F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs Nexusguard DDoS Protection comparison

F5 and Nexusguard are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. F5 is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.6, while Nexusguard is ranked #12 with an average rating of 10.0. F5 holds a 1.4% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Nexusguard’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Nexusguard users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Nexusguard DDoS Protection and F5 BIG-IP AFM are cybersecurity solutions. Nexusguard is preferred for its ease of use and support, while F5 BIG-IP AFM offers extensive features for comprehensive security.

Features: Nexusguard offers scalable, cloud-based DDoS mitigation, customizable filtering, and comprehensive management without additional hardware needs. It includes local scrubbing functions and effective origin protection. F5 BIG-IP AFM provides a suite of security tools like LTM and WAF, customizable iRules, traffic management, and advanced threat handling, supporting cloud transitions and offering excellent application protection.

Room for Improvement: Nexusguard could enhance its dashboard features and offer more geographical server locations to improve its service range. Streamlining the customization process and enhancing SOC integration are other areas for development. F5 BIG-IP AFM can improve deployment accessibility, reduce licensing complexity, and offer more straightforward user experiences. Better cost structures for comprehensive packages can also be beneficial.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nexusguard's deployment is straightforward, backed by robust support with a user-friendly portal for assistance and monitoring. F5 BIG-IP AFM's setup is more complex but includes thorough service options for detailed configuration. F5 provides comprehensive support for deployment and configuration, appealing to businesses needing tailored solutions.

Pricing and ROI: Nexusguard is cost-effective with quick ROI, thanks to cloud-based mitigation without heavy infrastructure investments. F5 BIG-IP AFM, though higher in initial costs, offers significant ROI through its comprehensive security features that manage advanced threats, making it suitable for organizations needing extensive protection.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs. Nexusguard DDoS Protection Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs. Nexusguard DDoS Protection

April 2025

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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

Cloudflare

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 Nexusguard DDoS Protection is 1.8%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

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.

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Richard Polyak

Sr. Architect at NBC Universal

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…

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ShashikaKodikara

Head of Cybersecurity at Technovage Solution

A solution requiring straightforward maintenance while remaining cost-effective compared to its competitors in the market

I am not in a position to speak about the areas where the solution needed improvement because I resigned during the implementation phase. At that time, the implementation was ongoing, and everything seemed to be going well. Using the solution, our team managed to transfer a couple of routers through a few areas. However, I believe the migration is still ongoing. Nonetheless, the first phase of the implementation was successful before my departure. There was a certain level of performance degradation in the solution, which I don't know if it can be tuned. This is because I was working for a short period on the solution. In my experience, it is an area that can be improved while also considering the stability and scalability aspects of the solution. If one wants to scale up, then one needs to change their plan. However, the thing is, one can always go for the larger scale based on one's anticipation of future traffic.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a fast and secure DNS."

"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."

"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

More Cloudflare pros

"It blocks various attacks and mitigates disasters from occurring."

"The decryption is great."

"The product’s most valuable features are LTM and WAF."

"I find the signature base is very helpful to see traffic"

"The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP AFM is all of my workers enjoy using it."

"Its performance and ease of use are valuable."

"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager's most valuable feature is load balance. It is readily available and uncomplicated."

"This product excells in every aspect from installation and the interface to providing superior network security."

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) pros

"Cloud Diversion is another good feature packaged with the whole solution. When attack traffic is detected, Cloud Diversion triggers to automatically route our prefix to Nexusguard’s scrubbing center, ensuring that all attack traffic is dropped in the shortest time possible."

"Filters can be customized depending on the characteristics of the attack traffic. This feature has made it easier for Nexusguard's SOC team to further isolate any specific attack that can't be blocked by pre-configured mitigation."

"The managed service allows us to confidently rely on Nexusguard’s professional team to take relevant actions as and when required to make sure DDoS attacks are successfully mitigated, ensuring 100% uptime of our service."

"Based on the support received for implementation, I rate the solution's technical support a nine out of ten."

"The support team was helpful."

Cons

"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."

"There are some issues with the CDN services."

"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."

More Cloudflare cons

"The solution’s initial setup is not easy."

"There should be simplified and better integration with BIG-IQ."

"Some spam can go by the firewall."

"The solution's UI could be improved."

"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."

"This would be absolutely the best network security solution if the price were not so high."

"We needed to protect the database but the solution didn't offer a certain feature to do so."

"F5 BIG-IP AFM can improve the reporting interface in relation to advanced troubleshooting depending on CLI. They should have enhanced troubleshooting with the use of GUI."

