Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services comparison

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services

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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 Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.4%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard WAF is 2.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 1.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	5.4%
Check Point CloudGuard WAF	2.6%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services	1.8%
Other	90.2%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

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.

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KrishnakumarM

CISO at Pink Solutions

Cloud security has strengthened risk posture and improved advanced threat visibility

There are some API gateway and API securities I mentioned. If these are incorporated with AI-related features, particularly those seven key vulnerabilities I mentioned—token theft and tool poisoning—that would be beneficial. AI-related features are not included yet in Check Point CloudGuard WAF. However, they are present in FortiGate. That is the advantage of FortiGate now. FortiGate is stopping all AI-related vulnerabilities now. FortiGate has this capability. It is unfortunate that even Palo Alto also lacks one or two of these features. Check Point Quantum is very good, without a doubt. However, their capabilities are not in comparison with Palo Alto. There are some features, but there are some gaps in comparison with Palo Alto.

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Mohan Janarthanan

Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions

Centralized security has protected APIs and optimized multi‑cloud traffic management

F5 Distributed Cloud Services has been used for two years for DDoS protection, and there is a particular feature called API protection. Within API protection, there is malicious user mitigation, which is one particular technology that has been implemented. This is a kind of advanced bot attack prevention. Malicious user mitigation is an AI/ML-based technology that was introduced by the F5 team, and this particular MUG protects rate limiting. If some users are having anomaly detection or someone is trying to do a bot attack, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge for that particular user alone and not for all users. For example, if someone is trying to act as a rogue, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge in the backend system on that particular system, so they cannot try again and again at the same time. It is for a concurrent session, and it will give the CAPTCHA challenge. This MUG, malicious user mitigation, prevents bot attacks. F5 Distributed Cloud Services includes the real-time intelligence feature, which helps with threat response strategies from a threat intelligence perspective. For example, if there are geo-restrictions or geo-based restrictions, sometimes people may come in through proxy-based servers, and it will prevent that. The load balancing feature optimizes application performance. Observability is the basic piece where F5 got introduced. This observability piece provides end-to-end visibility on the application performance. It gives complete end-to-end visibility across network latency and application performance issues. Sometimes when it is getting more than 200 pages, it throws errors such as 300, 400, or whatever has been configured, including 500 errors. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has helped improve traffic management efficiency. Most applications are hosted in the Check Point and F5 firewall, F5 web application firewall, where applications and traffic management can be accessed in a single dashboard. Automated threat detection is a basic feature of F5 Distributed Cloud Services meant for that purpose. There are two scenarios with automated threat detection, which is provided by F5. It is a completely machine learning solution that came from the bot defense, and it automatically protects against sophisticated attacks.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."

"The impact of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's integration with existing web technologies on our site's performance and security measures is quite great, actually."

"There is a huge signature repository"

"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."

"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."

"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."

"It protects web applications efficiently."

"Technical support has a very fast response time and they are helpful."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"In short, Check Point CloudGuard WAF is a powerful tool."

"The automated policy creation and threat intelligence have helped my team by reducing manual configuration and saving time, and the threat intelligence updates ensure immediate protection against new threats, simplifying daily operations and improving response speed."

"The ability to preemptively block zero day attacks and detect hidden anomalies is exactly its advantage."

"I find the configuration and real-time monitoring features valuable."

"CloudGuard WAF has been great."

"It helps me sleep at night, providing peace of mind."

"After integrating AppSec with other applications, team members can easily work without fear of confidential information exposure."

"Overall, the product is excellent."

More Check Point CloudGuard WAF pros

"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."

"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."

"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."

"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."

"F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well."

"Technical support from F5 is good compared to Cisco and HP."

Cons

"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."

"A key challenge arises when dealing with numerous integrations with HVAC systems. Depending on the specifics, there might be some configuration mismatches, which necessitate specific support."

"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."

"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

"Support can be challenging at times."

"The reporting could be more granular."

"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"You need to know exactly the system. You cannot have someone running the system if they don't have the knowledge to do so."

"We are satisfied with the product because it does what we need it to do, but one thing that I would like to see improved in the product is the protection of our mobile applications. When I migrate the traffic from our mobile application to CloudGuard, we are not getting what we expected."

"The user interface can be improved, especially for 1st time user."

