F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs NGINX App Protect comparison

F5 Distributed Cloud Services and NGINX App Protect are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 Distributed Cloud Services is ranked #19 with an average rating of 10.0, while NGINX App Protect is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.5. Additionally, 100% of F5 Distributed Cloud Services users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of NGINX App Protect users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 4, 2025

NGINX App Protect and F5 Distributed Cloud Services are prominent competitors in web application security. NGINX App Protect often has the edge for its affordability and support; F5 Distributed Cloud Services is favored for its comprehensive features.

Features: NGINX App Protect offers essential features like a web application firewall, threat detection, and seamless integration within NGINX environments. F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides advanced networking capabilities, multi-cloud networking, and extensive security integrations, ideal for complex setups.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NGINX App Protect ensures an easy deployment process and reliable customer support, especially within NGINX setups. F5 Distributed Cloud Services, though potentially more complex to implement, delivers detailed guides and robust support for cloud platform deployment.

Pricing and ROI: NGINX App Protect is cost-effective with low setup costs and quick ROI, suitable for smaller applications. F5 Distributed Cloud Services, despite higher costs, offers high ROI through expansive features, suited for large-scale deployments.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. NGINX App Protect Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. NGINX App Protect

December 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

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

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Filip Mikulik

IT Analyst at Atlas.cz, a.s.

Protects web applications with comprehensive security features

All features are valuable. In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation. This is a comprehensive package for web application security. The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.

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Jean-Marc Porchet

Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Blocking IPs and detecting bots enhances security for medical websites

I was researching products like NGINX App Protect and F5 Advanced WAF for long-term options. I have some use for such a solution, but probably not before next year Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications. We were able to block groups of IP addresses that…

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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's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."

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

"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."

"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."

"Cloudflare makes it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple users and multiple clients, and basically go in and access their account, make the changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."

"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."

"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."

More Cloudflare pros

"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."

"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."

"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."

"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is its open source."

"NGINX App Protect is stable."

"NGINX App Protect's best features are auto-learning, which creates a profile of applications that are deployed, bot protection, and force protection, which lets you configure your brute force policy and alert for and prevent brute force attacks."

"The policies are flexible based on the technologies you use."

"The most valuable feature is that I can establish different services from the firewall."

"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is its flexibility."

"It is a stable solution."

"The tool's most valuable feature is the OWASP certification. Additionally, the tool's ability to enforce strong passwords and OTP within minutes is impressive. With its analytics and recommendations, it is a very good solution."

More NGINX App Protect pros

Cons

"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."

"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."

"DNS Management."

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

"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."

"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."

"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."

"The solution could be more user-friendly."

More Cloudflare cons

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."

"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."

"The product's user interface is an area with shortcomings as it can be quite confusing for users, making it an area where improvements are required."

"It doesn't have more advanced features like no false-positive security, which you can configure in Advanced WAF."

"They could provide a better user interface."

"It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service, to avoid disruptions after implementation."

"Currently, the policies have to be handled manually, and you have to create from scratch, which can be a bit time-consuming, in a large environment."

"I encountered issues with NGINX App Protect while trying to upgrade custom rules."

"As far as scalability, it takes a long time for deployment."

"It's challenging if you need to go for a high throughput."

More NGINX App Protect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

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

"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."

"The price is reasonable."

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"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."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"There are not any additional costs we had to pay to use NGINX App Protect."

"Our licensing costs are about $40,000 a year."

"The pricing is reasonable because NGINX operates on an instance basis."

"The price of NGINX App Protect is approximately $3,000 annually. All of our licenses are observed by a managed service partner."

"There is a monthly or annual subscription to use NGINX App Protect. There are not any additional costs to the subscription."

"There are no additional fees."

"There is a license needed to use NGINX App Protect."

"The price of NGINX App Protect is not much different from the products that fall under the leader category of Gartner Magic Quadrant."

More NGINX App Protect pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	11

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...

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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...

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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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four...

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What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

It's a long way to be perfect, of course, as with all solutions. The main issue is integration with other parts or pr...

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What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

There are two main use cases for Distributed Call Services: DDoS or Distributed attacks protection and WAF web applic...

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What do you like most about NGINX App Protect?

It's very easy to deploy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX App Protect?

I don't know the pricing yet because in my other project, I was not part of the buying side and I was just starting t...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NGINX App Protect?

It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requir...

See all answers

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

CDN

January 2026

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX App Protect

December 2025

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Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

F5 Distributed Cloud Services excel in enhancing security, optimizing web application delivery, and ensuring robust network performance. Users value its integrated Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, global server load balancing, and intuitive management interface. It boosts organizational efficiency, reduces operational costs, and scales seamlessly, making it essential for businesses operating in distributed environments.

NGINX App Protect application security solution combines the efficacy of advanced F5 web application firewall (WAF) technology with the agility and performance of NGINX Plus. The solution runs natively on NGINX Plus and addresses some of the most difficult challenges facing modern DevOps environments:

Integrating security controls directly into the development automation pipeline
Applying and managing security for modern and distributed application environments such as containers and microservices
Providing the right level of security controls without impacting release and go-to-market velocity
Complying with security and regulatory requirements

NGINX App Protect offers:

Expanded security beyond basic signatures to ensure adequate controls
F5 app‑security technology for efficacy superior to ModSecurity and other WAFs
Confidently run in “blocking” mode in production with proven F5 expertise
High‑confidence signatures for extremely low false positives
Increases visibility, integrating with third‑party analytics solutions
Integrates security and WAF natively into the CI/CD pipeline
Deploys as a lightweight software package that is agnostic of underlying infrastructure
Facilitates declarative policies for “security as code” and integration with DevOps tools
Decreases developer burden and provides feedback loop for quick security remediation
Accelerates time to market and reduces costs with DevSecOps‑automated security

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. NGINX App Protect

December 2025

Free Report: F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. NGINX App Protect

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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