F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure comparison

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12,226 views|9,741 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
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28,567 views|22,663 comparisons
95% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 Advanced WAF and Microsoft Azure based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF).
To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: April 2024).
768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: Does F5 Advanced WAF work with Azure App Service?
Answer: Sure. It's available on the Azure Marketplace
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"I definitely recommend this solution because of the time you save on analysis.""The best solution for WAF.""This solution is an enterprise-class firewall that provides both load-balancing and security.""F5's user-friendly interface and seamless integration stand out as the most valuable features for us.""There is no need to worry about updating signatures because WAF will automatically update the signatures for you.""The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the overall capabilities, there is not a comparable solution on the market.""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.""Good dashboard and reporting."

More F5 Advanced WAF Pros →

"We use Microsoft Azure for operations, email, and office applications.""It is stable and collaborative.""The most valuable feature is the virtual machine.""There are a lot of valuable features in Microsoft Azure, such as Kubernetes, pipelines, and development environments.""Azure's Data Lake services are decent. I like AKS, and API Management is relatively straightforward to use. The security and SIEM options Azure offers are good. All the infrastructure services are easy to use and set up.""The most efficient feature of Microsoft Azure is that we can use it to update a website with a few clicks.""Virtual machine services, in SaaS services, M365, and Data Lake are all popular with our clients.""The design of Microsoft Azure is for it to be scalable and it is scalable."

More Microsoft Azure Pros →

Cons
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve the precision of the scanning. There are many false positives. They should improve their threat database.""I would like to see additional controls.""Its price should be better. It is expensive.""The user interface (UI) seems a bit outdated. Making it more user-friendly would be beneficial.""F5 Advanced WAF could improve the reporting. It's a bit difficult to populate, them. If you're not so familiar with the functions, such as where to find the logs and other settings.""Scalability could be improved.""The administrator's user interface and some of the settings can sometimes be very complicated to understand.""People who want to work with the device have to be pro in Linux"

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"The Azure Billing API could be so much better. It only provides billing metrics for a set duration.""The solution should improve the shared cache. For the shared cache, Microsoft uses RADIUS third-party services. We have a lot of trouble with RADIUS and I suppose that is due to the fact that is not owned completely by Microsoft.""It is pretty secure, but it can always be more secure.""There was a time when the solution was updated on their side and all of our functions stopped working. This issue could be worked on to prevent it from happening in the future. They must give us the information of when they are going to updates on the platform side so that we can take the appropriate measures on our side as well.""We like that they have the new capabilities, but sometimes they're deprecating capabilities faster than we can handle. If we had to improve it, we would want to stay on some of these older capabilities a bit longer.""While integrating services from different vendors, the perceived costs are high, with occasional confusion about specific charges, especially in data transfer scenarios between regions.""Microsoft Azure could improve by being more user-friendly and the interface could be better.""Microsoft Azure can be pretty advanced and difficult to understand. I would like it to be simplified. The licensing especially needs to be simplified."

