F5 Advanced WAF Reviews

In general, the web interface is not really catchy. It's very powerful, very customizable, but it doesn't have a very nice GUI interface for a new adopter. For them, they'd have to do a lot of configuring. At least the reporting and monitoring parts, let's say, to be honest, should have a better interface. A few other products have very nice dashboards, out of the box, and F5 is not that friendly to use.

Also, when you buy WAF, you have to buy another module called APM to do authentication. You have to buy another module with an extra license, to have the authentication feature. Other vendors have it interwoven. For example, I don't know if Barracuda has it, but Citrix has it under the same license. So maybe add authentication functionality in the AOS license, and not separate.

The stability is perfect. 10 out of 10. We've not had any trouble with any deployment ever. And they are very big deployments: service providers, TelCos, banking, everywhere. Even on distant parts of the network, we have not had any kind of performance issues. Of course, as long as the sizing is within the appliance performance range. But it never has had a failure in performance or degradation of service or anything like this, as long as the full-time traffic is within the box capability, we've never had an issue.

It's scalable. 

We are a partner for F5, or a system integrator, not the client. So we do the implementation for other companies. I've been working with F5 for more than 10 years, so I know them very well. 

I like them because I like the security solution. They get extra marks compared to other solutions or competitors. There are more features than any other product I can think of. They're always monitoring, and the security features offer more than other, lesser products.

I would rate this solution 10 out of 10.

We are a PPS payment providing services company in banking, so, we are using it for that. We are banking company and we are using it as a web application firewall.

We have an SOC, and for collecting logs we are also using the F5 logs to analyze the securities and events. So having a central log management and F5 really helped us to analyze the security logs. It also helps with blocking the attacks on web applications.

Everything is good about the F5 WAF, except the reporting. It's really difficult to set records from that device, the UI is kind of hard to work with, and the reporting must be improved.

As a suggestion to the F5 company, they have to put in shells to have the next generation WAF. So, instead of buying different modules and different hardware and appliances, they can offer an all-in-one solution for WAF.

The initial setup was was easy to install. Our department wasn't installing it, the infrastructure department installed it, so we gave them the policy that we wanted to use.

Because of the sanctions, we couldn't buy it straight from the US, so we bought it from an Iranian company. They provided us that solution. The company that sold us the device also had some people to consult with us to give us best practices from the previous companies that installed it.

I think it's a good product but the F5 uses shells, so the people who want to work with the device have to be pro in Linux. If they can put everything in the UI so every regular security engineer can work with it, it's fabulous.

I would rate the solution 8 out of 10. We are concerned about the other factors but it's actually not F5 company's fault. The pricing is really high here right now because of the dollar rate but it has nothing to do with the F5, it's because of the sanctions I imagine. At the moment it's a really expensive solution for us, not only F5 but the other appliances. 
If I went to another company, and the other company hired me, I would suggest they use this device. Although we don't have a lot of options to choose from around here.

Most of the time, we use it as a load balancer. It's for the client’s applications. They then apply WAF policies, of course, if the customer wants, and also an APM solution, like VPN access or Web Box, like a web and reverse protocol. Customers vary in terms of what they want.

The WAF and APM are very useful. I like the modules.

The solution has been mostly stable and reliable.

It can scale.

The BNS module needs improvement.

I’ve been using the solution for the last four and a half or five years. It’s been a while.

Most of the time, the stability is okay. For the most part, we don’t have issues with bugs or the solution crashing. It’s fine.

The solution can scale as necessary.

We have a lot of telecom and banking clients that use the solution. I’m not sure how much in total each client has in terms of users. Whoever would be using it would be more on the technical side.

We do plan to increase usage and to continue to offer this to our clients.

We help with the support as well as implementation. If a client runs into issues, they can always talk to us.

I’ve contacted the technical support of F5. However, I haven’t used them that much. They have always been okay. I’ve never had issues with them.

Sometimes the setup is straightforward. Other times it’s more complicated. It depends on the client and the project. How long the deployment takes depends on what they want.

You only need one person to handle deployment and maintenance tasks.

We are an integrator and can help customers set up the solution.

While there may be a potential for ROI, I don’t track it.

I’m not sure about the licensing. I don’t handle this aspect of the product.

We’re platinum partners with F5 in Greece. We’re integrators and resellers. We work with different versions.

The solution can be deployed both on the cloud and on-premises.

I’d recommend the solution to others.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten. We’ve been pretty happy with its capabilities.

We use the F5 Advanced WAF for TicTac on house applications at our Induction University.

One of the most valuable features is the Local Traffic Manager.

The Sandbox integration feature could be improved.

I have been using F5 Advanced WAF for approximately one year.

F5 Advanced WAF is reliable.

The solution is scalable.

We have one customer that has multiple sites that use this solution. They have 24 universities using the clusters.

The technical support is good.

The installation is straightforward.

I am able to do the installation by myself.

There is an annual subscription for this solution.

I would recommend this solution to others that are satisfied with the load balancer provided. If not then they could go to another solution with different load balancers for their needs.

I rate F5 Advanced WAF a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case for this solution is web application security. We deploy this solution on-premises.

We have found the accessibility feature most valuable. For example, the solution is easily accessible on mobile and laptop devices and allows you to send and receive money from anyone.

The delay times on firmware patches and software updates could be better and improved.

We have been using this solution for seven years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

The initial setup is complex but easy once you understand the product.

Their pricing is very good for the quality of the product they have delivered in the market. It is a standard licensing cost annually.

We chose this product because we believe it is the best product for us. There are other firewalls in the market, but you always look for the best as a vendor.