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F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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

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
Imperva Web Application Fir...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 11.1%, up from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Web Application Firewall is 5.8%, down from 6.7% 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.
Mitesh D Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Effectively defends against threats like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and others
It does bring value. For example, consider a BFSI customer. Their application is critical and represents their brand. Without a WAF, an attack could take their application down, harming their reputation. It leads to hampering the customer's workflow. With an Imperva WAF, they protect against attacks like DDoS or SQL injection, ensuring their application remains available and customers are happy. That's the main benefit for both the customer and the organization. The impact depends on the customer's use case. If their business primarily operates online, a CDN is beneficial for traffic optimization. Moreover, the integration options depend on the specific use case of our customers. Generally, integration capabilities are good with SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) parts.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Good technology for mitigating different application attacks, e.g. DDoS, DNS, and layer seven attacks."
"The valuable features vary from customers to customers. Some customers are okay with the basic features of the WAF, and some customers use advanced WAF with a few other features."
"It protects and mitigates damage in the network."
"I definitely recommend this solution because of the time you save on analysis."
"I like the security features, especially against SQL injection."
"I like them because I like the security solution. They get extra marks compared to other solutions or competitors. There are more features than any other product I can think of. They're always monitoring, and the security features offer more than other, lesser products."
"The solution is easily accessible on mobile and laptop devices."
"Very easy to implement and works well."
"The solution is very scalable. It is one of the most important features. You can also expand resources and features as well."
"The most valuable features of the Imperva Web Application Firewall are performance and flexibility. We can extend or customize the box itself."
"Imperva monitors all traffic, even customer access, to the web application. Then, Imperva uses features like signatures to identify attacks like cross-site scripting or SQL injection."
"Very scalable and very stable firewall for web applications, with a good interface in its cloud version. Mitigation is its most valuable feature. The technical support for this product is also good."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is a highly stable solution and is very mature."
"The solution has been quite stable. I have not seen any bugs at all."
"Learning mode and custom policies are helpful features."
"It works right out of the box once you integrate the application."
 

Cons

"The administrator's user interface and some of the settings can sometimes be very complicated to understand."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve the precision of the scanning. There are many false positives. They should improve their threat database."
"Nevertheless, F5 products are generally considered to be hard to deploy."
"Compatibility with multiple cloud environments needs improvement. Both stability and scalability need to be improved."
"The deployment side is quite complex."
"I would say their graphical interface, the GUI. I don't like the GUI as much as before."
"I would like to see the API Protection improved."
"It's sometimes difficult to customize APIs with F5 Advanced WAF."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall can improve by adding more features to the dashboard. increasing the visibility of the real-time events, besides configuring the administration itself."
"The solution works for particular zones but isn't always the best solution for all zones."
"Sometimes, support tickets don't get addressed quickly."
"The tool's UI is complicated. It would be best to have a more accessible UI dashboard to make the job easier."
"I loved the approach of the cloud. The cloud has a lot of new features, like advanced web protection and DDoS protection. If those could also be on-boarded onto the on-prem versions, that would be ideal. They need to pay attention to both deployment options and not just favor one."
"It should be more user-friendly. Like other web solutions, it would be helpful to be able to easily do policy configuration and identification inside the application. Understanding the in-depth configuration of a policy is somewhat difficult for an engineer, and they can improve that."
"It is complicated to integrate the solution's on-cloud version with other platforms."
"The UI interface needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"After buying the program, you just pay for the support every year."
"F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."
"A yearly license for F5 Advanced WAF is expensive."
"F5 Advanced WAF's pricing is high."
"I am not sure about pricing but licenses are available on Google."
"The price of F5 Advanced WAF could improve it is expensive."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."
"There is a perpetual license that comes with your hardware. There is also an additional fee for support."
"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."
"The price of Imperva Web Application Firewalls is expensive compared to others."
"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."
"The pricing is somewhat expensive. It is actually a huge investment when compared to other countries."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is expensive."
"There are some licenses that you have to buy to use some features. Its price could be better. Price is always important because, at the end of the day, customers have a budget. If you can meet the budget, you can sell, and if you don't, you cannot sell."
"There is a license for this solution and we purchase the license annually with no additional fees."
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Top Industries

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

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.
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.
DDoS solutions: Any other solutions to consider aside from Radware DDoS Protection Service and F5 Silverline DDoS Protection?
You can have a look to Imperva Cloud WAF, the anti-DDoS mitigation is under 1s and works very well. I observed a lot of DDoS attacks that were well managed (even not seen by the customer) by Imperv...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.