF and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,961 professionals have used our research since 2012.