F5 Advanced WAF vs Fortinet FortiWeb comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Aug 24, 2022

We performed a comparison between F5 Advanced WAF and Fortinet FortiWeb based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users report that the initial setup and deployment of both solutions is straightforward.

  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability.

    F5 Advanced WAF users like its multiple load balancing feature and say that it is a cutting-edge solution with excellent threat intelligence functionality. Several users mention that they would like better reporting tools.

    Fortinet FortiWeb reviewers say that it has very good compliance features, is flexible, easy to use, and is a complete product. A couple of users note that the solution needs more automation.
  • Pricing: Both solutions received mixed reviews for their pricing. Some users of each solution feel that they are expensive products.
  • ROI: Users of both solutions report seeing an ROI. However, F5 Advanced WAF users report a more significant ROI.
  • Service and Support: Most users of both solutions report being satisfied with the level of the support they receive.

Comparison Results: F5 Advanced WAF has an edge over Fortinet FortiWeb in this comparison. According to reviews, it has more advanced features than Fortinet FortiWeb. In addition, it received better marks in the ROI category.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fortinet FortiWeb Report (Updated: May 2023).
708,243 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"F5 Advanced WAF is a stable solution, we are satisfied. It is more stable than ForiWeb.""The solution is easily accessible on mobile and laptop devices.""Good technology for mitigating different application attacks, e.g. DDoS, DNS, and layer seven attacks.""The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the security features and the protection.""The most valuable feature of F5 Advanced WAF is its ability to have a pool of resources that can distribute your traffic, and that is a plus for me. My company tried to look into a competitor, Imperva, but it was lacking that capability, so F5 Advanced WAF outperforms Imperva.""F5 Advanced WAF has very good stability and scalability. Its initial setup was straightforward.""F5 technical support is excellent. They are experts who always provide the right solution, and they understand the problem. Their response and resolution times are good.""It is easy to obtain dashboard compliance because security policy views are included."

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"The solution is stable.""One of the big advantages of using Fortinet FortiWeb is all the Fortinet family solutions use the same user interface and logic. This makes it easy to use, configure, manage, and understand if you have used one of their solutions before or are wanting to implement other Fortinet solutions in the future. Additionally, all Fortinet solutions can be managed with one application called FortiManager.""The most valuable features in Fortinet FortiWeb are sandboxing and threat prevention.""The solution has a good sandbox feature.""It offers some feedback and suggestions that guide our system development while helping our vendors to update their applications and fix any issues or bugs.""The valuable feature of Fortinet FortiWeb vulnerability scanner""One main feature we are very happy about is file security and upload functionality.""The support services, performance, and pricing are all valuable features. The performance is excellent."

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Cons
"The solution should include protection against web page attacks like what is available in FortiWeb.""The accuracy of the automatic learning feature needs improvement.""The solution should include RASP for another level of protection at the code itself.""I would like for there to be a cloud-based solution, this would also help to improve scalability.""I would like to see a better interface and better documentation compatibility with other products. It's more complicated with OWASP.""We usually use a third-party tool for logging and reporting. It would be nice if we could do that right on this solution. They have one, but it's not very stable. Logging and reporting effectively would be a big enhancement.""F5 Advanced WAF could improve on its funding for WAF features. There is a need to be more advanced WAF features.""The solution could improve by having an independent capture module. It has a built feature that you can deploy the capture on your published website. However, it's not very user-friendly. When you compare this feature to Google Capture or other enterprise captures, they are very simple. It needs a good connection to the F5 Advanced WAF sandbox. When you implement this feature in the data center, you may suffer some complications with connecting to the F5 Advanced WAF sandbox. This should be improved in the future."

More F5 Advanced WAF Cons →

"Their documentation is fairly complete, but it's sometimes a little bit difficult to search for exactly what you're looking for to resolve an issue. There have been times when we've gone to try to search for areas that we needed to get information on, and it has not always been extremely clear exactly how a particular thing needs to be set up.""In my experience, Fortinet FortiWeb could improve the intelligent features to acknowledge whether any threat or incident that's running happened. Then give us the ability to escalate it to layer 2 or layer 3 in the network operations.""I know that we have run into some issues with an SSL certificate and how it functions. Sometimes this breaks connectivity or just limits certain websites that are whitelisted.""The solution is not very scalable, to scale up would require another deployment with a new appliance and a change to the network.""The initial setup is complex.""The solution could improve by providing more integration with solutions other than the Fortinet family.""We want to see more detailed logging, such as audit logging, as this would significantly enhance the solution's reporting. We currently get some information from logs, but more would be better.""The initial setup process could be improved."

