F5 Advanced WAF vs NGINX App Protect comparison

F5 Advanced WAF and NGINX App Protect are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 Advanced WAF is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3, while NGINX App Protect is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.3. F5 Advanced WAF holds a 7.5% mindshare in WAF, compared to NGINX App Protect’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of F5 Advanced WAF users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of NGINX App Protect users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

NGINX App Protect and F5 Advanced WAF compete in web application security. F5 Advanced WAF seems to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive threat detection and strong load balancing features.

Features: NGINX App Protect is valued for its flexibility, reverse proxy capabilities, and its open-source nature. It effectively manages traffic and integrates seamlessly with other solutions, offering features like auto-learning and bot protection. F5 Advanced WAF offers advanced threat detection using AI, robust load balancing, and exceptional DDoS protection, making it highly customizable and stable.

Room for Improvement: NGINX App Protect could improve its security features and compatibility with other systems. There is a need for an enhanced upgrade process and better support portal, alongside improved API exposure for automation. F5 Advanced WAF could enhance its reporting capabilities and address its high pricing. Simplified deployment and better integration with Kubernetes and cloud environments are desired.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NGINX App Protect offers deployment flexibility across private and hybrid clouds but faces challenges in high-throughput scenarios. Its technical support can be costly and slow. F5 Advanced WAF supports a wide range of environments including public and hybrid clouds. Although the setup is complex, its comprehensive features make the process worthwhile. Its customer service is proactive, albeit premium cost may be a concern.

Pricing and ROI: NGINX App Protect is considered expensive, yet it offers a satisfactory return on investment, particularly for its ease of integration in CICD pipelines. Pricing is moderate with costs associated with annual subscriptions. F5 Advanced WAF is seen as a premium product. Its high pricing can be an obstacle for smaller businesses, yet its robust features offer significant value, yielding a high return on investment, especially for larger enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Advanced WAF vs. NGINX App Protect Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF vs. NGINX App Protect

February 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 882,594 peers since 2012

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

7.6

Cloudflare WAF offers essential protection with cost-effective features, supporting various platforms and enhancing website visibility and uptime.

Sentiment score

7.6

F5 Advanced WAF boosts ROI by enhancing security, reducing overhead, and protecting assets in sectors like finance and banking.

Sentiment score

6.2

NGINX App Protect enhances network security and integration, offering positive ROI, cost-effectiveness, and compliance support during remote transitions.

My experience with the pricing or licensing of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is that many features can be accessed for free, so the pricing is definitely reasonable.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Time savings in daily operations come from the automatic learning and signature update reducing the need for constant manual rule management, allowing the security and network teams to spend significantly less time handling false positive application-related escalations.

Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

Subscription models offer clearer ROI due to a more competitive pricing scheme.

reviewer2641242

Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The amount of attacks it protects against is immense, more than F5 Advanced WAF itself costs.

Kkc Casey

Security Solutions Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Advanced WAF report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX App Protect report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.3

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's support is praised for responsiveness and helpfulness, despite challenges with contact and Indian support.

Sentiment score

6.9

F5 Advanced WAF's support is professional and helpful, though response times vary based on service level and issue priority.

Sentiment score

6.1

NGINX App Protect support is knowledgeable and helpful, though some users report delays, costs, and occasional skill gaps.

I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.

Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Both response time and availability need to be improved.

Pawan Thakur

Project Manager at IBM

F5 Advanced WAF provides the insights and notifications I need in terms of reporting and alerting.

Mohamed Fouad

Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)

If there is a bug, the support is usually understanding and resolves issues.

RoiNahari

CEO at CyberApp

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Advanced WAF report

They were quick and efficient when we had issues.

Jean-Marc Porchet

Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

I would rate the customer support a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10.

reviewer2801424

Tech Lead at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX App Protect report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall excels in scalability and ease of use, supporting large user bases efficiently with minimal management.

