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F5 Rules for AWS WAF vs Fastly comparison

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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare WAF offers quick ROI, crucial protection for e-commerce, saves bandwidth, and balances cost with valuable free features.
Sentiment score
7.2
F5 Rules for AWS WAF enhanced security, reduced manual efforts, decreased malicious traffic, and improved application performance with ROI benefits.
Sentiment score
6.0
Fastly boosts return on investment with improved performance, reduced latency, and cuts infrastructure costs by 40-60%.
My experience with the pricing or licensing of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is that many features can be accessed for free, so the pricing is definitely reasonable.
Owner at Hga consulting
I observed around 35 to 45% reduction in malicious application layer traffic reaching the origin, which helped protect the backend systems and reduce risk exposure.
Technical Team Lead - Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
One measurable benefit was a reduction in manual effort required for managing and tuning web application protection policies because the managed rule capabilities and centralized visibility simplified the day-to-day operations.
Senior Technical Consultant
I did see a return on my investment with F5 Rules for AWS WAF because I was able to detect attacks earlier, and because of this, my resources were not scaling continuously, thus saving costs on resources.
Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Realizing a 30 to 50% reduction in latency and page load time, ensuring users experience a seamless workflow.
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
I have seen a return on investment, particularly in time savings, especially regarding the changes.
Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Cloudflare WAF support is mixed; responsive for some, but Indian customers face call availability and administrative issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
F5 Rules for AWS WAF have positive customer service, but users desire quicker solutions and more proactive recommendations.
Sentiment score
6.3
Fastly's customer care is efficient with multi-channel support, but has inconsistencies in response times and transparency across time zones.
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.
Owner at Hga consulting
The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
They clearly explained what the best options are based on my use case, which helped us shortlist what is required.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
The support team generally demonstrates strong technical knowledge around application security and traffic management, along with the AWS integrations.
Senior Technical Consultant
For critical issues, the response time is quite good, and the support teams are knowledgeable in handling rule tuning, false positives, and other security-related incidents.
Technical Team Lead - Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
demonstrating the team's technical expertise in CDN and Edge architecture
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
We have SLAs defined because we opted for enterprise support pricing.
Staff Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
We are not getting quick responses from Fastly technical support engineers.
Technical support engineer at Adobe
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers impressive scalability and automated management, but additional features may incur costs for smaller organizations.
Sentiment score
8.4
F5 Rules for AWS WAF provides scalable, cloud-native security, managing traffic spikes efficiently without compromising performance or requiring manual adjustments.
Sentiment score
6.4
Fastly is praised for scalability, ease of growth support, cloud flexibility, excellent support, and successful global integrations.
The scalability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between 8 to 9, as it depends upon the use cases and what exactly the client needs.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
In my experience, F5 Rules for AWS WAF handles traffic spikes and high request volumes efficiently, including during attack scenarios such as bot surges or application layer attacks.
Technical Team Lead - Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
Easily handling traffic spikes and high-volume attacks without any manual intervention.
Cloud DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It supports scaling without significantly affecting application performance even during high traffic periods or sudden spikes in requests.
Senior Technical Consultant
Seamlessly handling massive traffic without requiring backend changes due to its globally distributed Edge network and stateless API-driven design.
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is praised for stability, high performance, effective protection, daily use, and minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
8.6
F5 Rules for AWS WAF offers reliable performance, seamless integration, and minimal intervention, outperforming native AWS rules in effectiveness and coverage.
Sentiment score
7.3
Fastly is stable and reliable with high uptime, no technical issues, and strong performance in enterprise applications.
The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
F5 Rules for AWS WAF is consistently updated and applied without impacting application availability, and it handles high traffic volumes effectively, even during attack scenarios.
Technical Team Lead - Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
Especially in terms of policy enforcement, traffic inspection, and integration with AWS environments.
Senior Technical Consultant
Providing comprehensive managed rules coverage and reducing operational overhead compared to the AWS native managed rules.
DGM at Airtel Digital
Highly reliable for enterprise-scale applications with high uptime guarantees.
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare WAF needs feature enhancements, better usability, improved support, advanced DDoS protection, and solutions for latency and alerts.
Users want simpler tuning, AI-driven optimization, better documentation, cloud integration, reduced costs, and improved reporting for AWS WAF.
Fastly requires improvements in China presence, configuration complexity, pricing, customer support, security features, documentation, and bot detection.
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.
Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
I think they're doing a good job with DNS and as support for any domains that I create or that my clients create, it's mandatory for me to ensure they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider.
Owner at Hga consulting
And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network.
CTO at PlayNirvana
To stay safer from a security perspective, continuous improvisation in these security rules is required to ensure we are always up to date with new attacks.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
The most useful change for F5 Rules for AWS WAF would be rule-level allow listing and exception management.
Senior Technical Lead QA at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Fine-tuning it to match specific application behavior can sometimes be complex and time-consuming, especially for teams without deep WAF expertise.
Technical Team Lead - Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
I chose 8 out of 10 because it has excellent performance and low latency delivery, making it suitable for larger applications, with strong Edge Caching and instant purging capabilities.
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
Fastly could improve by improving the documentation and having some code examples.
Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Fastly should provide features similar to Cloudflare regarding a block list.
Technical support engineer at Adobe
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers affordable, flexible pricing with no upfront costs, noted for competitiveness and included support services.
F5 Rules for AWS WAF offers cost-effective advanced protection and easy integration, justifying its premium over basic sets.
Fastly is competitively priced with usage-based costs and customizable options, but some find it expensive with a learning curve.
It has competitive pricing.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
There is no significant setup cost involved, as it is a managed service that can be quickly integrated into the existing AWS WAF configuration without additional infrastructure.
Technical Team Lead - Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
F5 Rules for AWS WAF is not very costly and is reasonable, with enterprises being able to afford the cost.
Cloud DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It operates on a pay-as-you-go structure, but costs scale with traffic, requiring monitoring to avoid unexpected spikes based on data transfers and the number of requests handled.
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
In terms of price, I find it good.
Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides comprehensive security features, easy setup, scalability, and competitive pricing with praised performance and stability.
F5 Rules for AWS WAF offers advanced threat mitigation, customizable security, and seamless AWS integration for enhanced protection and efficiency.
Fastly CDNs integrate with Signal Sciences WAF for efficient content delivery, enhancing performance with global edge locations and code management.
The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.
Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools add a layer that we're able to visualize and see before it actually hits the local firewall.
Owner at Hga consulting
Now, looking at these rule sets, they ensure that our origin or our application content and code, as well as the application itself or its API, are secure enough, always.
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
F5 Rules for AWS WAF rule sets are highly effective in detecting and mitigating OWASP Top 10 attacks such as SQL injection, XSS, and command injection, which significantly strengthens application security.
Technical Team Lead - Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
Using F5 Rules for AWS WAF has positively impacted my organization by making our AI-integrated application more secure from bot attacks, restricted size bodies, automated rate blocking for DDoS, and managed rules, especially as security has become a common concern across the industry.
Cloud DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The best feature that Fastly offers is the Edge location, which reduces latency, making our applications work smoother because we do not have to constantly call the backend.
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
Fastly has a wide number of configuration features that can be performed, and I emphasize that they can be done from code, which makes it much more traceable.
Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
In this project, it is working as a reverse proxy for CDN and WAF, web application firewall, additionally image optimization.
Technical support engineer at Adobe
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...
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Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 Rules for AWS WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Business Rules Management (3rd)
Fastly
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
25th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
CDN (7th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.0%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Rules for AWS WAF is 0.4%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fastly is 2.3%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall4.0%
F5 Rules for AWS WAF0.4%
Fastly2.3%
Other93.3%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
CTO at PlayNirvana
Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.
Vibin Thomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Team Lead - Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
Advanced protection has reduced web attacks and improves application performance and operations
One area where F5 Rules for AWS WAF can be improved is in simplifying the tuning process. While F5 Rules for AWS WAF is powerful, fine-tuning it to match specific application behavior can sometimes be complex and time-consuming, especially for teams without deep WAF expertise. Another improvement could be enhanced visibility and reporting. Although AWS WAF provides logs, having more intuitive and built-in dashboards or clearer categorization of rule triggers would make it easier to quickly identify and analyze attack patterns. Additionally, expanding the capabilities around bot management and behavior analysis would be beneficial compared to some dedicated bot management solutions. More advanced detection techniques could further strengthen the protection against sophisticated automated traffic. Finally, providing more predefined templates or best practice recommendations for different application types would help speed up the deployment and reduce the initial configuration effort.
Pranay Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
Edge caching has transformed response times and delivers faster candidate data globally
Fastly can be improved in certain areas such as VCL, which is powerful but has a steep learning curve for normal users. A more user-friendly, UI-based configuration could simplify the experience, alongside better templates for common use cases and dashboard improvements, as the current dashboard feels complex for beginners, and pricing can be hard to predict for smaller companies. I chose 8 out of 10 because it has excellent performance and low latency delivery, making it suitable for larger applications, with strong Edge Caching and instant purging capabilities. However, VCL complexity and pricing predictability, especially for smaller companies, along with a user-friendly dashboard are areas impacting my score.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
33%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Computer Software Company
6%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Rules for AWS WAF?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for F5 Rules for AWS WAF was good with purchasing and the s...
What needs improvement with F5 Rules for AWS WAF?
From an improvement standpoint, one area where F5 Rules for AWS WAF could improve is in simplifying policy management...
What is your primary use case for F5 Rules for AWS WAF?
My main use case for F5 Rules for AWS WAF is strengthening web application security for internet-facing applications ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fastly?
The pricing of Fastly can be hard to predict because it is primarily usage-based with minimal setup costs and flexibl...
What needs improvement with Fastly?
Fastly can be improved in certain areas such as VCL, which is powerful but has a steep learning curve for normal user...
What is your primary use case for Fastly?
Fastly serves as an Edge Cloud platform and CDN that we use for real-time Edge Caching and instant caching purging, a...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
No data available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Information Not Available
Twitter, Airbnb, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, The New York Times, Ticketmaster, The Drupal Association, Opera, about.com, imgur, Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, New Relic, shopify, Shazam, Firebase
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Rules for AWS WAF vs. Fastly and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.