Radware Alteon vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) comparison

Radware Alteon vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

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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

Cloudflare

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

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reviewer2663061

Project Manager at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees

Manages SSL load balancing and offload efficiently while providing excellent support

The most valuable feature is the support from the engineering team. They quickly resolved a VLAN issue that other vendors could not. The product allows us to manage multiple networks and VLANs into a single box and add numerous web services and farms efficiently. The SSL management and integration capabilities are also standout features.

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reviewer2161107

Staff Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Room for improvement with user interface while competitive pricing impresses

It is managed through Infrastructure as Code, so all configurations can be managed in the code itself, which is beneficial. Because it uses rules, it is easy to set up, and we have many different sites where the configurations are straightforward. Though the UI is not very interactive, which is a downside, we can manage many things. The UI is not very intuitive and could be better. However, we manage all the configurations through code, which is easy to maintain. It has extensive anomaly detection capabilities, so the traffic is classified into several categories where thresholds can be defined and customized based on false positives and false negatives. This is advantageous because you do not need to tweak it very often. Once you set it up, an audit once a quarter would suffice. Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate.

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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

"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."

"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."

"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."

"The technical support is good."

"It's very user-friendly."

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."

More Cloudflare pros

"The most valuable feature is the load-balancing reverse proxy."

"Valuable features of Radware Alteon include global server load balancing, SSL offloading, Layer 7 load balancing, automation and traffic scaling, real-time analytics, and reporting."

"his solution allows me to secure applications, by blocking suspicious traffic based on the signature that has been enabled for that particular application."

"The best feature of Alteon is its automated threat detection and blocking. The university has resource limitations. I am the only one working for the security section, looking after seven products, including Alteon. The automatic blocking of threats and detections is crucial for us."

"I would rate the overall solution ten out of ten."

"The solution has been very stable."

"The integrated application protection provided by Alteon is very good. It really helps to avoid false positives in some cases. It provides important granularity to avoid a situation in which security or cybersecurity scenarios escape us."

"With Alteon, the load-balancing options are practically unlimited. We haven't had any issues with offloading, decryption, putting in cookies, or any other load-balancing features. We can check URLs, etc., on the back end for load balancing instead of running a TCP check. We're also doing some certificate stuff on there. Alteon covers all of the standard load-balancing techniques, and we employ most of them daily."

More Radware Alteon pros

"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily."

"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."

"Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate."

"When configuring a web application firewall using Signal Sciences, we configure a rule whereby no one except a few people can access the application."

Cons

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."

"The product needs to improve its automation."

"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."

"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."

"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."

"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."

"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."

More Cloudflare cons

"Radware LinkProof's marketing efforts need improvement to raise awareness about its capabilities and compete effectively in the market."

"Load balancing needs improvement. It needs better integration. I heard f5 works as a DNS operator which is not available in this solution. It would be better if that was implemented."

"We recently had a problem with the tables Obsolete ARP which was observed by the support team. It would be good to diagnose and solve this problem with a patch since it is not documented that it will be solved in later updates."

"They keep integrating new features that sometimes break our production, but we use clustered systems, so we can test those software releases. However, sometimes they take a while to reach us. We have had to work with Radware to remedy issues on their side that they have verified."

"I would like to see more educational and training sessions."

"I would like this solution to have an integration tool that will convert configuration from other software, into readable values for this product during implementation."

"The GUI needs to be improved. Right now, the solution isn't so user-friendly."

"Radware should work on the vulnerabilities part. There are third-party security solutions that do the security vulnerability assessment (VA). The assessment part needs to be worked on and improved. There should be more solutions. If any issue comes up and if any vulnerability is reported, the Radware team should do an R&D on that and work on that. They should give the solution to the customer."

More Radware Alteon cons

"Fastly don't support caching for China users. That's the only feature lacking compared to Akamai."

"The UI is not very intuitive and could be better."

"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."

"Even if we create some custom rules, Signal Sciences cannot capture some of the malicious traffic."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"Our government agency opted for Radware Alteon due to its affordability and efficiency. While I can't say precisely how much it costs the organization, the price per device. In India, we always look for affordable products, so I assume Alteon is cost-effective because the government chose it."

"It is not the priciest and it is not the cheapest. For our solution, it was right in the middle of price performance."

