Check Point DDoS Protector vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) comparison

Check Point DDoS Protector vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 12.9%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point DDoS Protector is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare	12.9%
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)	1.7%
Check Point DDoS Protector	1.1%
Other	84.3%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal

General Manager at bKash Limited

Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility

From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.

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reviewer2753559

Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

Ensures service availability and handles attacks effectively though initial setup needs expertise

The best features that Check Point DDoS Protector offers, which stand out to me the most, are real-time detection and mitigation of application-layer DDoS attacks, easy integration with the existing Check Point security infrastructure, and low latency protection that does not disrupt legitimate traffic. The centralized console makes it easy to manage policy across devices, and the integration is straightforward since it works seamlessly with Check Point firewall and management and other security products. Check Point DDoS Protector has positively impacted my organization by improving uptime, reducing incidents, and providing cost savings. It will reduce the incidents up to 30%.

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Nawapol Boonlerd

Information Security Engineer at BigFish Enterprise Ltd.

Comprehensive network protection has mitigated DDoS risks and supports secure on-prem operations

Currently, there are no weaknesses or disadvantages in F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) that I have identified. It is a little bit expensive, and I think about additional features they could have in the future to make it even better. For example, I have thoughts about the price. Currently, it does not integrate, and I would assess the importance of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)'s integration with cloud services as significant. Currently, I use only one site, and I cannot tell you about F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) centralized security policies. I have not used F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)'s Threat Intelligence capabilities. I have not used their dynamic traffic shaping feature. So far, the only thing that could be improved is the pricing of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM).

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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

"Even when there is a high load on our servers, Cloudflare is able to cache the data and serve it to users, ensuring they can still access the website."

"Cloudflare has made management of my website much easier by combining various functions in one platform without compromising quality."

"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."

"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."

"Cloudflare's DNS services deliver the best performance in terms of speed and reliability."

"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."

"Stability is great; I love their mechanisms, I love their GUI, I love their front end, I love their behind the scenes, algorithms and everything, it all makes sense."

"The tool is user-friendly."

More Cloudflare pros

"Check Point DDoS Protector has positively impacted my organization by improving uptime, reducing incidents, and providing cost savings."

"From my experience, the best part of this solution is behavioral DDoS protection. The DDoS Protector can monitor the traffic, and based on the behavior, it can decide which traffic is malicious and which traffic is regular. It works dynamically, and it's a very good solution."

"This solution has improved our internet security and external security; Check Point is a good product that has improved a lot of security rules, resulting in fewer security incidents and fewer viruses while improving our operations and overall security."

"As our business continues to grow, we can grow this product simultaneously."

"Check Point DDoS Protector is a product that uses machine learning and behavior analysis."

"We found that Check Point was able to provide us superior capabilities and features on the basis we were evaluating."

"The is a really low level of the false-positive alerts (when the clean traffic is marked as DDoS) due to some advanced techniques used by Check Point under the hood."

"Check Point is one of the solutions that give us the most value, and they are constantly innovating."

More Check Point DDoS Protector pros

"We use three main features. The first one is access control. The second feature we use is called IP intelligence. Finally, we have a DDoS safety feature."

"The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP AFM is all of my workers enjoy using it."

"The customer service is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten."

"I would say it's a good, stable solution; we haven't had a major issue with the AFM."

"It excels in preventing downtime and maintaining application performance, which is crucial for our clients' security and operational continuity."

"The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications."

"The solution is very straightforward, and the usability is great."

"It blocks various attacks and mitigates disasters from occurring."

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) pros

Cons

"The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall."

"Flexible SSL is nothing more than an illusion of security that you're presenting to your visitors."

"Technical support is lacking."

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

"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."

"We had to do a lot of digging and back-and-forth with technical support for specific use cases, and it might be helpful to have more screencasts or screenshots for common situations."

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."

"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."

More Cloudflare cons

"Monitoring and reporting are the things that can be introduced in the future."

"Check Point DDoS Protector does not provide the ability to upload data for the blacklist/whitelist in bulk, which is one of the big points that need to be improved to facilitate configurations."

"The solution should greatly improve its interface."

"For a long time, there was no software version of R80.10 available for the Check Point DDoS Protector software appliances, and we had to stay on the quite outdated R77.30 version."

"Currently, two of the things that I would like would be applications for Android and IOS where we can follow the events, and, if necessary, make changes."

"It does not provide the capability to upload data for blacklisting/whitelisting in bulk."

"The product is expensive."

"Check Point should develop a DDoS solution because they don't have one and we need to use another solution, in our case, Imperva. This is a problem because we need to have two firewalls. We would like to only have one solution because it would improve the management, we would have fewer incidents, and we wouldn't need to talk to more than one person for support."

More Check Point DDoS Protector cons

"There is room for improvement in Advanced Firewall Manager's dashboard statistics, especially during attacks."

"I have encountered challenges with the price of the solution."

"It's very expensive, and you pay extra for the models."

"For configuring the firewall, every single vendor on the planet has pretty much the same logic when it comes to firewalls, and F5 has a completely different approach and completely different behavior."

"The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security. Some features like the WAF firewall may seem expensive compared to the standard license, so there could be room for adjusting the pricing."

"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is an expensive solution. They are one of the best in the market, but the price could be cheaper."

"F5 could provide a distributed cloud version."

"F5 should increase its capability to prevent zero-day attacks. Having advanced technology similar to other vendors like Palo Alto for zero-day attack prevention would be valuable."

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."

"We are using the free version."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."

"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."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"I don't deal with the pricing, but it seems that you need to get basic support in order to upgrade the DDoS database for new attacks and so on."

"It's an expensive solution. It's one of the most expensive solutions in the world. It's cheaper than Palo Alto and Cisco but these are expensive solutions. Fortinet is cheaper."

