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

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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Cloudflare improves speed, security, and stability, leading to significant financial benefits with an ROI of 318% for businesses.
Sentiment score
7.2
F5 BIG-IP AFM offers ROI and cost efficiency when integrated, but standalone ROI is below average, despite perceived value.
Sentiment score
7.0
Kentik reduces costs and improves latency in expensive transit areas, enhancing operational efficiency and security for users.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
We have had ROI with the tool's use since it never gave us downtime and made us lose millions.
For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.
In production environments, especially for service providers on IP networks and data centers, Kentik helps in reducing the time to identify and resolve issues.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Cloudflare's support is praised for responsiveness, though non-paying users and regions without local offices face challenges.
Sentiment score
6.5
F5 BIG-IP AFM support is praised for professionalism but needs faster ticket resolution and improved recommendation accuracy.
Sentiment score
8.6
Kentik's customer service is praised for quick, expert responses, proactive communication, and effective problem resolution, fostering positive relationships.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.
We'd like a dedicated account manager.
The responses are generally fast and effective.
The customer service is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten.
I have mostly used forums for any support needed because the setup is straightforward and the documentation is quite good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cloudflare efficiently handles increased traffic and growth, offering scalability, robust network performance, and seamless expansion for enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.3
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager offers scalable, efficient management for hybrid setups, supporting organizational growth and cloud migration.
Sentiment score
8.6
Kentik excels in scalable, flexible integration with global infrastructures, providing seamless adaptability for diverse, enterprise-level data management needs.
I would rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten since I didn't encounter any issues with it.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten because I had no issues with it.
I rate the scalability a ten out of ten.
The solution is highly scalable, allowing me to add or remove nodes and manage traffic without interruption, which is essential for meeting application demands.
Kentik's integration with Kubernetes makes scaling easier.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cloudflare is generally stable and reliable, but occasional issues with downtime, speed, and DDoS protection are reported.
Sentiment score
8.4
F5 BIG-IP AFM is lauded for its stability and reliability, with high user ratings and minimal operational issues.
Sentiment score
8.1
Kentik is highly reliable, with prompt issue resolution and communication, ensuring minimal impact and user satisfaction despite occasional bugs.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.
In production, however, dimensioning of the underlying platforms is something to be mindful of.
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare needs analytics, threat insights, improved support, user-friendly dashboards, and simplified pricing, with consistent caching and security features.
F5 BIG-IP AFM is costly, complex, needs dashboard improvements, enhanced features, better integration, and concerns over CPU and support.
Kentik users seek improvements in user management, interface, security, AI integration, cost analysis, and better support across time zones.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
In future releases, one thing that would be great is if Cloudflare could provide basic WAF rules and security recommendations based on website scanning.
Having advanced technology similar to other vendors like Palo Alto for zero-day attack prevention would be valuable.
The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security.
More work is required to integrate AI for troubleshooting, simplifying root cause analysis, and providing suggested solutions for network issues.
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers flexible pricing with plans for small businesses to enterprises, balancing cost with comprehensive features and protection.
F5 BIG-IP AFM is costly but justified by its features, with pricing for licenses and potential extra feature fees.
Kentik's pricing varies by device type and scale, offering discounts for education and bulk purchases with flexible contracts.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
I find it to be cheap.
It's cost-effective, but I think they should have a custom pricing model for enterprise customers based on the features you use.
The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive.
If considering a one-stop solution that provides load balancing, DNS security, AAA authentication, and firewalling on the same hardware, the cost is reasonable.
The pricing is good and aligns with the market target.
Kentik’s pricing is competitive in the marketplace.
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare offers caching, DDoS protection, and CDN services, enhancing website speed and security with intuitive interface and global reach.
F5 BIG-IP AFM offers robust network security, ease of use, and supports cloud migration with AI-driven features.
Kentik offers real-time traffic analysis, customizable dashboards, anomaly detection, and flexibility, enhancing network management and security efficiently.
Our scenario consisted of two web servers in different allocations to control access demands, and the load balancer did the job as expected, bringing security and stability to access points.
For me, the valuable feature is DDoS protection.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
The solution provides behavioral analysis via AI to detect malicious traffic.
The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications.
The most important feature is cybersecurity.
One of the most valuable features of Kentik, especially for service providers, is its ability to visualize all the BGP peering and the status of the BGP peering platform.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kentik
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
19th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (33rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 19.6%, up from 19.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is 1.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kentik is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes
Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.
Richard Polyak - PeerSpot reviewer
Straightforward setup with very good granularity and performance
Our company uses the solution as a data center firewall.  It is hard to determine all users within our infrastructure. It depends on systems we put behind the solution. Its internal but also a data center firewall. Sometimes, there are hooks from the solution to our external infrastructure or…
ADRIANA SALDARRIAGA TOBON - PeerSpot reviewer
Client experience and cybersecurity have improved with an easy setup
The solution is valuable for client experience, especially in the financial sector. The most important feature is cybersecurity. The pricing is good, but the functionality is the most important aspect for clients. The solution is easy to deploy and requires only one person to set up, making it easy and quick. Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
9%
Insurance Company
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
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 plen...
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 ( /...
What do you like most about Kentik?
It offers a simple yet powerful feature of classifying applications, going beyond basic statistics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kentik?
The pricing is good and aligns with the market target.
What needs improvement with Kentik?
The product could strive for more improvements to become closer to perfect.
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent. 
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs. Kentik and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.