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) cons

"One thing that we would like to improve from them is to provide more training to SOC team for them to have a deep understanding of the solution so that they would always be ready to answer anything without the need to escalate queries to senior personnel."

"One of the features that should be added to the next release is report generation. Currently, reports can be downloaded every month and are only available at the beginning of each month. It would be nice to generate the reports based on specific dates that we prefer and not have to wait until the next month for the current month’s report."

"There was a certain level of performance degradation in the solution, which I don't know if it can be tuned...In my experience, it is an area that can be improved while also considering the stability and scalability aspects of the solution."

"The mitigation scope of Origin Protection is not fully efficient as there could be delays in activating the countermeasures."

"The solution must provide features for the post-processing of the traffic type and the traffic quality."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."

"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"The price is reasonable."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"F5 BIG-IP AFM is an affordable solution. There were not any additional fees other than the standard licensing."

"We need to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."

"We have purchased a five-year licensing package for the product."

"The solution is slightly on the higher priced side."

"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."

"It is somewhat on the expensive side although it is worth the additional cost."

"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."

"It's very expensive, and you pay extra for the models."

More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) pricing and cost advice

"On a scale of one to ten, where one represents a cheap option, and ten represents an expensive option, I would rate the solution a seven in terms of cost."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

18%

Government

Comms Service Provider

31%

Media Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?

CGNAT is one of its strong areas.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ( /...

See all answers

What do you like most about Nexusguard?

The support team was helpful.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nexusguard?

The solution must provide features for the post-processing of the traffic type and the traffic quality.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Nexusguard DDoS Protection?

Our traffic is not that high. There haven’t been any huge attacks that the solution has solved or protected us from. ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 50% of the time

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Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

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Imperva DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Arbor DDoS vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 46% of the time

AWS Shield vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 16% of the time

Radware DDoS vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 15% of the time

A10 Thunder TPS vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 14% of the time

Cloudflare One vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Compared 9% of the time

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Arbor DDoS vs Nexusguard DDoS Protection

Compared 35% of the time

StormWall Website Anti-DDoS Protection vs Nexusguard DDoS Protection

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiDDoS vs Nexusguard DDoS Protection

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

May 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

May 2025

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report

Download F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Nexusguard DDoS Protection

May 2025

Download Nexusguard DDoS Protection product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Cloudflare

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is a high-performance, full-proxy network security solution designed to protect networks and data centers against incoming threats that enter the network. Built on F5’s industry-leading BIG-IP hardware and software platforms, BIG-IP AFM provides a scalable platform that delivers the flexible performance and control needed to mitigate aggressive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and protocol attacks before they overwhelm and degrade applications and infrastructure availability.

For service providers, BIG-IP AFM IPS does even more, protecting the network edge and performing traffic inspection and protocol adherence for prevalent service provider protocols such as SS7, Diameter, HTTP/2, GTP, SCTP and SIP traffic coming into the network over UDP, TCP, and SCTP.

Founded in 2008, Nexusguard is the global leader in fighting malicious internet attacks. Nexusguard protects clients against a multitude of threats, including distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, to ensure uninterrupted internet service. Nexusguard provides comprehensive, highly customized solutions for customers of all sizes, across a range of industries, and also enables turnkey anti-DDoS solutions for service providers. Nexusguard delivers on its promise to maximize peace of mind by minimizing threats.

Nexusguard’s purpose-built DDoS Protection platform is comprised of three pillars:

Application Protection
Nexusguard Application Protection mitigates all types of DDoS attacks and cyber threats, delivering maximum uptime to organizations with an online presence. Our solutions are secure, reliable, customizable, and backed by enterprise grade SLAs.

Origin Protection
Nexusguard Origin Protection secures all backend network elements, including the origin of applications, network infrastructure, and the backend IPs typically associated with proxy solutions. It is highly suitable for organizations that cannot afford any downtime of assets running their own network.

DNS Protection
Nexusguard DNS Protection protects mission-critical online services from DNS attacks. Our dedicated, fully redundant network of globally distributed proxy servers resolves every incoming DNS query quickly and reliably, ensuring your DNS server is protected from both internal and external attacks.

Visit www.nexusguard.com for more information.

Nexusguard

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

21st Century Technologies, Netpluz, REDtone, SNOC, StarHub, aamra

Buyer's Guide

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs. Nexusguard DDoS Protection

April 2025

Free Report: F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs. Nexusguard DDoS Protection

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs. Nexusguard DDoS Protection and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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