"The appliance comes with a loaded hardware license, and additional options such as SSL can be purchased and enabled."

"As per pricing, I would not say cheap, but little higher than cheap, but not very expensive. So you can say kind of value for money solutions."

"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager is not an expensive solution."

"It's very expensive, and you pay extra for the models."

"F5 BIG-IP AFM is an affordable solution. There were not any additional fees other than the standard licensing."

"The solution is slightly on the higher priced side."

"We have purchased a five-year licensing package for the product."

"We need to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."

"It is somewhat on the expensive side although it is worth the additional cost."

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection solutions are best for your needs.

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902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

37%

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Construction Company

11%

Engineering Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	26

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare DNS?

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point DDoS Protector?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is straightforward with no challenges.

What needs improvement with Check Point DDoS Protector?

Check Point DDoS Protector can be improved in that initial fine-tuning of policies can be complex and may require exp...

What is your primary use case for Check Point DDoS Protector?

My main use case for Check Point DDoS Protector is to protect our network perimeter against DDoS attacks, ensuring se...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?

The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive. There are plen...

What needs improvement with F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?

Currently, there are no weaknesses or disadvantages in F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) that I have identifi...

What is your primary use case for F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?

I am starting to learn and working with F5 team to conduct a proof of concept, and I do have experience with F5 Rules...

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 35% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Compared 3% of the time

Fastly vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Radware DDoS vs Check Point DDoS Protector

Compared 28% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs Check Point DDoS Protector

Compared 25% of the time

Fortinet FortiDDoS vs Check Point DDoS Protector

Compared 17% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Check Point DDoS Protector

Compared 16% of the time

More Check Point DDoS Protector Competitors

Arbor DDoS vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 22% of the time

Radware DDoS vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 17% of the time

Sucuri vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 13% of the time

A10 Thunder TPS vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 8% of the time

AWS Shield vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 4% of the time

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) Competitors

Product Reports

Cloudflare

Download Cloudflare product report

Check Point DDoS Protector

Download Check Point DDoS Protector product report

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Download F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) product report

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

Check Point DDoS Protector offers robust defense against DDoS attacks, ensuring seamless service availability by integrating advanced threat detection and mitigation strategies for diverse network infrastructures.

Businesses utilize Check Point DDoS Protector for comprehensive security by leveraging its firewall and antivirus capabilities, hardware-based SSL engine, and machine learning for traffic analysis. It seamlessly integrates with existing systems to provide real-time attack identification and mitigation, addressing both cloud and on-premise threats. While it maintains low latency and reduces false positives, the dashboard's complexity and need for improved real-time traffic information are areas requiring refinement. Support for modular upgrades, enhanced reporting, and better application layer mitigation are also prioritized by users.

What are the key features of Check Point DDoS Protector?

Firewall and Antivirus: Protects against a wide range of threats with integrated security features.
Low Latency Traffic Processing: Ensures responsive network performance even under attack.
Hardware-Based SSL Engine: Enhances SSL encryption processing without compromising speed.
Scalable Protection: Adapts to various network sizes, providing consistent defense across infrastructures.
Machine Learning Analysis: Uses behavioral analysis to detect and mitigate threats effectively.

What benefits can organizations expect from Check Point DDoS Protector?

Improved Uptime: Reduces service disruptions, supporting continuous business operations.
Reduced Incidents: Minimizes the frequency and severity of attacks on network perimeters.
Comprehensive Security: Offers broad protection with integrated modules that handle diverse threats.
Seamless Integration: Works well with existing infrastructures, ensuring smooth integration and functionality.

Industries depend on Check Point DDoS Protector to safeguard network perimeters against DDoS attacks. It is instrumental in protecting data centers and managing web services, addressing volumetric and low-and-slow attacks, and supporting high DNS packet rates. By integrating with scrubbing centers and enabling traffic management by geolocation, organizations can ensure security for both cloud and on-premise environments, including Azure. This proactive defense capability is highly valued for its impact on scalability and management within these sectors.

Check Point Software Technologies

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager provides robust network protection with advanced DDoS features and efficient load balancing. Its design prioritizes scalability and ease of management, catering to securing data centers and applications.

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager is a strategic choice for combating cyber threats, including DDoS attacks. With powerful network defenses, integrated WAF, and adaptable capabilities, it efficiently handles web services on-premise and in the cloud. Users value its application-level threat defense with IP blocking and AI-enhanced reporting. Advanced integration with SIEM solutions allows comprehensive monitoring and enhanced threat detection through dynamic resource allocation. However, areas for improvement include better dashboard statistics and pricing adjustments. Enhancing integration with BIG-IQ and intuitive configuration would streamline its operation. Automatic geolocation updates and improved support could address current challenges alongside its high cost and complex initial setup.

What are the standout features?

Integrated WAF: Enhances security by protecting applications from online threats.
DDoS Protection: Defends against large-scale DDoS attacks efficiently.
AI-Enhanced Reporting: Provides detailed insights through AI-driven analytics.
IP Blocking: Offers IP-based threat defense and geolocation capabilities.
Resource Allocation: Dynamically allocates resources for optimized performance.

What are the benefits and ROI to consider?

Ease of Management: Simplifies management processes with user-friendly features.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Through SIEM integration for better visibility.
Superior Threat Detection: Identifies and mitigates threats proactively.
Scalability: Adapts to evolving network needs and traffic demands.

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager is widely used in sectors requiring stringent security measures, such as finance and healthcare. These industries deploy it as a data center and web application firewall to protect against cyber threats, manage client connections, and ensure the security of on-premise and cloud applications.

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Boston Properties

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office

Check Point DDoS Protector vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)