F5 Advanced WAF vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
24th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the market share of F5 Advanced WAF is 15.0% and it increased by 34.1% compared to the previous year. The market share of The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is 0.9% and it increased by 86.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Unique Categories:
No other categories found
No other categories found
 

Featured Reviews

Richard Polyak - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 24, 2022
Protects our environment and is easy to use and scalable for our needs
It protects our public entities. Its use case is very directed at a resolution of security It protects our environment. It protects our entities. Identification, ease of use, and ease of modifying it to most of our needs are valuable. There should be more ability to rate limit certain…
VK
May 6, 2024
Offers Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) and provides enhanced dashboards, making it easy to identify and allow or deny traffic based on the signals it provides
The initial setup was super easy. The migration was super easy. The only part we were missing was China cache. Other than that, it has everything Akamai was providing: image optimization, CDN, WAF, and all the other security aspects. The China cache was the one thing we were missing in Fastly, so we had to do it differently. Deployment was a few weeks for the migration. If you're starting a brand new site, it's straightforward; maybe in a week or two, you can be up and running. But if it's a migration from a different CDN, it would probably take four to six weeks. We wanted to know the caching rules and how teams were doing things differently, so we had each member from the team gather inputs. Then we migrated and started writing the VCL code. It's very little maintenance. But with every draft, you need to periodically check the dashboard for anomalies and take action. Once a month or once a quarter, you need to do that exercise. Moreover, there are a couple of integrations with other observability tools like Datadog and Slack. It's easy to enable access with SSL, Okta, and Flash teams.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the easy identification of events and customization. We can pinpoint our settings."
"The solution isn't too expensive. The license allows you to license what you need and leave out what you don't need."
"The solution uses AI to protect against botnet attacks."
"It also has antivirus and DDoS mitigation capabilities. We have enabled these features."
"Good dashboard and reporting."
"It is also quite intuitive and user-friendly. They have several webinars that are actually like labs. You can use these webinars to learn about how to use all features of the product."
"Very easy to implement and works well."
"The product has valuable features for load balancing, monitoring tools, and HPXpress services."
"When configuring a web application firewall using Signal Sciences, we configure a rule whereby no one except a few people can access the application."
"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."
"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily."
 

Cons

"People who want to work with the device have to be pro in Linux"
"The solution should include RASP for another level of protection at the code itself."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve the reporting. It's a bit difficult to populate, them. If you're not so familiar with the functions, such as where to find the logs and other settings."
"They should work on the virtualization of NGINX."
"The solution is tedious. It takes a lot of discrete settings so one needs to get detailed and granular when they use the solution. It takes you a whole lot of energy and concentration to configure. It needs to be much more straight-forward, like other web solutions."
"The contextual-based component needs a lot of help to catch up with the next-gen products."
"The deployment side is quite complex."
"This solution can be made more user-friendly."
"Fastly don't support caching for China users. That's the only feature lacking compared to Akamai."
"Even if we create some custom rules, Signal Sciences cannot capture some of the malicious traffic."
"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

"F5 bundles up services and the bundle is what you pay for rather than individual components."
"As far as the pricing of F5 Advanced WAF I would rate it a four out of five depending on what features I am looking for. Imperva is more expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable when compared with other products, such as FortiWeb. I am very satisfied with the price."
"There is a perpetual license that comes with your hardware. There is also an additional fee for support."
"F5 Advanced WAF technical support comes at a cost, and it's expensive."
"F5 Advanced WAF is not a cost-effective solution. Although they are attempting to reduce prices with their VE and cloud options, they are more expensive than other solutions. The solution is more expensive on average."
"There are different licenses available to use F5 Advanced WAF, such as BT, ASM, and LPM."
"Its price is fair. We have done a couple of deals where they were able to give some kind of discount to the customers. The price was initially high for the customers, but after a couple of negotiations, it came within their budget. They were happy with that."
"Signal Sciences is pretty cheap compared to other solutions."
"The pricing is 50% less than Akamai."
"The product has an affordable cost."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
787,061 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about F5 Advanced WAF?
It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the rules per the requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?
The product is not so expensive. It depends on the assets.
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
The self-service aspect could be improved. The user interface (UI) also seems a bit outdated. Making it more user-friendly would be beneficial.
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
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Chef, Adobe, Datadog, Etsy, GrubHub, Vimeo, SendGrid, Under Armour, Duo, AppNexus
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
787,061 professionals have used our research since 2012.