Sentiment score

7.5

F5 Advanced WAF is adaptable, scalable, and supports diverse business needs with robust load balancing and cloud capabilities.

Sentiment score

6.3

NGINX App Protect is praised for scalability but faces challenges with traffic limits, configuration times, and centralized management needs.

The scalability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between 8 to 9, as it depends upon the use cases and what exactly the client needs.

Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

I can run it in HA mode or even divide the traffic volume to the number of instances that I have based on their resource sizing.

Kkc Casey

Security Solutions Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Advanced WAF report

The scalability of NGINX App Protect is good and open source at its best.

reviewer2801424

Tech Lead at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX App Protect report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.2

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is praised for its reliable performance, minimal downtime, and effective security features across industries.

Sentiment score

8.4

F5 Advanced WAF is praised for its stability and reliability, handling substantial workloads effectively with minimal bugs.

Sentiment score

8.4

NGINX App Protect is stable, lightweight, and impressive in transaction handling, integrating well with Ingress Controller and rated highly.

The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.

Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

F5 Advanced WAF has been very reliable and consistent for us; in our on-premise enterprise setup, it has been stable and predictable in day-to-day operations without any unexpected crashes or WAF-related downtime in production.

Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

F5 Advanced WAF is pretty stable.

Kkc Casey

Security Solutions Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Advanced WAF report

It is a quality solution, and I would rate its stability as eight out of ten.

reviewer2676000

IT Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX App Protect report

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare's Web Application Firewall requires ModSecurity upgrades, improved logging, integration, accuracy, more controls, and better documentation.

F5 Advanced WAF needs a user-friendly interface, better integration, competitive pricing, and improved automation, scalability, and documentation.

NGINX App Protect faces issues with flexibility, cost, integration, and usability, prompting calls for enhancements and cost-effective solutions.

The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.

reviewer2012637

Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

I think they're doing a good job with DNS and as support for any domains that I create or that my clients create, it's mandatory for me to ensure they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network.

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.

reviewer2641242

Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.

Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

There is excellent clarity in the LTM and the WAF.

Pawan Thakur

Project Manager at IBM

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Advanced WAF report

There was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service.

reviewer2676000

IT Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

The GUI and web GUI configuration could be improved to be easier to manage and use.

Valerio Guaglianone

Dev Ops Engineer at adesso AG

I think NGINX App Protect could be improved by having it come out of the box with NGINX.

reviewer2801424

Tech Lead at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX App Protect report

Setup Cost

Cloudflare's WAF offers competitive pricing from $20 to $10,000, seen as cost-effective but could improve transparency.

F5 Advanced WAF's high cost is justified by its robust features, appealing to enterprises needing comprehensive protection.

NGINX App Protect is seen as expensive yet competitive, with pricing from $3,000 to $400,000 based on usage.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Licensing is capacity-driven, so you need careful planning based on traffic volume and use cases, and adding features such as Bot Protection impacts costs; once licensing is clear and sized correctly, there are no surprises.

Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost.

reviewer2641242

Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The price is affordable and satisfactory.

RoiNahari

CEO at CyberApp

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Advanced WAF report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX App Protect report

Valuable Features

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides scalable DDoS protection, configurable rules, advanced features, and comprehensive support with minimal false positives.

F5 Advanced WAF excels in detection, customization, and reporting, providing comprehensive web application security and user-friendly operation.

NGINX App Protect offers advanced WAF, scalability, security features, and seamless integration for cloud-native architectures with effective traffic management.

The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.

reviewer2012637

Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.

Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools add a layer that we're able to visualize and see before it actually hits the local firewall.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

The Advanced Attack Signature database is very strong and regularly updated, effectively blocking SQL injections, cross-site scripting, command injections, and file inclusion attacks while allowing selective enabling or disabling of signatures to avoid blocking genuine traffic.

Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

F5 Advanced WAF offers the best features that are capable of stopping any type of attack, and it is a really reliable and stable product that you can rely on to stop any type of attack.

