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F5 Advanced WAF vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 25, 2025

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
7.3
Prisma Cloud improves security, reduces risk, and enhances efficiency with automation, despite cost challenges and complex ROI calculations.
Subscription models offer clearer ROI due to a more competitive pricing scheme.
It eliminates the need for additional hardware, making it a financially and technically sound investment.
From a security standpoint, we have significantly enhanced our client's security posture by implementing Prisma Cloud.
The platform is not famous for being cheap. It is quite expensive, but we know that we have the protection, so there is enough value for what we pay for.
 

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
7.1
Prisma Cloud generally receives high praise for its responsive technical support, despite occasional delays and region-specific variability.
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.
Whenever I have issues with the solution, I will get an immediate response from the product team and they will try to close the issue as soon as possible.
When you send them a message, you get a response in a minute or two.
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.
 

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
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks offers scalable, flexible performance across multi-cloud environments, supporting seamless expansion and integration.
It's very scalable and very easy to use.
I would rate the scalability of Prisma Cloud as an eight out of ten.
I am highly impressed with the product's scalability.
 

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
8.0
Prisma Cloud is generally stable with minimal issues, rare downtimes, and is highly rated by users for reliability.
I cannot recall any downtime with the solution.
I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.
The tool responds well in small-scale infrastructures, functioning perfectly without any issues.
 

Room For Improvement

F5 Advanced WAF needs easier interfaces, better integration, enhanced support, and improved features for user-friendliness and efficiency.
Prisma Cloud needs better documentation, usability, automation, security features, customizable reports, and faster support for improved efficiency.
Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.
It is a SaaS solution, but some of my clients have a local regulatory requirement, and they want to install it locally on their premises.
From a developer's perspective, especially for organizations like banks developing their applications, ensuring API security before deploying them to the cloud is crucial.
Prisma Cloud is an excellent tool.
 

Setup Cost

F5 Advanced WAF is costly but valued for its advanced features, comprehensive protection, and flexibility in high-stakes environments.
Prisma Cloud's higher pricing is justified by its comprehensive features, but licensing complexity concerns some enterprise buyers.
Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost.
The price is affordable and satisfactory.
Prisma Cloud is remarkably expensive.
The cost was not on the higher side.
That's why a lot of our clients are shifting from cloud-native to Prisma Cloud: because of its effectiveness and because it is budget-friendly as well.
 

Valuable Features

F5 Advanced WAF offers comprehensive protection with integration, customization, and features like network intelligence, DDoS prevention, and behavior analysis.
Prisma Cloud offers multi-cloud security with compliance, automation, CI/CD integration, and quick threat response via a centralized platform.
The perpetual license, despite an initial higher cost, lacks transparency regarding support expiration.
It contains the logic of both negative and positive security combined.
Security posture management is the most valuable feature.
We could spread the Prisma Cloud platform to 16 countries without encountering any kind of problem.
Prisma Cloud provides risk clarity at runtime and across the entire pipeline, like, showing issues as they're discovered during the build phases.
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (1st), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 11.1%, up from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 2.1%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

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.
Mohammad Qaw - PeerSpot reviewer
It gives you one console to see all of your assets, review their configurations, and build your processes
Most customers use Prisma Cloud for visibility and compliance. Prisma has so many features, but many organizations do not use them. They primarily use the visibility part to connect all their cloud accounts and hosts for visibility to see if they are missing any security controls or if they have any misconfigurations. You can connect it to cloud environments such as Azure, AWS, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba, etc., or to an on-prem data center. Prisma Cloud gives you so many options to automate processes related to your daily operations. When it comes to cybersecurity, you can automate things with their existing APIs. They also have out-of-the-box integrations with many solutions. I have not seen any limitations. Everything is customizable. You can do whatever you want, defining the reporting and custom use cases. They recently updated the UI, so it's much better than before.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

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.
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: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.