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F5 Silverline Managed Services vs Symantec Web Application Firewall comparison

 

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)
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
19
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 August 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of F5 Silverline Managed Services is 1.5%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Web Application Firewall is 0.8%, up from 0.2% 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

Mohan Janarthanan - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Cloud applications have gained stronger protection and real-time defense against web attacks
What really stands out for me in terms of advantages of F5 Silverline Managed Services is that in a single cloud platform, I can protect my web applications against attacks. I can also use my load balancer in F5 because they are providing and acting as a load balancer too, and they will support the volumetric and DDoS attacks and malicious attacks. Regarding the real-time threat intelligence feature, I do use this aspect in F5 Silverline Managed Services. It blocks malicious IPs or bad IPs for my server, protecting against my applications. For example, if someone is a bad actor trying to access via a malicious IP, I can block it because the threat intelligence has the capability to block the malicious IP. The adaptable and flexible security impacts threat response time positively. It is effective because it blocks my malicious traffic. Whenever I face issues related to that application, it automatically routes my traffic to act as a proxy and routes my traffic to their scrubbing center, especially in case of any volumetric attack.
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

"F5 Silverline Managed Services has a very positive impact on my organization."
"F5 technical support is really good; it is better than A10."
"The most important feature is that they have seven firewall protection, to protect our web servers."
"We have a lot of businesses that we put behind this solution, and it has really helped us in terms of monitoring the logs and incidents."
"I think F5 is one of the best web application firewalls in the world."
"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 Web Application Firewall works perfectly fine; it pretty much does everything that an Advanced WAF on-premises should do."
"This product is doing what it should and what we are expecting from it."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"It provides us with a sense of security."
"The setup was straightforward."
"The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats."
"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."
 

Cons

"Sometimes tech support can be slow. They take more time assigning engineers to complex issues, however, they resolve the issues by joining me to fix them."
"We have complaints about the reliability of this solution."
"I just hope the price can be cheaper."
"The price is high in comparison to other products."
"We are doing a lot of automation, so I find the APIs are not very easy to use. So the current automation is not that good for F5 at the moment."
"F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, being a new product in the market or comparatively related to a new product, currently supports less number of PoPs."
"In terms of the scalability, this part is always so confusing because they are checking for packet count. Also, after an attack, they said that the throughput must be from gigabits but then I check my bandwidth and it is already done in gigabits. So it is a little bit confusing."
"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."
"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 product’s pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"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."
"The price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be reduced."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Insurance Company
8%
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 Enterprise11
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 experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is better than other solutions.
What needs improvement with F5 Silverline Managed Services?
I think the management portal and the visual dashboard of F5 Silverline Managed Services could use an update.
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: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.