Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs Fastly comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fastly
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
CDN (7th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fastly is 2.3%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Pawel Augustyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides outstanding resource management and application security across multiple geographies
The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications. The solution also monitors and blocks unconventional requests and maintains security efficiently. The scalability feature also allows me to manage and allocate resources dynamically without disrupting production traffic.
Nick Wilsdon - PeerSpot reviewer
An easily scalable and stable product that provides exceptional support
The product should provide improved bot detection and management. The product should also provide support for code management. Everybody working in CDN is currently looking for ways to better manage code deployment with various authorization levels and synchronization with our lower environments. Matching up what's happening in CDN with what's happening on the origin regarding testing would always be useful.

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 for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications."
"CGNAT is one of its strong areas."
"The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP AFM is the iRules where I can customize the configuration."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager's most valuable feature is load balance. It is readily available and uncomplicated."
"The product’s most valuable features are LTM and WAF."
"The solution is very straightforward. The usability is great."
"It blocks various attacks and mitigates disasters from occurring."
"The solution provides behavioral analysis via AI to detect malicious traffic."
"The product helps our organization to access sites located in different regions quickly."
"Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly."
"Compute@Edge features are valuable to me."
"The product's initial setup phase is straightforward."
"Rate limiting is a good feature that protects from volumetric attacks."
"Fastly uses configuration versioning, where you can deploy a new version in less than one minute."
"Its initial setup process is straightforward."
 

Cons

"The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security. Some features like the WAF firewall may seem expensive compared to the standard license, so there could be room for adjusting the pricing."
"Some spam can go by the firewall."
"We needed to protect the database but the solution didn't offer a certain feature to do so."
"NGINX, which F5 purchased, has room for improvement in its features, particularly its load balancing or application load balancing features."
"Currently, we have eighty F5s and we need some kind of management software. It would be very helpful."
"The solution doesn't really meet our requirements for an edge firewall."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager's pricing and technical support services need improvement."
"We would have preferred to have support when we first started"
"Support is not that great."
"Stronger analytics would be helpful, like showing configurations that haven't served a certain amount of traffic in a while. With many properties, things can get lost track of - duplicates or unused configurations not properly decommissioned."
"What I don't like about Fastly is that they charge a heavy price."
"Fastly's customer service area needs improvement."
"The product should provide improved bot detection and management."
"It is missing a "staging" platform to deploy a test configuration with all of the real settings, which would allow us to properly test before putting it into production."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"F5 BIG-IP AFM is an affordable solution. There were not any additional fees other than the standard licensing."
"It is somewhat on the expensive side although it is worth the additional cost."
"It's very expensive, and you pay extra for the models."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is an expensive solution. They are one of the best in the market, but the price could be cheaper."
"The product is expensive."
"As per pricing, I would not say cheap, but little higher than cheap, but not very expensive. So you can say kind of value for money solutions."
"We need to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."
"We have purchased a five-year licensing package for the product."
"The pricing has been very competitive."
"You need to pay a premium price for the tool."
"Fastly is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"The solution is cheaper than other products in the market."
"In my opinion, Fastly is priced competitively."
"It is an expensive solution."
"I've generally found Fastly to be very competitive in pricing, especially around Compute@Edge."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection solutions are best for your needs.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
9%
Performing Arts
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive. There are plenty of technical documents and a supportive community available, which helps mana...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security. Some features like the WAF ( /categories/web-application-firewall-waf ) firewall may seem expensive compared t...
What do you like most about Fastly?
Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly.
What needs improvement with Fastly?
What I don't like about Fastly is that they charge a heavy price. The pricing is different per region. If you have a customer who is international and has deployments in different regions, it is ve...
 

Also Known As

F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Twitter, Airbnb, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, The New York Times, Ticketmaster, The Drupal Association, Opera, about.com, imgur, Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, New Relic, shopify, Shazam, Firebase
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs. Fastly and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.