Fastly vs Symantec Web Application Firewall comparison

Fastly and Broadcom are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Fastly is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.3, while Broadcom is ranked #46. Fastly holds a 1.5% mindshare in WAF, compared to Broadcom’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fastly users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Fastly

Read 7 Fastly reviews

896 Views
543 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Symantec Web Application Fi...

Read 3 Symantec Web Application Firewall reviews

159 Views
75 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

Fastly

Symantec Web Application Fi...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Fastly and Symantec Web Application Firewall compete in protecting web applications. Fastly has an edge with its seamless integration of security with performance, whereas Symantec is noted for its strong security features.

Features: Fastly provides real-time analytics, a flexible rule engine, and swift threat adaptation. Symantec Web Application Firewall includes comprehensive threat protection, detailed attack visibility, and customizable policies.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fastly offers a quick deployment process that integrates well with existing systems, supported by robust customer service. Symantec requires more time and resources for deployment but offers detailed configuration options for specific security needs.

Pricing and ROI: Fastly features a competitive and flexible pricing structure, promising quick ROI with performance improvements. Symantec Web Application Firewall, while potentially more costly, justifies this with its comprehensive security measures.

To learn more, read our detailed Fastly vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Fastly vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall

June 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

Fastly

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

18th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CDN (7th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (12th)

Symantec Web Application Fi...

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

46th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Fastly is 1.5%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Web Application Firewall is 0.2%, down from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Nick Wilsdon

CEO at Torque

An easily scalable and stable product that provides exceptional support

The product should provide improved bot detection and management. The product should also provide support for code management. Everybody working in CDN is currently looking for ways to better manage code deployment with various authorization levels and synchronization with our lower environments. Matching up what's happening in CDN with what's happening on the origin regarding testing would always be useful.

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reviewer1231533

Head IT Infrastructure (DGM-IT) at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

An excellent up-to-date data repository handling external threats successfully

We have multiple applications that we wanted to ensure were protected and we chose Symantec for that. I'm the head of IT infrastructure and we are partners with Symantec. Symantec has specifically helped connect external users to our internal network. It has also enabled us to ensure that those…

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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

"Its initial setup process is straightforward."

"Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly."

"Rate limiting is a good feature that protects from volumetric attacks."

"Fastly uses configuration versioning, where you can deploy a new version in less than one minute."

"Compute@Edge features are valuable to me."

"The product's initial setup phase is straightforward."

"The product helps our organization to access sites located in different regions quickly."

"The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats."

"The setup was straightforward."

"The interface is user-friendly."

Cons

"Fastly's customer service area needs improvement."

"Support is not that great."

"The product should provide improved bot detection and management."

"Stronger analytics would be helpful, like showing configurations that haven't served a certain amount of traffic in a while. With many properties, things can get lost track of - duplicates or unused configurations not properly decommissioned."

"The solution's pricing could be better."

"What I don't like about Fastly is that they charge a heavy price."

"It is missing a "staging" platform to deploy a test configuration with all of the real settings, which would allow us to properly test before putting it into production."

"It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."

"I'm not convinced that it's necessary the best solution going forward in the future."

"Sometimes scanning slows down the endpoints."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cheaper than other products in the market."

"It is an expensive solution."

"Fastly is less expensive than one of its competitors."

"You need to pay a premium price for the tool."

"The pricing has been very competitive."

"I've generally found Fastly to be very competitive in pricing, especially around Compute@Edge."

"In my opinion, Fastly is priced competitively."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fastly?

Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fastly?

You need to pay a premium price for the tool.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fastly?

What I don't like about Fastly is that they charge a heavy price. The pricing is different per region. If you have a customer who is international and has deployments in different regions, it is ve...

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Comparisons

Akamai vs Fastly

Compared 23% of the time

Cloudflare vs Fastly

Compared 19% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Fastly

Compared 8% of the time

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Fastly

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Fastly

Compared 6% of the time

More Fastly Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fastly

June 2025

Download Fastly product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

June 2025

Symantec Web Application Firewall report

Download Symantec Web Application Firewall product report

Also Known As

No data available

Symantec WAF, Blue Coat Protecting Web Applications

Overview

Fastly helps the world’s most popular digital businesses keep pace with their customer expectations by delivering fast, secure, and scalable online experiences. Businesses trust Fastly’s edge cloud platform to accelerate the pace of technical innovation, mitigate evolving threats, and scale on demand.

Fastly

The Symantec Web Application Firewall (WAF) enables you to secure and accelerate your web applications.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Fastly vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall

June 2025

Free Report: Fastly vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall

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We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.