Cloudflare vs F5 Silverline Managed Services comparison

Cloudflare and F5 are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. Cloudflare is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while F5 is ranked #15 with an average rating of 9.0. Cloudflare holds a 17.8% mindshare in DDOS, compared to F5’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cloudflare users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of F5 users who would recommend it.

Cloudflare

Read 77 Cloudflare reviews

38,465 Views
5,770 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

F5 Silverline Managed Services

Read 16 F5 Silverline Managed Services reviews

1,438 Views
618 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cloudflare

F5 Silverline Managed Services

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 2025

Cloudflare and F5 Silverline Managed Services compete in the realm of website protection and performance optimization. Cloudflare has the upper hand with small to medium-sized businesses due to its cost-effective pricing and robust security features, while F5 Silverline excels with large enterprises needing detailed configurations.

Features: Cloudflare provides CDN caching, DDoS protection, and robust DNS management, ideal for users needing quick deployment without extensive configuration. F5 Silverline stands out with 24/7 protection, load balancing, and flexible policy management, particularly suited for larger enterprises.

Room for Improvement: Cloudflare could enhance analytics visibility, decrease connection errors, and improve support response times. F5 Silverline would benefit from more automation, better UI navigation, and additional points of presence to reduce latency and enhance the user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cloudflare is noted for easy deployment in public/hybrid clouds and comprehensive online documentation, though support may lag for non-enterprise plans. F5 Silverline offers thorough support for public and private cloud deployments, praised for knowledgeable technical staff, albeit with some navigation difficulties.

Pricing and ROI: Cloudflare employs a tiered pricing model starting with a free plan, attractive for small businesses. Its scalability offers significant ROI through reduced downtime and improved performance. F5 Silverline's pricing is higher, reflecting its strong protection and service quality, providing enterprise-level capabilities worth the premium.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloudflare vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

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:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.5

Cloudflare users experienced increased performance, security, and cost-effectiveness, leading to improved loyalty and revenue despite difficult ROI calculations.

Sentiment score

6.6

F5 Silverline Managed Services offers effective cybersecurity solutions, with variable ROI perceptions and appreciation for time and cost savings.

For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.

Wellington Malagutti

Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

In terms of return on investment with Cloudflare, it costs my time to set them up, but basically once they're set up, it's done.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.0

Cloudflare's customer service is quick, but technical support feedback is mixed, with improvement needed in responsiveness and detailed assistance.

Sentiment score

6.1

F5 Silverline's customer support is responsive but varies; users praise personalization but note challenges with escalations and response times.

Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.

reviewer1245303

Senior Consultant CDN at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to call them.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

I have primarily worked not with the tool's customer support but with the product's sales engineers and technical sales engineers, who seem to know their stuff.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

Their support team is responsive, and they deliver timely updates, addressing any glitches promptly.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

They resolve the issues by joining me to fix them.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Users praise Cloudflare for seamless scalability, effective traffic management, easy upgrades, and robust global infrastructure without disruptions.

Sentiment score

7.8

F5 Silverline offers scalable managed services, efficiently handling enterprise demands with flexible expansion and seamless capacity management.

It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

The tool offers very good performance, even during high-traffic periods.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

Prajith Chowthee

Independent Consultant at Unaikui

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

F5 Silverline Managed Services is scalable enough without observed limitations.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The solution is fully scalable, and I would give it a rating of ten on a scale of one to ten for scalability.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Cloudflare is highly rated for stability and uptime, with few past issues, especially on higher-tier plans.

Sentiment score

7.3

F5 Silverline delivers stable performance with strong monitoring, minimal downtime, effective support, and high stability ratings despite occasional issues.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

Prajith Chowthee

Independent Consultant at Unaikui

The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

They offer regular updates, and overall, I would rate the stability of the solution as nine out of ten.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Room For Improvement

Enhancements needed in Cloudflare: analytics, CDN latency, API integration, user support, DNS, pricing, documentation, server coverage, WAF, and cache.

F5 Silverline needs improved pricing, integration, user interfaces, automation, API, and enhanced features like AI and bot detection.

Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.

Bilal Mujahid

Managed Services Manager at Adapture Technology Group

Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements.

Darryl Wethington

Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)

There are some performance considerations when it comes to dynamic content that involves fetching data from databases or using APIs.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

Introducing preemptive support prompts would reduce the manual effort required for creating policies or blocking specific IPs.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Improvements could include the creation of highly optimized profiles.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers scalable pricing, from free to enterprise plans, providing significant value especially for mid-sized companies.

Enterprise users view F5 Silverline pricing as competitive but costly, with room for negotiation and flexible licensing options.

I find it to be cheap.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

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

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

On a scale where ten is very expensive, I would rate the pricing as three.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The solution is expensive

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Valuable Features

Cloudflare enhances performance and security with CDN caching, DDoS protection, and an easy-to-use dashboard, benefiting many users.

F5 Silverline Managed Services provides easy setup, robust security features, excellent scalability, and effective DDoS protection with comprehensive reporting.

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

Darryl Wethington

Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)

Techniques like minification and image compression reduce the size of assets, leading to better performance and faster user load times.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

The solution has been able to compare it to the market, and I think the product has taken great strides in automating quite a bit of things, and they use a lot of AI.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

It allows for centralized management of certificates, protecting applications from top ten attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

The monitoring tab displays GET and POST requests in a readable format, making it accessible even to non-tech-savvy individuals.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare

Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (4th), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)

F5 Silverline Managed Services

Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

15th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Application Firewall (WAF) (21st)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 17.8%, up from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Silverline Managed Services is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cloudflare	17.8%
F5 Silverline Managed Services	1.5%
Other	80.7%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

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.

Read full review

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Manages network threats and supports application control with ease

The best advantage of F5 Silverline Managed Services is that it is easy to use. The admin guide they provide is easy to understand and allows for implementation within a few days. The traffic manager and the monitoring tool are valuable as well. The monitoring tab displays GET and POST requests in a readable format, making it accessible even to non-tech-savvy individuals. It offers effective reports and monitoring capabilities.

Read full review

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Comparison Review

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Security Expert with 51-200 employees

Nov 6, 2013

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Insurance Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

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	6
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	8

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 GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds ...

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 that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...

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

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?

For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Silverline Managed Services?

The solution is quite reasonably priced, with costs being lower in comparison to competitors. On a scale where ten is very expensive, I would rate the pricing as three. It offers cost savings and i...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Silverline Managed Services?

Automating processes could enhance F5 Silverline Managed Services. For example, introducing preemptive support prompts would reduce the manual effort required for creating policies or blocking spec...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 52% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 20% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 8% of the time

NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 7% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 6% of the time

Radware DDoS vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 5% of the time

More F5 Silverline Managed Services Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

December 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Silverline Managed Services

December 2025

Download F5 Silverline Managed Services product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, F5 Silverline DDoS Protection

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

F5's Silverline Managed Services is a SaaS solution delivering DDoS protection, managed Web Application Firewall (WAF) services, and managed Shape Security Fraud and Anti-bot solutions.

Silverline services include 24x7 access to F5's Security Operations Center (SOC). F5's expert security professionals use F5 products with state-of-the-art security tools to ensure the best protection possible. As an add-on to Silverline DDoS or WAF services, Silverline Threat Intelligence integrates dynamic lists of threatening IP addresses to give context for policy decisions.

Sample Customers

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

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

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

December 2025

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