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F5 Silverline Managed Services vs Symantec Web Application Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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 Silverline Managed Services
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (5th)
Symantec Web Application Fi...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
31st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Silverline Managed Services is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Web Application Firewall is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Silverline Managed Services1.5%
Symantec Web Application Firewall0.8%
Other97.7%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Sanchit Makkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Dns architect at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Robust protection has secured global web assets and keeps critical applications available
F5 Silverline Managed Services can be improved in areas with complex onboarding processes and slow deployment settings. Tuning of policy requires significant technical expertise, and there is a lack of knowledge in the F5 world where one needs to go through a steep learning curve in understanding what and how the policy should be configured for effectively protecting an application. These processes need to be streamlined.Knowing the limitations of F5 Silverline Managed Services, F5 has come out with a new product called F5 distributed cloud WAF platform, which has a better API integrated with security modules. It also offers advanced auto discovery, swagger, and open API validation, which is much better than Silverline.
Vatsal Mehta - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Co-Founder & CEO at HEDEHI Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Boosts Security Measures with Easy Deployment and Implementation
Regarding areas for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall, I think they can enhance the features they currently focus on, as there are various types of web applications, and it would be great if they could develop features to cater to all these types. For example, a feature to scan for unauthorized plugins or extensions could let us know if those extensions are authorized, unauthorized, or malicious. There's room for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall by introducing AI into their dashboard so that we can query the dashboard and fetch data insights, similar to querying ChatGPT for answers. They currently have this feature but can make improvements for better querying to get insights.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The 30% efficiency improvement has definitely resulted in increased revenue for us, and with our website performing much better, I am able to achieve faster cycle times in terms of lead to conversion."
"F5 Silverline Managed Services is recognized as one of the best solutions in Gartner for WAF; I believe it can effectively manage vast amounts of traffic better than other brands like Citrix or FortiGate's WAF solution."
"The most valuable feature of F5 Silverline Managed Services is it becomes similar to a distributed architecture."
"The most valuable features are the configuration and configuring the process."
"F5 Silverline takes fewer resources to operate."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"If you are looking for web security and don't have any solution, just try it."
"The setup was straightforward."
"The best feature of Symantec Web Application Firewall is that it is very easy to use, and the deployment and implementation processes are really easy."
"It provides us with a sense of security."
"This product is doing what it should and what we are expecting from it."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats."
 

Cons

"The price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be better, they are not very flexible."
"F5 Silverline Managed Services can be improved in areas with complex onboarding processes and slow deployment settings."
"We'd like more AI to be used. Right now, they don't use it enough."
"The product could be improved on the global load and the integration with the other solution like Cisco and Dell. As a representor of the operation, we prefer to have one platform which can accommodate all type of integration. We are also looking for more improvements in the security policy configuration."
"Improvements could include the creation of highly optimized profiles, optimization deployments, and compression profiles for better performance."
"We need to have support for cloud protection, which is not offered by this solution."
"To make this solution much better, they must have a user-friendly configuration interface."
"There is room for improvement in the stability of the solution."
"On a scale from one to 10, I would give it a five. I'm not convinced that it's necessarily the best solution going forward in the future."
"There's room for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall by introducing AI into their dashboard so that we can query the dashboard and fetch data insights, similar to querying ChatGPT for answers."
"One of our issues is that sometimes scanning slows down the endpoints."
"It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be better, they are not very flexible. The price of the solution is based on the requirements of the enterprise."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"The price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be reduced."
"F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall works based on your bandwidth. They look at the clean bandwidth and do the pricing. 20% of a total pipe would be a clean bandwidth. The list price or a non-negotiated price for F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall would be around $2,200 per application per year for everything that you need. When you get into an enterprise kind of a setup, they negotiate this to the last bit. I would easily take 20% on that, which would be the cost, but it should cover all your Advance WAF features, bot protection, tech campaign, etc. It is built as a package and gives you most of the capability. You don't get the mobile SDK, which is an additional license. Mobile SDK is required only if you're buying or if you have a mobile application, and you are going to instrument F5 or Imperva into your mobile appliance. This anyways would be an additional module. It doesn't come within the WAF, but it is a WAF feature."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise13
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?
For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Silverline Managed Services?
My company has a business relationship with F5 Silverline Managed Services, as they charge based on services provided. The operational team handles project configuration. We mostly purchase F5 Silv...
What needs improvement with F5 Silverline Managed Services?
The disadvantages of F5 Silverline Managed Services in comparison to Radware include complexities in WAF technology and iRules, which are highly useful. Radware provides straightforward blocking WA...
What needs improvement with Symantec Web Application Firewall?
Regarding areas for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall, I think they can enhance the features they currently focus on, as there are various types of web applications, and it would be ...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Web Application Firewall?
Our use case for Symantec Web Application Firewall is primarily for security purposes as we develop web application solutions for our customers. We have a business where we provide solutions for cr...
What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Web Application Firewall?
I would recommend Symantec Web Application Firewall to other users due to all the benefits I mentioned earlier, such as ease of use, ease of implementation, good technical support, and compared to ...
 

Also Known As

F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, F5 Silverline DDoS Protection
Symantec WAF, Blue Coat Protecting Web Applications
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Silverline Managed Services vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.