More Microsoft Azure Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The pricing is too high."
  • "I think the price is very high."
  • "After buying the program, you just pay for the support every year."
  • "Licensing fees for this solution are paid on a yearly basis."
  • "It's more expensive than other solutions and depending on the modules, there can be additional fees."
  • "F5 bundles up services and the bundle is what you pay for rather than individual components."
  • "Its price is fair. We have done a couple of deals where they were able to give some kind of discount to the customers. The price was initially high for the customers, but after a couple of negotiations, it came within their budget. They were happy with that."
  • "There are various plans available for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF as a Service, including a trial version."
  • More F5 Advanced WAF Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Related to pricing and licensing, you have to be careful how you operate with the concept."
  • "Be careful with Azure Cool storage accounts; if you are dealing with high object counts, then it can be more economical to use Hot storage because of the high storage access costs associated with Cool."
  • "Make use of Azure pricing calculator and you will find out that Azure Is still more reasonable that the competition and do your research, when unclear speak with your MS support."
  • "It’s necessary to use third party products or to use good self-management economic tools"
  • "Keep to PaaS to gain the optimal benefits from an OPEX finance and resource perspective."
  • "Several thousand dollars and counting, we haven't needed to upgrade on premises hardware (In fact we eliminated all of the old on-premises hardware and run 100% on Azure) or pay for it's maintenance, power etc."
  • "If you are not aware of costs, pricing, etc., you can end up with a hefty bill. However, I found that the Azure price calculator is a valuable tool to use before starting to deploy VMs in Azure. This tool will give you an overview of the costs you should expect on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis."
  • "Pricing is very difficult to guesstimate. With so many a la carte options and individual pricing it can be a hassle to understand."
  • More Microsoft Azure Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Amazon Web Services, Rackspace OpenStack, Microsoft Windows Azure and Google are the major cloud hosting and storage service providers. Athough Amazon is top of them and is oldest in cloud market, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google are giving tough competition to each other and to Amazon also for alluring IT customers. This article give brief history of these cloud hosting service providers and compares the cloud services provided by them. -- Amazon Web Services -- It's hard to find someone who doesn't agree that Amazon Web Services is the market leader in IaaS cloud computing. The company has one of the widest breadths of cloud services - including compute, storage, networking, databases, load balancers, applications and application development platforms all delivered as a cloud service. Amazon has dropped its prices 21 times since it debuted its cloud six years ago and fairly consistently fills whatever gaps it has in the size of virtual machine instances on its platform - the company recently rolled out new high-memory instances, for example. There are some cautions for Amazon though. Namely, its cloud has experienced three major outages in two years. One analyst, Jillian Mirandi of Technology Business Researcher, has suggested that continued outages could eventually start hindering businesses' willingness to invest in Amazon infrastructure. That sentiment gets to a larger point about AWS though - the service seems to be popular in the startup community, providing the IT… Read more →
    Answers from the Community
    Anonymous User
    Georges Samaha - PeerSpot reviewerGeorges Samaha
    Reseller

    Yes, it is definitely supported on most cloud platforms.


    You can find all needed info regarding Azure cloud on this link: https://azuremarketplace.micro

    Rajan K - PeerSpot reviewerRajan K
    User

    Yes, it's available. 


    You may look at F5 Centralized Management too to bring your policies and profiles from on-prem to the cloud.



    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:F5's user-friendly interface and seamless integration stand out as the most valuable features for us.
    Top Answer:The customer service could be improved.
    Top Answer:IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to manage data and applications. One of the features we like is the cloud activity… more »
    Top Answer:One of the best features of SAP Cloud Platform is that it is web-based and you can log in from anywhere in the world. SAP Cloud Platform is suitable for companies of any size; it works well with both… more »
    Top Answer:I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. In particular, the Firebase library grants you access to a shared data structure… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    12,226
    Comparisons
    9,741
    Reviews
    21
    Average Words per Review
    413
    Rating
    8.7
    Views
    28,567
    Comparisons
    22,663
    Reviews
    39
    Average Words per Review
    537
    Rating
    8.4
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
    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.

    Windows Azure is Microsoft's cloud platform, where developers can create, deploy, and maintain their apps. This cloud application platform allows developers to concentrate on the actual applications, while it takes care of all the elements behind the apps.

    Windows Azure works across multiple frameworks and languages. It is fully scalable, localized in that it is hosted globally in many datacenters, and has widespread capabilities with elements of application development, deployment, and management.

    Azure is comprised of several different service modules, including Infrastructure; Web; Mobile; Dev & Test; Big Data; Media;Storage, Backup & Recovery; and Identity & Access Management.

