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F5 Advanced WAF vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

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
F5 Advanced WAF offers ROI by saving time, reducing costs, enhancing security, and ensuring compliance for businesses.
Sentiment score
6.8
Prisma Cloud boosts productivity and security through automation, reducing vulnerabilities, saving time, and streamlining compliance for organizations.
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.
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
Subscription models offer clearer ROI due to a more competitive pricing scheme.
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.
Security Solutions Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
It eliminates the need for additional hardware, making it a financially and technically sound investment.
Partner at Quasys
There was a cost reduction. That was the benefit that we had visualized while evaluating Prisma Cloud as one of the possible solutions.
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
F5 Advanced WAF's customer service is highly professional and knowledgeable, but response speed and availability need improvement for some users.
Sentiment score
7.1
Prisma Cloud support quality varies; clients experience quick resolutions or slow responses, with satisfaction depending on region and support level.
Both response time and availability need to be improved.
Security Analyst at IBM
While they resolve issues well, the time taken for responses to non-critical issues should be shorter.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
If there is a bug, the support is usually understanding and resolves issues.
CEO at CyberApp
They can respond with technical documentation or pass on the case to the next level because it requires the development of a new feature or changing a feature due to a bug.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Anywhere we raise a tech case, they revert back within an hour.
Cloud Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
I would give them 10 out of 10.
Sector Manager at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
F5 Advanced WAF is scalable, efficiently handling large traffic, praised for flexibility, and easily upgraded to meet user needs.
Sentiment score
7.5
Prisma Cloud offers scalable, flexible multi-cloud support, efficiently accommodating large enterprises with performance, albeit needing credit purchases for optimal use.
If you need to scale up, such as moving from a lower model to a higher one, the configuration from the lower model can be migrated easily without issues.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
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.
Security Solutions Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Scalability within the credit limit is good. It is 100%.
Cloud security architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.
Cloud Security Support at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
Cloud Security Engineer (Team lead) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
F5 Advanced WAF is highly reliable and stable, rarely facing downtime, with user ratings of 8-10 for performance.
Sentiment score
7.9
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is highly reliable and trustworthy, with minimal downtime and effective maintenance communication.
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.
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
F5 Advanced WAF is stable, and there is no doubt it is one of the best WAFs in the market.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
F5 Advanced WAF is pretty stable.
Security Solutions Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.
Cloud Security Engineer (Team lead) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
We had issues whenever we were downloading the vulnerability report. It did not include all the information.
Cloud Security Support at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Once the issues were identified, Palo Alto applied the correct solutions to ensure high availability and scalability.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Room For Improvement

F5 Advanced WAF needs improvements in pricing, usability, API protection, bot detection, deployment, and advanced integration features.
Prisma Cloud needs user interface, integration, automation, cost, and support improvements, with better multi-cloud support and visibility.
Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.
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.
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
Another improvement could be refining the bot detection to minimize false positives; it should be able to verify more granularly between legitimate and non-legitimate clients.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Prisma Cloud is an excellent tool.
Technical Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We could have deployed the runtime monitoring with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, but within our organization at our company, it was very difficult to find who would be the owner for the alerts.
Cyber Security Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Even though documentation was available, it took a while for a new person to understand what integration meant, what will be achieved after the integration, or how the integration needed to be done on the Azure or AWS side.
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find F5 Advanced WAF's pricing high but justified in banking, with complex licensing and higher setup costs.
Enterprise buyers find Prisma Cloud expensive but valuable, with flexible pricing benefiting multi-cloud enterprises despite additional costs.
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.
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The price is affordable and satisfactory.
CEO at CyberApp
The cost was not on the higher side.
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
However, its price can be better so that small banks or small organizations can afford it and adopt it to secure their environment and data.
Cloud Security Engineer (Team lead) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The pricing for Prisma Cloud is high.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Valuable Features

F5 Advanced WAF offers robust application security with bot protection, DDoS mitigation, and customizable threat detection for improved efficiency.
Prisma Cloud enhances cloud security with real-time monitoring, automation, and CSPM for effective DevOps and multi-cloud protection.
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.
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
The perpetual license, despite an initial higher cost, lacks transparency regarding support expiration.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It contains the logic of both negative and positive security combined.
CEO at CyberApp
We can see any IAM-related risks, any discovered vulnerabilities, any incidents, or any network-level issues.
Technical Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Its ability to centralize and address security vulnerabilities across these diverse environments makes it a crucial and decisive element within the Prisma Cloud ecosystem.
Partner at Quasys
For CWP, the runtime protection is the most valuable feature. Every tool does vulnerability monitoring through tools such as Qualys, but the additional feature we get here is runtime protection in CWP.
Cloud Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 3.6%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 1.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Advanced WAF3.6%
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks1.9%
Other94.5%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2797602 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Granular security policies have protected critical applications and ensure safe user and admin access
Improvements could be made regarding the log information from the backend CLI. There are enhancements needed; if a request gets blocked on the TCP layer, there should be traces or data to verify which source generated these requests, including the source and port information for initiation. These data are missing from F5 Advanced WAF. Besides that, another improvement could be refining the bot detection to minimize false positives; it should be able to verify more granularly between legitimate and non-legitimate clients. Overall, I find everything else good. A wish list feature I have is for the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) to respond more promptly. Their response time needs improvement; while they do not take excessive time, it can be enhanced, especially given it is a security product.
reviewer2776578 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Image scanning has supported consistent security practices during cloud deployment
On a scale of ten, we would say people are happy with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for the part we use. People are okay with it. We probably would give an eight. We don't give ten because if we don't use the other parts of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, it's because it was difficult to implement from an operational point of view. We could have deployed the runtime monitoring with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, but within our organization at our company, it was very difficult to find who would be the owner for the alerts. People have other tools and in the end, we don't use the full capabilities of a product that we pay for. It's partially related to the difficulty to integrate Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks runtime in our company's support process. We don't use the real-time monitoring part of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks. We don't know about the automated remediation feature of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks.
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912,801 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?
F5 Advanced WAF is somewhat costly compared to other vendors, but it is worth the investment due to the stability it provides to the environment and infrastructure.
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
Improvements could be made regarding the log information from the backend CLI. There are enhancements needed; if a request gets blocked on the TCP layer, there should be traces or data to verify wh...
What is your primary use case for F5 Advanced WAF?
My main use case for F5 Advanced WAF is to protect external and internal applications from cyber attacks and to prevent malicious payloads and malicious data from reaching servers. Even if maliciou...
What is your primary use case for Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?
Prisma Cloud helps support DevSecOps methodologies, making those responsibilities easier to manage.
What Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform do you recommend?
We like Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, since it offers us incredible visibility into our entire cloud system. We are able to easily see where our container vulnerabilities lie and and where cl...
What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
912,801 professionals have used our research since 2012.