"Alteon's price is excellent compared to other solutions. F5 costs around twice as much. We still have about three years left before this hardware reaches the end of its life. We're migrating to the cloud, and phasing some of this out, but it's nice that they've given us a long window to keep their hardware in place."

"The price conforms to what the tool provides. It is not an inexpensive tool and not all companies can afford an ADC solution such as Alteon. However, it justifies its price with the options it offers."

"The pricing is better than the competition. It is getting more pricey as the years go on, as more people are migrating to it, and as the technology gets better."

"The pricing seems reasonable to me for what the solution provides. It is within the parameters of this type of solution."

"We have three-year contract with Radware. It is beneficial to have a longer-term contract because you can obtain more discounts. It seems to be a much cheaper alternative."

"It is the best in the industry. It was better than the competition, and that is what made us go ahead with them."

More Radware Alteon pricing and cost advice

"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

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Retailer

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	21

No data available

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...

Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?

Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...

What do you like most about Cloudflare?

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

What do you like most about Radware AppWall?

It saves us a lot of work in terms of management since it has tasks already defined automatically. That enables us to...

What needs improvement with Radware AppWall?

There is room for improvement in reducing the number of false positives I receive. We could benefit from more configu...

What is your primary use case for Radware AppWall?

We are a system integrator company in the Philippines, and we are selling Radware Alteon product. Radware Alteon is u...

What do you like most about Signal Sciences?

The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Signal Sciences?

The pricing is very competitive compared to other providers. The pricing is definitely a factor in our decision-makin...

What needs improvement with Signal Sciences?

We do use it, but the UI can be improved as we mostly work through the CI/CD. It provides support, but sometimes it i...

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

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Akamai vs Cloudflare

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Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Compared 16% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Radware Alteon

Compared 11% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Radware Alteon

Compared 9% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Radware Alteon

Compared 7% of the time

HAProxy vs Radware Alteon

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 11% of the time

Azure Front Door vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

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Product Reports

Download Cloudflare product report

Cloudflare

January 2026

Radware Alteon

Download Radware Alteon product report

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

Download The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) product report

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Alteon, Radware AppWall

Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF, Signal Sciences RASP

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

Radware Alteon is an advanced network solution offering exceptional load balancing, SSL offloading, and integrated application protection. Its high performance and user-friendly interface make it ideal for enhancing server capacity and reliability in demanding environments.

Radware Alteon enhances performance with robust load balancing, SSL-TLS acceleration, and comprehensive security features. Its automated threat detection and real-time analytics provide crucial insights and mitigation within high-demand scenarios. Users benefit from seamless server and application traffic management along with web application firewall capabilities, ensuring high availability and compliance with security standards. Scalability is supported through strong hardware and ease of integration, although improvements are needed in cloud service automation and interface simplicity. Challenges include response times and live traffic monitoring, with limited resources in support and documentation. Scalability faces constraints due to throughput limitations.

What are the key features of Radware Alteon?

Load Balancing: Optimizes traffic distribution across servers to enhance performance.
SSL Offloading: Alleviates pressure on servers via SSL-TLS acceleration and certificate management.
Application Protection: Integrates security measures to safeguard applications effectively.
Threat Detection: Automates identification of threats to ensure immediate action.
Real-time Analytics: Provides insights into network performance and security status.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

High Availability: Reliable load management ensures consistent service uptime.
Scalability: Supports network growth efficiently with robust hardware capabilities.
Performance Efficiency: Enhances server functionality by offloading intensive tasks like SSL processing.
Enhanced Security: Protects applications with integrated security features, reducing vulnerabilities.

Radware Alteon is crucial for industries requiring reliable load balancing across multiple servers and applications. It supports inbound and outbound traffic management, focusing on web application protection and data center security. Businesses in telecommunications, finance, and retail utilize its capabilities for server and link balancing, ensuring adherence to strict security standards with seamless functionality across diverse network environments.

Radware

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) provides web application and API protection, RASP, rate limiting, bot protection and DDoS purpose built to eliminate the challenges of legacy WAF.

Fastly

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Convergys

Chef, Adobe, Datadog, Etsy, GrubHub, Vimeo, SendGrid, Under Armour, Duo, AppNexus

Radware Alteon vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)