F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Aug 4, 2022

We performed a comparison between F5 Advanced WAF and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users of both solutions are divided over whether or not they are easy to deploy. Some find their deployment to be extremely complex while others find it to be straightforward. A couple of Azure users specifically note that they find it difficult to configure.
  • Features: Reviewers say that F5 Advanced WAF’s ease of use is among its most valuable features. They also feel that it is both highly scalable and stable. However, users feel that its interface could be greatly improved.

    Users of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway feel that its WAF feature is effective. However, some users question both its stability and scalability.
  • Pricing: For the most part, reviewers feel that both of these products are competitively priced.
  • Service and Support: Users of both solutions note that, for the most part, their technical support teams are excellent.

Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, F5 Advanced WAF seems to be the superior solution. Our reviewers find that the questions concerning Microsoft Azure Application Gateway’s stability and scalability make it a riskier investment than F5 Advanced WAF.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Advanced WAF vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway 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
"The most valuable features of the F5 Advanced WAF are the enhanced ASM and the performance. Additionally, the usability and effectiveness are very good.""My favorite feature of F5 is the ability to play around with the ciphers. I also like the ability to have an immediate display of the support IDs when a real blockage occurs. The protection offered is great.""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 Advanced WAF is a stable solution, we are satisfied. It is more stable than ForiWeb.""Customers find the load balancer feature as the most valuable.""Very easy to implement and works well.""Good technology for mitigating different application attacks, e.g. DDoS, DNS, and layer seven attacks."

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"The solution has built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure.""I like the tool's stability and performance.""The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is its ease of use.""The most valuable feature of the solution is traffic management.""It has a filter available, although we are not currently using it because it is not part of our requirements. But it is a good option and when it becomes part of our requirements we will definitely use it.""We find it valuable because it is compatible with our existing Azure solution.""The solution provides great automation and it is easy to upgrade service.""The most valuable feature is WAF."

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Cons
"The delay times on firmware patches and software updates could be better and improved.""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.""While F5 Advanced WAF does limit the number of partners in certain regions to ensure successful business transactions, they could also benefit from expanding their partnerships and making it easier for more people to learn about and become experts in F5 Advanced WAF. By doing so, they could increase the reach and exposure of their solution, similar to how Cisco has become widely recognized in the security industry.""F5 Advanced WAF could improve resource usage, it is CPU intensive. Additionally, adding automated remediation would be a benefit. For example, an easy button alerts us of the events that are occurring, and what we want to do at the time. An automated approach where somebody could be alerted very quickly. Instead of going and reconfiguring everything, an automated approach is what I'm looking at.""F5 Advanced needs to improve its bot protection. The solution needs to have machine learning to learn the behavior of the customer to recognize the human versus the bot. This is a difficult feature to explain to our customers. I would like documentation about the bot feature to make it easier for the customer to understand.""Nevertheless, F5 products are generally considered to be hard to deploy.""I would like for there to be a cloud-based solution, this would also help to improve scalability."

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"The graphical interface needs improvement because it is not user friendly.""In the next release, the solution could improve the integration with Service Mesh and other Azure Security Services.""It could be easier to change servicing.""Microsoft Azure Application Gateway could improve by allowing features to use more third-party tools.""I want the solution's support to improve. The tool is also expensive.""The solution could improve by increasing the performance when doing updates. For example, if I change the certificate it can take 30 minutes. Other vendors do not have this type of problem.""The increased security that we are considering is because of some of the things that the security team has brought to our attention. They have pointed out that we would most likely require a better web application firewall than Azure Application Gateway.""It is a bit tricky to configure. You've got to have a very specific format to configure it. They should make it a little bit easier to configure. Mapping the certificates into it isn't easy, and it could be better. Currently, you've to write a bit of automation to pull certificates directly to HTTPS."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway 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 →

  • "Between v1 and v2, there is a lot of change in the pricing. It is very costly compared to AWS."
  • "There is some additional cost, such as extended support."
  • "The cost is not an issue."
  • "The solution is reasonably priced compared to other solutions."
  • "The pricing is based on how much you use the solution."
  • "The solution is paid monthly. The solution is highly expensive."
  • "I rate the price of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway an eight out of ten."
  • More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway 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:We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the… more »
    Top Answer:Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft Azure Application Gateway web application firewall software was the better fit for… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    12,895
    Comparisons
    10,273
    Reviews
    25
    Average Words per Review
    422
    Rating
    8.4
    Views
    26,871
    Comparisons
    23,518
    Reviews
    11
    Average Words per Review
    359
    Rating
    6.9
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
    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.

    Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.

    To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

    Offer
    Learn more about F5 Advanced WAF
    Learn more about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
    Sample Customers
    MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
    Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
    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
    Computer Software Company27%
    Comms Service Provider20%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Transportation Company13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government7%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise48%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise65%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business45%
    Midsize Enterprise5%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise64%
    Buyer's Guide
    F5 Advanced WAF vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
    May 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway 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 Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is ranked 5th in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 11 reviews. F5 Advanced WAF is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is rated 7.0. 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 Application Gateway writes "High stability with built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure". F5 Advanced WAF is most compared with Fortinet FortiWeb, Imperva Web Application Firewall, AWS WAF, NGINX App Protect and Barracuda Web Application Firewall, whereas Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is most compared with Azure Front Door, Cloudflare Web Application Firewall, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), AWS WAF and HAProxy. See our F5 Advanced WAF vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway 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.