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F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Virtual Edition
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (4th)
Imperva Managed Rules on AW...
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Business Rules Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition and Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is designed for Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) and holds a mindshare of 1.8%.
Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF, on the other hand, focuses on Business Rules Management, holds 1.3% mindshare, up 0.2% since last year.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition1.8%
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)12.2%
NetScaler11.5%
Other74.5%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
Business Rules Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF1.3%
Pega Platform26.5%
FICO Blaze Advisor25.3%
Other46.9%
Business Rules Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2800392 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cloud deployment has simplified traffic distribution and now supports flexible multi-zone DR
Regarding F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition's improvement areas, the current dashboard is very useful, but I believe the registration process should be simplified in the virtual edition. Especially in the Azure environment, many features are not currently aligned and working with Azure. We need to make efforts to ensure it is well integrated with Azure. Currently, if we want to integrate route tables with the virtual F5 edition, we need to deploy scripting inside the virtual F5 instances, and then that script performs the virtual IP route table changes in the Azure environment. This feature should be auto-configured, and efforts are needed to ensure the virtual edition is very much aligned with the Azure environment. I am expecting this improvement in the next edition. The failover capability is also not as good as it should be. We have tested the failover functionality, and sometimes we have observed that failover fails. F5 does not successfully fail over to other instances perfectly, so that also needs to be improved. Security should also be enhanced, as in the past I have seen some security loopholes. Tightening of security should be included in the new software. These improvements should be present in near future editions.
BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Edge protection has reduced junk traffic and now safeguards APIs with automated threat intelligence
The best feature I would say is the compliance. It satisfies enterprise audit criteria for web application profiling that is required by PCI DSS and HIPAA. Also, it aligns fully with my security compliance matrices, the OWASP Top 10 alignment, and standard core rules to defend against injection attacks, cross-site scripting, and path traversal. These are the major features. The managed rule set proves that modern security does not have to be slow or complicated. It turns threat intelligence into a utility function that I can enable with a few clicks. It has eliminated the heavy operational burden of threat research. Instead of my internal security engineers spending hours tracking new malicious IPs or writing custom regex signatures to deal with emerging exploits, Imperva automatically updates the rule set in the background.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In my experience, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition offers seamless connectivity and a user-friendly interface, which is very good compared to other load balancers where multiple issues arise, and troubleshooting is very useful for big applications such as payments."
"I have saved time, reduced costs, and improved uptime since adopting F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, as it is very easy to work on, saving a lot of time searching and researching."
"I would highly recommend F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition to everyone because we have had a phenomenal experience using this device."
"The features that I like include LTM and Global Traffic Manager (GTM)."
"Since we implemented F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, we have experienced better application performance and lower costs compared to hardware appliances, along with flexibility in deploying F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition across multiple hybrid clouds."
"Comparatively, I find F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition more effective in both the WAF as well as the LTMs."
"The integration capabilities of the product are easy to use, and there is no complexity involved in it."
"Using F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition, specifically the LTM, has significantly reduced downtime."
"Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF has positively impacted my organization by addressing trust issues my customer had regarding security configuration for their application."
"The managed rule set proves that modern security does not have to be slow or complicated."
"Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to reduce attacks."
"Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF has positively impacted our organization because we were able to protect our websites and rectify the open attack and abuse attack that was occurring."
"Automatic updates are the best features Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF offers."
"Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF has impacted my organization positively to a very good extent, as along with the default AWS WAF rules, Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF is giving more edge on layer seven security for protecting the applications at the organization, making them good-to-go rules."
"Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF offers continuous threat intelligence updates as the best feature, as they have a rapid response to newly discovered attack techniques and base their detection logic on real-world threat data with easy integration with AWS."
 

Cons

"F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition can be improved in the user interface, which looks very outdated from the version that we use."
"The failover capability is also not as good as it should be. We have tested the failover functionality, and sometimes we have observed that failover fails."
"It's expensive and could be cheaper."
"The customer support for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition has been satisfactory. While getting a trial license, I communicated with the customer support team, and they responded in a timely manner. However, there was a wait time of two or three days, which could be improved."
"F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition has limited resources for SSL Orchestrator and other technologies."
"From a pricing perspective, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is somewhat high compared to others, and the licensing is provided as annual-based licenses rather than perpetual licenses."
"BIG-IP could improve in supporting microservices, for example, in Docker and Kubernetes environments."
"F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is a heavy system that needs a lot of CPU, memory, and hard disk."
"Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF can usually have false positives sometimes, blocking legitimate traffic and struggling with complex search queries, particularly with large JSON requests and certain GraphQL requests, which makes us initially deploy the rules in monitoring mode before switching to blocking mode to ensure all our use cases are supported."
"Sometimes the rules act as a black box with Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF because you cannot see the underlying rule logic or regular expressions, which can be challenging when troubleshooting false positives on complex API payloads."
"For improvement, it would be better to have access to deeper configuration levels in Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF."
"Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF keeps updating its rule sets, but the company could increase the number of rules on a yearly basis and incorporate more rules aligned with artificial intelligence security."
"The reporting can improve a little bit with Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF."
"Other issues include that the marketplace sellers do not allow me to modify individual parameters inside the vendor's compiled rule set, meaning any false positive must be handled by a custom override rule."
"Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF could improve by adding more parameters. There are other add-on features that come with it, such as advanced bot protection, because the normal feature does not provide good fingerprinting for bots."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing a three out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"My company's customers need to make payments for the licensing charges attached to the product. It is an expensive product."
"F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition is an expensive solution, but it's worth the price."
"The pricing is standard."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
31%
University
29%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
Sometimes customers assume vulnerability points in F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition represent actual vulnerabilities, but they are false positives in that particular environment. In customer scans where m...
What advice do you have for others considering F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
I am currently working on different types of projects. I am handling SSL Orchestrator in a bank project and mainly handling load balancing in telecom projects. The value of my experience depends on...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that I think it is expensive.
What needs improvement with Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF?
The settings available with Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF are fine and I find it good. The reporting can improve a little bit with Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF.
What is your primary use case for Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF?
My main use case for Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF is to control the website under the WAF. A specific example of how I use Imperva Managed Rules on AWS WAF to control my website is that we brou...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about F5, HAProxy, Radware and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC). Updated: August 2026.
910,479 professionals have used our research since 2012.