Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Uplynk comparison

Cloudflare and Uplynk are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Cloudflare is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.5, while Uplynk is ranked #30 with an average rating of 8.0. Additionally, 95% of Cloudflare users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Uplynk users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 14, 2025

Uplynk and Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are competitors in content delivery and web security. Cloudflare has an advantage due to its extensive features that justify its cost.

Features: Uplynk offers flexible media delivery, robust content protection, and ease of use, focusing on media-centric capabilities. Cloudflare provides advanced security measures, DDoS protection, and traffic optimization, emphasizing comprehensive web security.

Room for Improvement: Uplynk could enhance its web security features and expand global reach. Cloudflare may improve its user interface, reduce response time in support, and simplify its deployment process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Uplynk is praised for a simple setup, favored for its efficiency, and offers responsive customer service. Cloudflare's deployment allows extensive configurations but can be complex, with detailed support known for thorough technical guidance but slower responses.

Pricing and ROI: Uplynk provides competitive pricing, appealing to budget-focused users with low initial costs yielding quick ROI. Cloudflare's higher initial investment is offset by superior security and performance, justifying costs for those prioritizing security over price.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. Uplynk Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. Uplynk

December 2025

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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

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

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.

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Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

Effectively protects clients from automated threats and ensures global security

I cannot say much about areas of improvement for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall because I haven't gone through deep understanding of it, as I am still learning. However, they need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long. If I took 48 hours to answer a request at my company, it would be a tough time to see or address the issue, and it would be frustrating.

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Joe Hernandez

Senior Software Engineer at OmniTier Inc

Improved mobile app development and user experience through optimization and security

The most valuable aspects include the optimization of application performance by optimizing API calls for a smoother user experience and faster load times. Furthermore, I restructured our code base to establish a more efficient development workflow. During my tenure, I integrated various security features for mobile applications, such as JWT tokens for secure authentication and data encryption using AES algorithms. I also focused on secure storage options, secure coding practices, and platform-specific security compliance, like Android's SafeNet and iOS Secure Enclave.

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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

"The tool is user-friendly."

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"It's very user-friendly."

"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."

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

"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."

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."

More Cloudflare pros

"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."

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

"The setup process is very simple for me."

"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."

"It is configurable via API."

"Cloudflare has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple clients; I can easily go in and access their accounts, make changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."

"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."

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

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"The customer support and service responsiveness were excellent."

"It's super easy to use and integrate with."

"The Rules Engine V4 is the most valuable feature."

"The product is easy to use and easy to implement."

"The tool's most valuable feature is the Uplynk platform for streaming purposes."

Cons

"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."

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

"It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market."

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

"Support response time could be improved."

"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."

"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."

"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."

More Cloudflare cons

"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."

"The learning curve was steep initially."

"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."

"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well. They have documentation for everything you're looking for, but they lack a single piece of documentation to tie everything together. As a new user or beginner, it took us a little bit of time to figure out how to put all these things in place."

"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"In the next release, I would like to see more global endpoints for their CDN and a lower price."

"The web interface of the Verizon Edgecast portal is very old. It's not user-friendly, slow, and it is missing some valuable features like the ability to make bulk changes."

"We could not create more than 15 custom rules."

"The tool needs to resolve its lack of innovation."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

"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."

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

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

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive."

"It is not too pricey."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

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

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

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

"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."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"When I modeled it out, we are spending somewhere between $600 to $800 a month with Verizon EdgeCast."

"The product is cheaper compared to other solutions."

"Be careful about the options because to have all the features can be very expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The product has a valuable security control functionality.

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

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Edgio Global CDN?

The pricing was initially very expensive. However, after improving and restructuring the application, it became more ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Edgio Global CDN?

Regarding improvements, I focused on testing and compatibility to ensure reliability across various mobile devices. B...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Edgio Global CDN?

I usually use the product for mobile development. At my last company, OmniTier, I worked as a senior principal softwa...

See all answers

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Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Cloudflare WAF

Edgio, Limelight Content Delivery, Limelight Orchestrate Delivery, Limelight Origin Storage, Global CDN, Verizon EdgeCast

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

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

Uplynk is a robust platform providing CDN integration and optimized streaming services, improving user experience and application performance. It offers control over CDN caching, redirects, and asset transformations, supporting seamless asset management and mobile security.

Uplynk enhances application performance through efficient API calls, optimized web server loads, and robust CDN configurations. It ensures high availability and performance by leveraging Verizon EdgeCast CDN, crucial for managing high-volume traffic on e-commerce platforms. Though Uplynk excels in asset caching and mobile security with JWT tokens and AES encryption, some users note its global reach needs improvement, and its interface lacks modern user-friendliness. Deployment of new rules can be slower compared to competitors, while documentation and rate limiting features require enhancement. Despite this, Uplynk remains a preferred choice for organizations seeking streamlined web server load optimization and enhanced application performance.

What are Uplynk's key features?

Rules Engine V4: Manages CDN caching, redirects, and asset transformations.
Seamless Integration: Easily integrates with Verizon's existing offerings.
Efficient API Calls: Enhances streaming and application performance.
Staging Support: Testing in staging environments without impacting production.
Mobile Security: Includes JWT tokens and AES encryption.

What benefits should users expect in reviews?

Improved Load Times: Efficient CDN configurations enhance site speed.
Enhanced User Navigation: Optimized performance for high-volume traffic.
DDoS Protection: Layer 3, 4, and 7 protection for comprehensive security.
Performance Optimization: Mobile development and streamlined caching.

Organizations deploy Uplynk to optimize web server load, enhance streaming service performance and support high-traffic volume management, especially in e-commerce. Its security measures, combined with Verizon EdgeCast CDN, ensure high availability and reliable performance, enhancing mobile engagement through specialized frameworks.

Uplynk

Sample Customers

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

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

TD Ameritrade, Plus500, Solvay Bank, Yahoo, Deckers Brands, and Coach

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. Uplynk

December 2025

Free Report: Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. Uplynk

Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. Uplynk and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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