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F5 Advanced WAF vs FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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
7.8
F5 Advanced WAF provides high ROI with scalable security, efficient onboarding, regulatory compliance, and strong data protection.
Sentiment score
7.3
FortiWeb enhances security, cuts costs, saves resources, offering a 70% ROI and improving financial and operational efficiency.
Subscription models offer clearer ROI due to a more competitive pricing scheme.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
F5 Advanced WAF support is professional, helpful, but needs quicker responses; higher SLAs offer faster service and better experience.
Sentiment score
6.7
FortiWeb's customer service is inconsistent, with varied experiences in responsiveness, regional support, and subscription cost concerns.
If there is a bug, the support is usually understanding and resolves issues.
I have interacted with F5's support, and while I have no major complaints, they could improve.
The back-end development team is available, and if any issue arises, they will help us immediately by providing solutions when contacted.
Their support is truly exceptional when I compare it with similar large-sized companies.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
F5 Advanced WAF excels in scalability and adaptability, supporting diverse applications, ideal for medium to large enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.2
FortiWeb WAF is scalable, supporting diverse users, with high ratings but some licensing flexibility challenges noted.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
F5 Advanced WAF is praised for stability and reliability, scoring highly in sectors like banking and telecom.
Sentiment score
8.1
FortiWeb is seen as stable, routinely scoring high, but users suggest using FortiAnalyzer for enhanced security management.
 

Room For Improvement

F5 Advanced WAF needs easier interfaces, better integration, enhanced support, and improved features for user-friendliness and efficiency.
FortiWeb WAF requires improvements in integrations, performance, support, scalability, and more enterprise features to compete with competitors.
Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.
If inbuilt larger logging capability is added, it would enhance usability, and features like clickable options to unblock or create exceptions would greatly assist customers in managing their websites.
If some of my customers want to migrate from F5 to Fortinet Firewall, or the Fortinet WAF solution, there are some migration issues.
 

Setup Cost

F5 Advanced WAF is costly but valued for its advanced features, comprehensive protection, and flexibility in high-stakes environments.
FortiWeb Web Application Firewall offers flexible pricing, core and advanced features, and scalable licensing for cost-efficient protection.
The price is affordable and satisfactory.
Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost.
When going for multiple websites, the price also reduces.
 

Valuable Features

F5 Advanced WAF offers comprehensive protection with integration, customization, and features like network intelligence, DDoS prevention, and behavior analysis.
FortiWeb Web Application Firewall provides user-friendly setup, protection against attacks, scalability, and cost-effective security features like machine learning.
It contains the logic of both negative and positive security combined.
The perpetual license, despite an initial higher cost, lacks transparency regarding support expiration.
Fortinet's pricing is way more competitive than Cisco or Palo Alto.
If any user tries to input any text format in a web form mistakenly using SQL queries, the web solution detects the input, checking whether it's impacting or analyzing queries in the database.
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FortiWeb Web Application Fi...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 10.7%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) is 1.1%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Moamen - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects applications with versatile authentication features
F5 offers a versatile solution that can be integrated with APM in cases where integration with an external IDB is needed. It is useful for authentication backup if the on-prem directory service is unavailable. Additionally, its WAF functionality is valuable for protecting applications from attacks. It is a versatile and strong solution that's easy to understand and deploy.
Martin Ellmann - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides users with ease of policy configuration and good integration capabilities
The solution helps protect our company's web applications against common threats up to 99 percent. We feel very safe with the tool. Speaking about how the tool has effectively mitigated web security threats for an application, I would say that it is an application behind the web portal, so there are about a hundred or thousand people who can access a website. If it is a sensitive application, and we have to watch every access to it to make it really safe, that is the reason why we need WAF on the application. My company doesn't use AI with the tool. I recommend the product to others. I would say that others need to have it if they have a shopping website or something similar. I know it is hard to sell because we find it quite hard whenever my company tries to do so. The solution offers 100 percent integration with other Fortinet security products. The ease of policy configuration in the tool is okay. I rate the tool a nine to ten out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 rules per the requirements.
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
I do not have anything in mind right now that needs improvement. Generally, it works well. If we need any specific feature, we approach F5 directly.
What do you like most about FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtration, web filter, application filter, and IPS.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
The pricing for FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) is reasonable. That said, it depends on how many websites we need to protect. The licensing is based on the number of websites or individuall...
What needs improvement with FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
Their AI technology is good. Overall, Fortinet is only good. The improvement needed is in their response time. In the past three to four years, whenever we called for support, they responded quickl...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,579 professionals have used our research since 2012.