AWS WAF and F5 Advanced WAF are key players in the web application firewall category. AWS WAF has the upper hand due to its scalability and integration with AWS services, whereas F5 Advanced WAF stands out for its comprehensive security features and adaptability to complex threats.
Features: AWS WAF is noted for its scalable cloud-native deployment, integration with AWS services, and ease of use, allowing for quick and efficient setup. Its customizable ruleset offers flexibility in protection strategies. F5 Advanced WAF provides robust security features including behavior analysis, anti-fraud tools, and extensive DDoS protection. It offers deep customization with advanced threat detection capabilities, making it highly effective for enterprises requiring comprehensive security measures.
Room for Improvement: AWS WAF users recommend enhancements in automation, threat detection, and reporting. Improving its user interface and billing system could prevent unexpected costs. F5 Advanced WAF could improve user-friendliness, particularly its GUI and deployment templates, while reducing its complexity and cost for smaller businesses. Better integration with third-party solutions and stronger cloud environment support are also suggested.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS WAF offers flexible deployment in public and hybrid cloud environments, with mixed reviews on customer service. Its suitability for various setups adds to its appeal. F5 Advanced WAF is appreciated for its robust on-premises deployment despite potential complexities in user configuration. Its technical proficiency in customer support is acknowledged, although considered relatively costly for small businesses.
Pricing and ROI: AWS WAF's pay-as-you-go pricing model is seen as competitive, providing a cost-effective solution within AWS's ecosystem, and is appreciated for its scalability options. F5 Advanced WAF, while described as costly with complex licensing, justifies its price with enterprise-level protection features that are valuable for environments demanding stringent security.
Subscription models offer clearer ROI due to a more competitive pricing scheme.
Resolving issues can take time because the support personnel may lack product expertise, leading to delays.
If there is a bug, the support is usually understanding and resolves issues.
I have interacted with F5's support, and while I have no major complaints, they could improve.
In terms of reliability, I would rate AWS WAF about six out of ten due to the need for improved signature sets.
Compared to firewalls, WAFs generally provide limited stateful analysis capabilities.
Features like bot protection or DDoS mitigation, available with other WAF vendors, do not come natively with AWS WAF.
Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.
Due to our status as an AWS shop, AWS WAF is cost-effective for us, and we benefit from discounts due to our extensive use of AWS services.
Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost.
The price is affordable and satisfactory.
The cloud-native nature of AWS is crucial since most of our workload is in AWS, making AWS WAF native to Amazon Web Services.
AWS WAF is not stateful, it offers a time-saving solution with its custom rulesets that enhance security and simplify management.
As a perpetual buyer, I am unaware of support expiration until after the purchase.
It contains the logic of both negative and positive security combined.
AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a firewall security system that monitors incoming and outgoing traffic for applications and websites based on your pre-defined web security rules. AWS WAF defends applications and websites from common Web attacks that could otherwise damage application performance and availability and compromise security.
You can create rules in AWS WAF that can include blocking specific HTTP headers, IP addresses, and URI strings. These rules prevent common web exploits, such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting. Once defined, new rules are deployed within seconds, and can easily be tracked so you can monitor their effectiveness via real-time insights. These saved metrics include URIs, IP addresses, and geo locations for each request.
AWS WAF Features
Some of the solution's top features include:
Reviews from Real Users
AWS WAF stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its user-friendly interface and its integration capabilities.
Kavin K., a security analyst at M2P Fintech, writes, “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.”
F5 Advanced WAF is a web application security solution for financial and government sectors, e-commerce, and public-facing websites. It offers protection against various attacks, including botnets, web scraping, and foreign entities. The solution can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud and is often used with other security tools. Its most valuable features include DDoS and DNS attack protection, SSL uploading, anomaly detection, and the ability to input custom rules.
F5 Advanced WAF has helped organizations to expose more services to the public while providing an extra layer of protection, preventing revenue loss, and securing connectivity.
We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.