Mohamed Fouad

Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)

The perpetual license, despite an initial higher cost, lacks transparency regarding support expiration.

reviewer2641242

Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Advanced WAF report

The most valuable feature is the ability to operate in a DevOps environment and to be configured through API and pipeline by the developers themselves.

reviewer2676000

IT Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications.

Jean-Marc Porchet

Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

It is stable, affordable, and easy to manage.

Valerio Guaglianone

Dev Ops Engineer at adesso AG

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX App Protect report

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.6%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 7.5%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX App Protect is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
F5 Advanced WAF	7.5%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	5.6%
NGINX App Protect	2.1%
Other	84.8%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

Read full review

Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

Application security has protected critical banking services while policy learning minimizes false blocks

F5 Advanced WAF performs well overall, but I have noticed some points that could enhance the solution. Initially, policy tuning could be simpler, as while the learning engine is powerful, initial tuning still requires experienced engineers, which can be challenging for new teams due to the complexity of options and parameters. A more guided and simple tuning workflow would help reduce the learning curve. Additionally, tighter native integration with SIEM or SOAR tools would simplify correlation and investigations for security teams, although log exports are available. Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.

Read full review

Jean-Marc Porchet

Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Blocking IPs and detecting bots enhances security for medical websites

I was researching products like NGINX App Protect and F5 Advanced WAF for long-term options. I have some use for such a solution, but probably not before next year Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications. We were able to block groups of IP addresses that…

Read full review

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

882,594 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	31

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't really use the rule-based logic feature or utilize the WAF's ability to scale as a cloud-based service. I don...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I'm using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall on all my domains and any client domains I have; I set them up with a C...

See all answers

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 r...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?

The pricing for F5 Advanced WAF is a bit higher, but not that high. I would say for a good amount of revenue-generati...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?

On the features I wish existed, Big-IP Advanced WAF is primarily an on-premises solution and in that solution, there ...

See all answers

What do you like most about NGINX App Protect?

It's very easy to deploy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX App Protect?

I don't know the pricing yet because in my other project, I was not part of the buying side and I was just starting t...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NGINX App Protect?

It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requir...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

AWS WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 26% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 7% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 5% of the time

NetScaler vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 3% of the time

More F5 Advanced WAF Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 9% of the time

Azure Front Door vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 6% of the time

NEVIS nevisProxy vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 3% of the time

More NGINX App Protect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

February 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF

February 2026

Download F5 Advanced WAF product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX App Protect

January 2026

Download NGINX App Protect product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

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.

NGINX App Protect application security solution combines the efficacy of advanced F5 web application firewall (WAF) technology with the agility and performance of NGINX Plus. The solution runs natively on NGINX Plus and addresses some of the most difficult challenges facing modern DevOps environments:

Integrating security controls directly into the development automation pipeline
Applying and managing security for modern and distributed application environments such as containers and microservices
Providing the right level of security controls without impacting release and go-to-market velocity
Complying with security and regulatory requirements

NGINX App Protect offers:

Expanded security beyond basic signatures to ensure adequate controls
F5 app‑security technology for efficacy superior to ModSecurity and other WAFs
Confidently run in “blocking” mode in production with proven F5 expertise
High‑confidence signatures for extremely low false positives
Increases visibility, integrating with third‑party analytics solutions
Integrates security and WAF natively into the CI/CD pipeline
Deploys as a lightweight software package that is agnostic of underlying infrastructure
Facilitates declarative policies for “security as code” and integration with DevOps tools
Decreases developer burden and provides feedback loop for quick security remediation
Accelerates time to market and reduces costs with DevSecOps‑automated security

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF vs. NGINX App Protect

February 2026

Free Report: F5 Advanced WAF vs. NGINX App Protect

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

882,594 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our F5 Advanced WAF vs. NGINX App Protect 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.