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

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
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
Nexusguard DDoS Protection
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
10th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 19.7%, up from 18.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is 1.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nexusguard DDoS Protection is 1.7%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
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.
ShashikaKodikara - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."
"The UI is good."
"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."
"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is external DNS. It is also very secure. They have their own main server and once you configure it, the product takes care of everything. There are no issues in resolving IPs and low latency is also present."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"The web application firewall has been very helpful. We purchased F5 when we were migrating our applications to the cloud."
"The product helps us provide security validation by protecting various applications from getting hacked."
"The most valuable features of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) are the web gateway, load balancing, services, and applications available."
"It blocks various attacks and mitigates disasters from occurring."
"The decryption is great."
"It excels in preventing downtime and maintaining application performance, which is crucial for our clients' security and operational continuity."
"The solution provides behavioral analysis via AI to detect malicious traffic."
"The setup and functionality are fairly straightforward."
"Based on the support received for implementation, I rate the solution's technical support a nine out of ten."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The support team was helpful."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."
"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."
"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"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."
"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."
"The product needs to improve its automation."
"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."
"We would have preferred to have support when we first started"
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager's pricing and technical support services need improvement."
"The initial setup of F5 BIG-IP AFM in a complex environment was simple. However, the full deployment took us approximately one year."
"There should be simplified and better integration with BIG-IQ."
"F5 should increase its capability to prevent zero-day attacks. Having advanced technology similar to other vendors like Palo Alto for zero-day attack prevention would be valuable."
"NGINX, which F5 purchased, has room for improvement in its features, particularly its load balancing or application load balancing features."
"We needed to protect the database but the solution didn't offer a certain feature to do so."
"Apart from the price, I feel no other areas need improvement."
"The mitigation scope of Origin Protection is not fully efficient as there could be delays in activating the countermeasures."
"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."
"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."
"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 solution must provide features for the post-processing of the traffic type and the traffic quality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"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."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"We have purchased a five-year licensing package for the product."
"We need to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."
"It is somewhat on the expensive side although it is worth the additional cost."
"The solution is slightly on the higher priced side."
"The price of F5 BIG-IP AFM is a little more expensive than other firewalls on the market."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager is not an expensive solution."
"F5 BIG-IP AFM is an affordable solution. There were not any additional fees other than the standard licensing."
"It's very expensive, and you pay extra for the models."
"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
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
16%
Performing Arts
9%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
31%
Media Company
11%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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...
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 needs improvement with Nexusguard?
The solution must provide features for the post-processing of the traffic type and the traffic quality.
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. ...
 

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
21st Century Technologies, Netpluz, REDtone, SNOC, StarHub, aamra
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) vs. Nexusguard DDoS Protection and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.