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AWS WAF vs F5 Rules for AWS WAF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (4th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
AWS WAF
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd)
F5 Rules for AWS WAF
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Business Rules Management (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (29th)
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Owner at Hga consulting
Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility
I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.
Azam S M - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC
Has successfully filtered malicious traffic and allowed country-specific access controls
For improvement in AWS WAF, we can have better monitoring. One of the things that should be improved in AWS WAF is the monitoring; we need to identify the requests and where they are coming from. If it's a bot, we should differentiate the requests, whether they are automated or not. The way we see it now is just mentioned as a percentage from bots and actual users, which should include proper graphs and detailed information. We also need a feature where we can filter specific requests. If there are scripts in the requests, we should be able to filter those requests to see if there are any scripts running from them.
reviewer2783919 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Managed security rules have protected our public e‑commerce sites and simplified ongoing defense
I advise anyone looking for a great tool to secure their public-facing applications to start using F5 Rules for AWS WAF. These are managed rule sets, so you do not need to worry about continuous improvements or ensuring your application is secure; F5 Rules for AWS WAF will take care of that and is always making the necessary improvements in these rule sets to ensure security. I am very impressed with the rule sets and the continuous engineering from their security team to ensure the required rule set availability. I really appreciate the fantastic job they are doing. F5 Rules for AWS WAF can be integrated with AWS CloudFront, Application Load Balancer, Lambda, and API Gateway. I am satisfied with all these services as they are our intermediary points for services exposed to the public or globally. I gave this product a rating of ten out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."
"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."
"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."
"Cloudflare makes it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple users and multiple clients, and basically go in and access their account, make the changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."
"Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host."
"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."
"The UI is good."
"The most valuable feature of AWS WAF is its highly configurable rules system."
"The cloud-native nature of AWS is crucial since most of our workload is in AWS, making AWS WAF native to Amazon Web Services."
"The customized billing is the most valuable feature."
"The product's initial setup phase was very simple."
"We can host any DB or application on the solution."
"The solution is stable."
"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."
"The solution is stable."
"I advise anyone looking for a great tool to secure their public-facing applications to start using F5 Rules for AWS WAF."
"F5 Rules for AWS WAF has positively impacted our organization for security through the implementation of traffic rules in our application."
"I advise anyone looking for a great tool to secure their public-facing applications to start using F5 Rules for AWS WAF."
 

Cons

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."
"For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"The product needs to improve its automation."
"DNS Management."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."
"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."
"AWS WAF would be better if it uses AI or machine learning to detect a potential attack or a potential IP that creates an attack even before it happens. I want AWS WAF to capture the IP and automatically write the rule to automate the entire process."
"There is room for improvement in pricing."
"We need more support as we go global."
"AWS WAF should provide better protection to its users, and the security features need to improve."
"The cost management has room for improvement."
"The setup is complicated."
"I would like to see the addition of more advanced rate-limiting features in the next release. It would be beneficial to extend rate limiting beyond just web servers to the main node level."
"We have issues with reporting, troubleshooting, and analytics. AWS WAF needs to bring costs down."
"An area for improvement I see is that while everything is in good shape, I demand continuous improvisation of these rule sets."
"An area for improvement I see is that while everything is in good shape, I demand continuous improvisation of these rule sets."
"It's too early to talk about a return on investment with F5 Rules for AWS WAF."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"The product is moderately priced."
"It's cheap."
"The solution's cost depends on the use cases."
"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."
"There are different scale options available for WAF."
"I would rate AWS WAF's pricing a seven out of ten."
"For Kubernetes microservices, AWS is more expensive compared to OCI. AWS costs approximately 70 cents per hour, while OCI is 50% cheaper."
"For our infrastructure, we probably pay around $16,000 per month for AWS WAF. Because alternative WAF solutions provide even more features, I think the AWS WAF is a bit pricey"
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise26
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
What are the limitations of AWS WAF vs alternative WAFs?
Hi Varun, I have had experienced with several WAF deployments and deep technical assessments of the following: 1. Im...
How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft...
What do you like most about AWS WAF?
The most valuable feature of AWS WAF is its highly configurable rules system.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Rules for AWS WAF?
From the pricing perspective, I found it to be comparable to other marketplace rules available in AWS Marketplace. It...
What needs improvement with F5 Rules for AWS WAF?
An area for improvement I see is that while everything is in good shape, I demand continuous improvisation of these r...
What is your primary use case for F5 Rules for AWS WAF?
We are providing support to our end customers who have e-commerce websites that need to be exposed to the public, and...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
AWS Web Application Firewall
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
eVitamins, 9Splay, Senao International
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS WAF vs. F5 Rules for AWS WAF and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.