F5 Advanced WAF vs F5 Rules for AWS WAF comparison

F5 Advanced WAF and F5 Rules for AWS WAF are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 Advanced WAF is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4, while F5 Rules for AWS WAF is ranked #29 with an average rating of 9.0. Additionally, 98% of F5 Advanced WAF users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of F5 Rules for AWS WAF users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 Advanced WAF and F5 Rules for AWS WAF based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Advanced WAF vs. F5 Rules for AWS WAF Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF vs. F5 Rules for AWS WAF

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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Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

Application security has protected critical banking services while policy learning minimizes false blocks

F5 Advanced WAF performs well overall, but I have noticed some points that could enhance the solution. Initially, policy tuning could be simpler, as while the learning engine is powerful, initial tuning still requires experienced engineers, which can be challenging for new teams due to the complexity of options and parameters. A more guided and simple tuning workflow would help reduce the learning curve. Additionally, tighter native integration with SIEM or SOAR tools would simplify correlation and investigations for security teams, although log exports are available. Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.

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reviewer2783919

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.

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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 most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

"Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick."

"It's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."

"The technical support is good."

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

More Cloudflare pros

"It is also quite intuitive and user-friendly. They have several webinars that are actually like labs. You can use these webinars to learn about how to use all features of the product."

"I appreciate the way F5 Advanced WAF builds policies by configuring a basic policy and queuing it in learning mode."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the WAF protection, Data Safe, and the seven-layer DDoS."

"Provides good protection from attacks."

"In terms of F5 Advanced WAF's most valuable features, I would definitely say its stability. F5 is one the most stable products. Either as the load balancer or the web application firewall, it is very stable."

"F5 helped to meet compliance and regulatory requirements."

"The most valuable feature is artificial intelligence and to get extra internal access."

"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the security features and the protection."

More F5 Advanced WAF pros

"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."

Cons

"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."

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

"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."

"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."

"Latencies are always a problem."

"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."

"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."

More Cloudflare cons

"The solution is tedious. It takes a lot of discrete settings so one needs to get detailed and granular when they use the solution. It takes you a whole lot of energy and concentration to configure. It needs to be much more straight-forward, like other web solutions."

"The administrator's user interface and some of the settings can sometimes be very complicated to understand."

"I would like to see a better interface and better documentation compatibility with other products. It's more complicated with OWASP."

"The user interface (UI) seems a bit outdated. Making it more user-friendly would be beneficial."

"The solution should include RASP for another level of protection at the code itself."

"It's a powerful tool yet can be complex for new users."

"There is a gap in report management."

"Support is a little slow."

More F5 Advanced WAF cons

"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

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"We are using the free version."

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"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."

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

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

"The price is reasonable."

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"It is expensive. Its price should be better. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. Its licensing is also based on the model. There are no additional costs."

"F5 Advanced WAF technical support comes at a cost, and it's expensive."

"F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."

"It's more expensive than other solutions and depending on the modules, there can be additional fees."

"The cost is slightly above average."

"The pricing for F5 Advanced WAF is comparable to a Rolls-Royce. Its price is a bit high when you compare it with other vendors. F5 Advanced WAF is a bit expensive. The customer was on a three-year plan and it was around $560,000."

"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."

"Licensing fees for this solution are paid on a yearly basis."

More F5 Advanced WAF pricing and cost advice

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

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

No data available

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	26
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	30

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...

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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 F5 Advanced WAF?

It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the r...

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

Regarding the price, I think the cost is a bit higher compared to others. Earlier we were using Radware, and compared...

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What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?

In terms of additional features I would like to see from them in the future, I think the GTM is a bit complicated to ...

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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...

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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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% 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

Fortinet FortiWeb vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 28% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 8% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 6% of the time

More F5 Advanced WAF Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2026

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F5 Advanced WAF

January 2026

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Business Rules Management

December 2025

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Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

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 Advanced WAF is a web application security solution for financial and government sectors, e-commerce, and public-facing websites. It offers protection against various attacks, including botnets, web scraping, and foreign entities. The solution can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud and is often used with other security tools. Its most valuable features include DDoS and DNS attack protection, SSL uploading, anomaly detection, and the ability to input custom rules.

F5 Advanced WAF has helped organizations to expose more services to the public while providing an extra layer of protection, preventing revenue loss, and securing connectivity.

F5 Rules for AWS WAF provides advanced security measures for web applications on AWS, ensuring robust protection against dynamic threats while optimizing performance.

F5 Rules for AWS WAF integrates seamlessly into AWS environments, delivering powerful security capabilities. Designed to detect and mitigate a wide range of cyber threats, it enhances cyber defenses efficiently. Its rule sets cover multiple threat landscapes, offering a comprehensive approach that aligns with AWS best practices. This integration can help secure businesses from web-based threats while maintaining application performance.

What are the important features of F5 Rules for AWS WAF?

Comprehensive Threat Coverage: Protects against OWASP Top 10 threats and other common vulnerabilities.
Customizable Rules: Offers flexibility to tailor rules according to specific application needs.
Scalability: Efficiently scales with cloud resources to handle varying levels of traffic without compromising security.
Optimized Performance: Ensures minimal latency by optimizing rules for fast processing.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Enhanced Security: Reduces risk of cyber attacks with proactive threat mitigation.
Cost Efficiency: Lowers security-related expenses by reducing potential breach impacts.
Improved Compliance: Assists in meeting regulatory standards by ensuring application security requirements.
User Trust: Increases consumer confidence by demonstrating a commitment to data protection.

F5 Rules for AWS WAF is widely used across industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail to protect critical web applications. In finance, it safeguards customer data and transactions. Healthcare organizations use it to comply with stringent data protection regulations. Retail businesses rely on its capabilities to secure e-commerce platforms, ensuring a seamless shopping experience without risks.

Sample Customers

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

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF vs. F5 Rules for AWS WAF

December 2025

Free Report: F5 Advanced WAF vs. F5 Rules for AWS WAF

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. F5 Rules for AWS WAF and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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