More Fortinet FortiWeb Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."
  • "There is an annual subscription for this solution."
  • "The price of the solution is reasonable when compared with other products, such as FortiWeb. I am very satisfied with the price."
  • "Pricing for this solution is higher than average."
  • "There is a perpetual license that comes with your hardware. There is also an additional fee for support."
  • "F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."
  • "F5 Advanced WAF technical support comes at a cost, and it's expensive."
  • "As far as the pricing of F5 Advanced WAF I would rate it a four out of five depending on what features I am looking for. Imperva is more expensive."
  • More F5 Advanced WAF Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The price is competitive."
  • "We are on an annual license for this solution and the price is approximately €100."
  • "It keeps changing, but it's based on the size of the VM you buy and also the traffic throughput you want from it, whereas what we have on Azure is just the traffic throughput. You can also pay on a monthly basis from Azure. During each part of the project, it's okay to get Azure-based licensing or AWS-based licensing for FortiWeb, but over time, you would want to go with the perpetual license. You should go to Fortinet and buy the license from them. So, there is a two-step process there."
  • "The price of Fortinet FortiWeb is reasonable. This is one of the key factors of why we use this solution."
  • "There's only one payment for the duration of the license. On a scale from one to five, I would rate pricing at four. I have not encountered any additional costs on my projects involving Fortinet FortiWeb."
  • "The maintenance fee for this product could be improved."
  • "It should be somewhere about 36,000 Euros. That's the cost for three years. It's moderately priced."
  • "The price of Fortinet FortiWeb depends from customer to customer because some customers are considering using other solutions, such as Imperva. The price of Fortinet FortiWeb sits well for the middle-sized customers that we deal with."
  • More Fortinet FortiWeb Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Customers find the load balancer feature as the most valuable.
    Top Answer:F5 Advanced WAF is not a cost-effective solution. Although they are attempting to reduce prices with their VE and cloud options, they are more expensive than other solutions. The solution is more… more »
    Top Answer:The tool needs to improve its pricing.
    Top Answer:FortiWeb's ease of deployment is what we liked the most about it. Implementing ForitWeb was extremely fast and easy, which was a significant advantage. It comes with several preconfigured rule sets… more »
    Top Answer:FortiWeb is transparent about how much each application costs. When you create an application, it will tell you the estimated cost. The licensing is clear, so we can see that we're getting a good… more »
    Top Answer:One area that needs improvement is using IP addresses within templates. If you allow an IP address to access an application, you should be able to leave a description of that. For example, we allow… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    12,895
    Comparisons
    10,273
    Reviews
    25
    Average Words per Review
    422
    Rating
    8.4
    Views
    16,429
    Comparisons
    12,312
    Reviews
    29
    Average Words per Review
    611
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    Overview

    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.

    Fortinet FortiWeb is a Web Application Firewall (WAF) that protects your web applications and APIs from attacks targeting known as well as unknown vulnerabilities. As the surface of your web applications evolves with each change of existing features and deployment of new features, your APIs are left exposed. Fortinet FortiWeb provides the board protection capabilities required to protect web applications without sacrificing performance or manageability.

    Fortinet FortiWeb is an automatic, advanced multi-layer solution that provides secure protection by discerning irregular behavior and distinguishing between malicious and benign anomalies. In addition, the approach delivers powerful bot mitigation capacities which authorize harmless bots to connect while blocking malicious bot activity securely. Regardless of where an application is hosted, Fortinet FortiWeb will safeguard business applications by providing deployment options, such as virtual machines, hardware appliances, and containers that can be deployed in the data center, cloud environments, or in the cloud-native SaaS solution.

    Fortinet FortiWeb Features and Benefits

    APIs and web applications have become integral to the rising demand for business-critical applications. Now more than ever, businesses are in need of an automatic firewall that will provide them with security, without sacrificing performance or reliability. Fortinet FortiWeb offers a variety of features and benefits, including:

    • Security fabric integration: FortiWeb integrates with other Fortinet solutions to provide advanced protection from persistent threats.

    • Proven web application and API protection: FortiWeb safeguards applications from all DDOS attacks, malicious bot attacks, and OWASP Top-10 threats.

    • Advanced visual analytics: FortiWeb offers a unique visual reporting tool that other WAF solutions don’t by providing a detailed analysis of attack elements and sources.

    • Hardware-based acceleration: With fast and secure traffic encryption and decryption, FortiWeb provides best-in-class WAF protection.

    • ML-based threat detection: FortiWeb delivers multi-layer machine learning defense protection to defend against zero-day attacks and reduce false positives.

    • False positive mitigation tools: Reduce daily management of policies through advanced tools to guarantee only unwanted traffic is blocked.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Fortinet FortiWeb offers an industry-leading Web Application Firewall, and users are satisfied with it for a number of reasons, including the ability to control everything from the dashboard and the PCI-compliant reports it offers.

    Carlos P., director of business and digital transformation at SERNIVEL3, notes, "You have the ability to control everything from one single dashboard."

    A director at a tech service company, says, "Banks have to be compliant with PCI and other things, and FortiWeb is absolutely amazing in terms of providing these reports. Otherwise, they will have to spend a lot of time on them."

    Offer
    Learn more about F5 Advanced WAF
    Learn more about Fortinet FortiWeb
    Sample Customers
    MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
    Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm37%
    Computer Software Company26%
    Non Tech Company7%
    Media Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm24%
    Comms Service Provider22%
    Computer Software Company19%
    Government8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Educational Organization15%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise48%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise65%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise26%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise29%
    Large Enterprise48%
    Buyer's Guide
    F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fortinet FortiWeb
    May 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fortinet FortiWeb and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.
    708,243 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    F5 Advanced WAF is ranked 4th in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 31 reviews while Fortinet FortiWeb is ranked 2nd in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 36 reviews. F5 Advanced WAF is rated 8.4, while Fortinet FortiWeb is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of F5 Advanced WAF writes "Flexible configuration, reliable, and highly professional support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiWeb writes "It comes with several preconfigured rule sets and templates that make deploying new applications easier". F5 Advanced WAF is most compared with Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, Imperva Web Application Firewall, AWS WAF, NGINX App Protect and Barracuda Web Application Firewall, whereas Fortinet FortiWeb is most compared with Fortinet FortiADC, AWS WAF, Fortinet FortiOS, Azure Web Application Firewall and Barracuda Web Application Firewall. See our F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fortinet FortiWeb report.

    See our list of best Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendors.

    We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.