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F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.2
Microsoft Azure saves costs and boosts efficiency with scalable cloud services, pay-as-you-go pricing, and reduced maintenance expenses.
Subscription models offer clearer ROI due to a more competitive pricing scheme.
The value for money is good, and Microsoft Azure has positively impacted our operational costs.
When we use Microsoft Azure, it provides enhanced security from our perspective, though I am not certain about the financial return on investment or benefits for our users as I do not have that information.
 

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
6.5
Customer service is mixed; paid support is praised for responsiveness, while free options may face delays and complexity.
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.
Regarding technical support from Microsoft, I find they are responsive and helpful, depending on which support package you're on.
I rate technical support as excellent because we have not experienced many problems when calling for assistance.
The support from Microsoft Azure is good.
 

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
7.8
Microsoft Azure excels in scalability and flexibility, supporting various workloads, though cost and limitations may concern some users.
The scalability of Microsoft Azure is excellent for growth and adaptation, depending on company requirements.
Microsoft Azure is not just one product; it is a platform with multiple products within Microsoft Azure, and I would say it is scalable and would rate it a nine.
Scalability with Microsoft Azure is amazing, which is a primary reason for using cloud solutions.
 

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
7.8
Microsoft Azure is highly reliable and scalable, despite occasional outages; users confidently rate it high for stability and performance.
Microsoft Azure is quite stable, but recent outages and security issues have slightly decreased my confidence.
 

Room For Improvement

F5 Advanced WAF needs easier interfaces, better integration, enhanced support, and improved features for user-friendliness and efficiency.
Microsoft Azure needs pricing transparency, intuitive interface, improved support, better technical features, and refined management tools for users.
Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.
There is still room for improvement in terms of pricing.
The administrative side is suitable for technical people, but our finance and HR super users find it less user-friendly, as they prefer drag-and-drop features to build their own solutions without contacting IT.
Recent outages and security issues are also a concern, causing a decrease in confidence, especially when partnering with third-party companies.
 

Setup Cost

F5 Advanced WAF is costly but valued for its advanced features, comprehensive protection, and flexibility in high-stakes environments.
Microsoft Azure offers flexible, competitive pricing, yet complexity makes AWS and GCP potentially more cost-effective for enterprises.
Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost.
The price is affordable and satisfactory.
Microsoft solutions might be cheaper than some services like AWS, but some solutions may be more expensive depending on the services compared.
Copilot is expensive based on recent pricing for our POC.
Regarding the pricing for Microsoft Azure services, I would rate our satisfaction as very good.
 

Valuable Features

F5 Advanced WAF offers comprehensive protection with integration, customization, and features like network intelligence, DDoS prevention, and behavior analysis.
Microsoft Azure offers flexibility, scalability, global presence, integration, security, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness for enhanced organizational infrastructure.
The perpetual license, despite an initial higher cost, lacks transparency regarding support expiration.
It contains the logic of both negative and positive security combined.
Power BI, another feature of Azure, is extremely elegant and has robust features that support forecasting using R and Python.
The scalability of Microsoft Azure is very good for growing and adapting to company requirements.
Data integrations are particularly effective on Microsoft Azure, especially with our banner services that we automate through Power Automate.
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 Advanced WAF
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (2nd)
Microsoft Azure
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
316
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st), PaaS Clouds (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

F5 Advanced WAF and Microsoft Azure aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. F5 Advanced WAF is designed for Web Application Firewall (WAF) and holds a mindshare of 10.7%, down 11.0% compared to last year.
Microsoft Azure, on the other hand, focuses on Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS), holds 17.3% mindshare, down 18.2% since last year.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Q&A Highlights

reviewer1433010 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 08, 2021
 

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.
SubodhThakar - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates various functionalities and have good documentation but have high pricing
Cosmos DB offered better scalability. In Azure SQL, we had to carefully manage the storage tier, switching back and forth based on needs. But when we first implemented Cosmos DB, we had a good understanding of the required data volume over the past three months. This helped us select the appropriate tier because we had those figures. If we had done it the other way around, it would have been much harder to estimate the data accurately. While you can get a rough idea, whether it works out in practice is more of a hit-and-miss approach, which we have already experienced with Cosmos DB. We applied the knowledge gained from that exercise to build a similar solution over Azure SQL. On the DevOps side, our team consisted of five members, ranging from senior to junior roles. We would raise requests for specific services needed in the development environment. The process typically takes three to five business days, including all necessary approvals, from submitting the request to receiving the resources and verifying access.
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 14, 2013
Amazon vs Rackspace vs Microsoft vs Google: Cloud Hosting Services Comparison
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…
 

Answers from the Community

reviewer1433010 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 8, 2021
Sep 8, 2021
Yes, it is definitely supported on most cloud platforms. You can find all needed info regarding Azure cloud on this link: https://azuremarketplace.micro
2 out of 3 answers
GS
Oct 31, 2020
Yes, it is definitely supported on most cloud platforms. You can find all needed info regarding Azure cloud on this link: https://azuremarketplace.micro
MO
Dec 4, 2020
Sure. It's available on the Azure Marketplace
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Educational Organization
29%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
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.
Which is preferable - IBM Public Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
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 ...
Which is better - SAP Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure?
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 bo...
How does Microsoft Azure compare to Google Firebase?
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), F5, Microsoft and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.