"The documentation of each of the tools that they offer needs to be better."

"Pricing and licensing are really expensive for this product. While it provides a very good security level, the price for each service is high."

"Areas where Check Point CloudGuard WAF can improve include simple policy tuning, as the protection seems strong, though initial rule tuning can be complex."

"Check Point CloudGuard WAF's support is only available in English."

"I see areas for improvement primarily on the reporting functionality front, as there are very limited functions in the reporting section."

More Check Point CloudGuard WAF cons

"For small players, it is completely not worth it."

"Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."

"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."

"For small players, it is completely not worth it."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not too pricey."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"The solution is expensive."

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly and competitive."

"It is not cheap, but it is worth it."

"Considering all the benefits we've observed, we find the price to be satisfactory."

"I find the pricing to be reasonable."

"Check Point CloudGuard Application Security's pricing is not friendly."

"The sales team or account managers from Check Point are top-notch. As I am using other products as well, my pricing was competitive compared to others."

"If the pricing for the Infinity platform covers everything, it would be more straightforward. I had a hard time selling it to our CEO as a former CFO because of the differentials. There are different deltas year to year over a five-year period. It is very difficult to explain. It would be easier to digest for our executives if there was a flatter scale"

"Check Point CloudGuard WAF is expensive compared to Azure WAF."

More Check Point CloudGuard WAF pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

26%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	19

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...

What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...

What do you like most about CloudGuard for Application Security?

We have not had any incidents. We could realize its benefits immediately. We watched and monitored the traffic, and i...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudGuard for Application Security?

Check Point CloudGuard WAF is expensive. It is a little bit expensive. You cannot avoid this from an Israeli product....

What needs improvement with CloudGuard for Application Security?

There are some API gateway and API securities I mentioned. If these are incorporated with AI-related features, partic...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four...

What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact obser...

What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

F5 Distributed Cloud Services is being used for web application firewall along with API security, bot protection, and...

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

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Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Check Point CloudGuard WAF

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Imperva Application Security Platform vs Check Point CloudGuard WAF

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Fortinet FortiWeb vs Check Point CloudGuard WAF

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Product Reports

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Check Point CloudGuard WAF

Download Check Point CloudGuard WAF product report

CDN

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard AppSec

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

Check Point CloudGuard WAF offers advanced security for web applications and APIs with features such as intrusion prevention, bot prevention, and AI-driven threat detection, ensuring organizations achieve high-level protection and efficient security management.

Check Point CloudGuard WAF integrates with APIs, providing a seamless security enhancement while reducing false positives. Its scalability supports rapid deployment, valuable for companies aiming to secure resources in clouds like AWS and Azure. Enhanced threat prevention, comprehensive compliance support, and advanced threat protection methods such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting prevention are key strengths. Despite its robust capabilities, there are opportunities for improvement, such as lower costs, improved third-party tool integration, and a more intuitive interface to enhance usability.

What are the key features of Check Point CloudGuard WAF?

Intrusion Prevention System: Effectively detects and blocks unauthorized access attempts.
Bot Prevention: Shields applications from malicious bot traffic.
AI-driven Threat Detection: Uses advanced algorithms to identify and mitigate threats.
Log Management: Offers extensive logging capabilities for tracking and analysis.
Scalability: Supports rapid deployment across different environments, including multi-cloud.

What benefits should users expect from Check Point CloudGuard WAF?

Security Efficiency: Combines high-grade protection with ease of use to simplify security management.
Cost Efficiency: Aids in effective resource utilization, minimizing overhead.
Compliance Support: Helps meet various industry standards effortlessly.
Enhanced Threat Protection: Provides robust safeguards against common web vulnerabilities.

Check Point CloudGuard WAF is predominantly applied within industries requiring stringent security standards, such as financial services, healthcare, and e-commerce. Its deployment strengthens the defense of critical APIs, facilitates compliance, and supports efficient multi-cloud security management, aligning well with evolving industry demands.

Check Point Software Technologies

F5 Distributed Cloud Services excel in enhancing security, optimizing web application delivery, and ensuring robust network performance. Users value its integrated Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, global server load balancing, and intuitive management interface. It boosts organizational efficiency, reduces operational costs, and scales seamlessly, making it essential for businesses operating in distributed environments.

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Orange España, Paschoalotto

Information Not Available

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services