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Fortinet FortiWeb vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) 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

Fortinet FortiWeb
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
27th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
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 Fortinet FortiWeb is 8.4%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Kacem CHAMMALI - PeerSpot reviewer
Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb
The xFF, or X-Forwarded-For feature, IP reputation, and protected hostname. We can block access using the IP address, so no one can connect to our web server or website using the real IP. They need to use the FQDN instead. Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb and the option to protect the hostname. All traffic passes through FortiWeb. Machine learning capabilities in FortiWeb: I don't use machine learning all the time. In the initial phase of FortiWeb deployment, we use the learning process to detect the traffic passing through FortiGate to our website.
Archana Heeralal - PeerSpot reviewer
A good solution to implement web application firewall for applications
There are some lags in Signal Sciences for the web application firewalls. Even if we create some custom rules, Signal Sciences cannot capture some of the malicious traffic. There is a little bit of complexity with custom rules that should be removed. Signal Sciences should add a feature called rate limiting with multiple options, wherein I can create a rate limiting based on the cookie request or the IP.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You have the ability to control everything from one single dashboard."
"The solution has a good sandbox feature."
"This product is very user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature in this solution is the ability to disseminate between the user entering some wrong value to the field, and a suspicious actor trying to exploit some known vulnerability."
"The policies and the filtering are the most valuable features, especially traffic, URL, and application filtering. The solution is excellent at detecting vulnerabilities."
"It is a stable product."
"Fortinet FortiWeb has improved my organization by protecting our customer's web infrastructure environment."
"Provides good vulnerability scanning, IPS, and geolocalization."
"Fastly (Signal Sciences) integrates and tags the intermittent traffic based on patterns. It generates signals and provides them in a dashboard where we can view them and decide whether to allow or deny traffic. It's a more advanced and easy-to-navigate dashboard."
"When configuring a web application firewall using Signal Sciences, we configure a rule whereby no one except a few people can access the application."
"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily."
 

Cons

"The dashboard evaluating the performance of each application connected to the web app's firewall is quite helpful, but the tool is only available in application performance management. So I think if Fortinet could better integrate that particular feature, it would add a lot of value to the product."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The memory use in each of the appliances is problematic."
"The solution is not very scalable, to scale up would require another deployment with a new appliance and a change to the network."
"The support side of things can be improved."
"For advanced users, it would be really useful to have access and the ability to manipulate packets. If we can access and manipulate the contents of packets, even encrypted packets... that would be powerful. Since we're looking at packets arriving at our network, we would have the private key to access those packets and their information."
"Though the reporting is a nice aspect associated with the tool, I feel that it has certain shortcomings and can be made better."
"The interface could have the interdependent elements arranged sequentially and wizards that go through most common deployment actions."
"Even if we create some custom rules, Signal Sciences cannot capture some of the malicious traffic."
"Fastly don't support caching for China users. That's the only feature lacking compared to Akamai."
"The areas that could be improved in Signal Sciences include the effectiveness of rules, as many didn't function optimally and required custom rule-writing to address bypasses for WAF."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a ten out of ten."
"The price of Fortinet FortiWeb is expensive in our Ethiopian currency."
"The price is competitive."
"Due to the situation in Iran with the sanctions, the price of this solution is very expensive."
"The costs are standard. We pay around $1,600 yearly."
"The cost isn't expensive."
"The solution is a bit expensive when compared to other products."
"FortiWeb offers these services at a price that SME customers can afford, but it's also suitable for large enterprises. Still, they need to put in more work to gain a greater share of enterprise business because they face stiff competition in this segment from F5, Cloudflare, and some others."
"The pricing is 50% less than Akamai."
"The product has an affordable cost."
"Signal Sciences is pretty cheap compared to other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
Fortinet FortiWeb is cost-effective compared to solutions like F5. It offers strong performance for the price, providing substantial value for our customers.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
The cloud-based security service of Fortinet FortiWeb could be enhanced to match the level of providers like Cloudflare ( /products/cloudflare-reviews ). Right now, it is more focused on on-prem so...
What do you like most about Signal Sciences?
The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily.
What needs improvement with Signal Sciences?
Fastly don't support caching for China users. That's the only feature lacking compared to Akamai.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF, Signal Sciences RASP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Chef, Adobe, Datadog, Etsy, GrubHub, Vimeo, SendGrid, Under Armour, Duo, AppNexus
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiWeb vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.