    Microsoft Azure works as a:

    1. Platform as a service (PaaS)
    2. Software as a service (SaaS)
    3. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

    Microsoft Azure is available:

    • On-premises
    • Hybrid
    • Multi-cloud
    • At the edge

    Compared to its competitors, Microsoft Azure:

    • Has more affordable features
    • Has easier migration for organizations already using other Microsoft tools
    • Has several educational resources available
    • Provides robust support
    • Is ideal for small and large businesses

    Microsoft Azure Features:

    • Scalability
    • Stability
    • Flexibility
    • Azure Site Recovery
    • Active Directory
    • Monitoring features
    • Cloud-based
    • Automated tasks
    • Change capability cadence
    • Showback capabilities
    • Information protection
    • Azure Data Lake
    • Excellent portal
    • Intuitive user interface
    • Remote desktop
    • Fast provisioning
    • Data security
    • Data resiliency
    • Speed of service
    • Integrated delivery pipeline
    • Disaster recovery
    • Robust templates
    • Flexible coding languages
    • Virtual systems testing

    Benefits of Microsoft Azure:

    • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Because Microsoft Azure is an IaaS, organizations can deploy as well as manage applications easily and quickly. Azure also provides you with the ability to customize the cloud software to meet your specific business needs.
    • Seamless integration: Microsoft Azure is built to seamlessly integrate with existing IT departments via hybrid databases, secure private connections, and storage solutions.
    • Cost-effective: Because Azure can harmoniously exist in your business environment with your data center, it is a very cost-effective solution.
    • Analytics support: Azure is designed with built-in support that is used to analyze data and provide key insights. Azure offers Cortana Analytics, Stream Analytics, Machine Learning, and SQL services.
    • Unique storage system: Compared to other cloud services, Microsoft Azure has more data centers and delivery points, which helps create an optimal user experience and also helps deliver content faster. In addition, Microsoft Azure makes it possible for organizations to exchange content across several virtual machines.
    • Enhanced flexibility: Azure provides extreme flexibility by allowing you to choose any level of functionality you require. It also supports many of the same technologies IT teams and developers usually depend on, making it easier for them to manage.
    • Easy implementation: Microsoft Azure is easy and quick to deploy. If necessary, you can change web apps to Azure with almost zero downtime.

    Reviews from Real Users:

    "It is a flexible solution that is straightforward to use," says the principal consultant at a computer software company.

    OmarJ., future datacenter consultant: Microsoft Azure Cloud at a tech company, adds that "The user interface is very nice and makes everything easy to use."

    You can build an environment in minutes. It's very good in terms of being an infrastructure as a service, and I found that really fascinating,” says an information technology consultant at a computer software company.

    "I think Azure's level of automation to achieve efficiency or agility is valuable. I also like the change capability cadence, the showback capabilities, and understanding what our costs are," says an enterprise architect at an energy/utilities company.

    Marco C., Ing. at Wolters Kluwer, says "The valuable features of Microsoft Azure are that it is cloud-based and has good storage. The storage is completely managed by Azure. We do not need to do any patching of security because it is handled by Azure which is a benefit. The solution is fully compatible with the Microsoft technology stack and is very scalable."

    "The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure is it has everything together in one place. It is one large tool with lots of small tools that are updated often," says the owner of a media company.



    Sample Customers
    MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
    BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm34%
    Computer Software Company25%
    Non Tech Company6%
    Media Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Government7%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization35%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise65%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business41%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise44%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise40%
    Large Enterprise46%
    Buyer's Guide
    Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: April 2024.
    768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    F5 Advanced WAF is ranked 3rd in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 54 reviews while Microsoft Azure is ranked 1st in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) with 299 reviews. F5 Advanced WAF is rated 8.6, while Microsoft Azure is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of F5 Advanced WAF writes "Flexible configuration, reliable, and highly professional support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Azure writes "Promotes clear, logical structures preventing impractical configurations and offers seamless integration ". F5 Advanced WAF is most compared with Fortinet FortiWeb, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, AWS WAF, Imperva Web Application Firewall and F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), whereas Microsoft Azure is most compared with Google Firebase, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Amazon AWS, Pivotal Cloud Foundry and SAP Cloud Platform.

    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.