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F5 Advanced WAF vs Link11 comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 18, 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
Cloudflare WAF offers quick ROI, crucial protection for e-commerce, saves bandwidth, and balances cost with valuable free features.
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
7.2
Link11 provided cost-effective security management, ensuring network protection, compliance, and seamless e-commerce operations with complete return on investment.
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.
Owner at Hga consulting
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 ProTechmanize
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
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Cloudflare WAF support is mixed; responsive for some, but Indian customers face call availability and administrative issues.
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
8.3
Link11 customer service is praised for its expert support, though time zone differences can impact communication efforts.
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.
Owner at Hga consulting
The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
Both response time and availability need to be improved.
Project Manager at IBM
If there is a bug, the support is usually understanding and resolves issues.
CEO at CyberApp
I have interacted with F5's support, and while I have no major complaints, they could improve.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers impressive scalability and automated management, but additional features may incur costs for smaller organizations.
Sentiment score
7.5
F5 Advanced WAF is adaptable, scalable, and supports diverse business needs with robust load balancing and cloud capabilities.
Sentiment score
7.6
Link11 offers seamless scalability, efficiently managing high-traffic and adapting to changes while ensuring uninterrupted service during digital attacks.
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.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
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
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is praised for stability, high performance, effective protection, daily use, and minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
8.4
F5 Advanced WAF is praised for its stability and reliability, handling substantial workloads effectively with minimal bugs.
Sentiment score
8.3
Link11 users appreciate its reliability, stability, and performance, noting minimal downtime and resolved setup challenges, reinforcing confidence.
The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
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 ProTechmanize
F5 Advanced WAF is pretty stable.
Security Solutions Architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare WAF needs feature enhancements, better usability, improved support, advanced DDoS protection, and solutions for latency and alerts.
F5 Advanced WAF needs a user-friendly interface, better integration, competitive pricing, and improved automation, scalability, and documentation.
Enhance Link11 with intuitive interfaces, real-time alerts, automated reporting, improved WAF, unified panels, and better bot management.
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.
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.
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.
CTO at PlayNirvana
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 ProTechmanize
There is excellent clarity in the LTM and the WAF.
Project Manager at IBM
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers affordable, flexible pricing with no upfront costs, noted for competitiveness and included support services.
F5 Advanced WAF's high cost is justified by its robust features, appealing to enterprises needing comprehensive protection.
Link11 offers adaptable pricing with flexible plans and discounts, enhancing value despite perceived high costs for enterprises.
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 ProTechmanize
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
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides comprehensive security features, easy setup, scalability, and competitive pricing with praised performance and stability.
F5 Advanced WAF excels in detection, customization, and reporting, providing comprehensive web application security and user-friendly operation.
Link11 and Reblaze provide advanced security features, effective threat management, and seamless integration for comprehensive protection across platforms.
The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.
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.
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.
Owner at Hga consulting
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 ProTechmanize
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
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...
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Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Link11
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
35th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
CDN (16th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (22nd), Bot Management (10th), API Security (22nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.4%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 7.1%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Link11 is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Advanced WAF7.1%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall5.4%
Link111.1%
Other86.4%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
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.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
SS
Senior Director of Engineering - Information Security at Apna
Offers flexibility with a kill switch for bypassing Reblaze if needed and provides a reliable Layer 7 defense against attacks
There is still some room for improvement when it comes to bot management from Reblaze because they are relatively new compared to other vendors in the town. AWS WAF, the Web Application Firewall from AWS, has a vast database of bad IP addresses due to its long-standing presence in this business. Reblaze, being a new entrant, is still building its database of bad IP addresses and malicious systems. So, Reblaze needs to work on that aspect. But other than that, I don't think scaling Reblaze has been an issue. There were some initial glitches, but they were all sorted out. So currently, I would say that the bot management and the database are areas they should focus on for further improvement.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...
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...
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...
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 ...
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Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
No data available
Reblaze
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
CBC, Hermes, Gartner
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. Link11 and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
883,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.