AWS WAF vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AWS WAF
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Web Services offers AWS WAF (web application firewall) to protect web applications from malicious behavior that might impede the applications functioning and performance, with customizable rules to prevent known harmful behaviors and an API for creating and deploying web security rules.
$0.60
per 1 million requests
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
F5 Networks offers the F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager, a firewall software combining a number of features including DDoS, DNS security, and other protections.N/A
Pricing
AWS WAFF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Editions & Modules
Resource Type - Request
$0.60
per 1 million requests
Resource Type - Rule
$1.00
per month (prorated hourly)
Resource Type - Web ACL
$5.00
per month (prorated hourly)
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AWS WAFF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AWS WAFF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Features
AWS WAFF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
AWS WAF
-
Ratings
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
8.6
2 Ratings
0% below category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AWS WAFF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Small Businesses
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.6 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.6 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
Score 9.3 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AWS WAFF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(9 ratings)
8.3
(5 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AWS WAFF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Well Suited: 1. To prevent DDOS attacks: AWS WAF has a lot of managed rules to prevent DDOS attacks based on traffic origination from a particular IP or IP reputation etc. 2. To rate-limit requests: Well it sounds familiar like preventing DDOS attacks, but it can also be used to rate-limit requests originating from the same IP address. We have used this feature so that we can test multiple failure scenarios for our application. 3. To prevent Data crawling: The BOT control feature allows us to prevent BOTs from crawling data on our websites. Not Suited: 1. To integrate applications outside of AWS Cloud: As I mentioned in my previous comments, this type of integration requires a custom implementation of another AWS resource.
Read full review
F5
We were able to eliminate a firewall from our network architecture by integrating the module into our existing F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM). This allowed us to save on tech refresh costs, since the F5 was able to handle the module without much additional strain on the device. However, if a firewall had features that the AFM lacked, then using that firewall in tandem with an F5 would be preferable.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • Protect any application against the most common attacks.
  • Provides better visibility of web traffic.
  • It allows us to control the traffic in different ways in which it is enabled or blocked through the implementation of security rules developed personally according to our needs.
  • It is able to block common attacks such as SQL code injection.
  • It allows defining specific rules for applications, thus increasing web security as they are developed.
Read full review
F5
  • Load balancing using pools
  • SSL offloading
  • iRules for threat handling
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • AWS WAF is a bit costly if used for single applications.
  • they should provide attack-wise protection, like if my certain type of application is vulnerable to DDOS then I should be able to buy WAF, especially for that attack.
  • CLI tool to test in offline mode if possible.
Read full review
F5
  • If unsure, can be overly cautious.
  • There are few changes the end user can make.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
We have been using AWS WAF for the past 3 years in front of our websites. We find it useful in preventing data crawling, DDOS attacks, etc on our websites, and hence we are going to use it in the future as well. AWS WAF is one of the best Firewalls in business.
Read full review
F5
No answers on this topic
Usability
Amazon AWS
The product is highly scalable. It is easy to configure the rules and thereby helps us to mitigate many vulnerabilities. The interface and programming of the firewall provisions were easy to setup. Amazon clearly spent a lot of time figuring this out and perfecting it. It allows users to do customized configurations based on their needs. It provides protection against a number of security issues like XSS, SQL injection, etc. I would definitely recommend this for protecting your infra as you scale, since this basically protects and filters all requests hitting your application server.
Read full review
F5
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
If you're intending to use AWS WAF, I would say that you absolutely should sign up for support. AWS Support is excellent and they can help you in a really good way to solve your issues.
Read full review
F5
F5 Advanced Firewall Manager has been a solid, strong solution to both keep our systems safe and being seamless for our end users. Most of the time, the end-user is not impacted and does not even know F5 Advanced Firewall Manager is running which is exactly what we are looking for.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Easy of use. Setup and configuration is fairly quick. There are the usual advantages of it being a cloud solution where you can buy into the solution, configure it and set it up and get it up and running. If you are already a subscriber to AWS, having a native service has its advantages.
Read full review
F5
Both F5 [BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager] and Radware require training as they are not easy to use. But Radware uses some configuration that needs deep learning and proper labs. From an admin's perspective, Configuration and management for F5 [BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager are] less. Also, the cost of implementing F5 [BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager] is lesser than that of Radware Alteon.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • Implementing this AWS service has been really favorable because when creating custom rules we give more specific protection to our applications against vulnerabilities that cause them to be consuming other resources or running with errors.
  • It allows us to control the traffic of our business applications, which is really favorable, given that in this way we can decide that you can access them and not.
  • It is extremely advantageous that we can establish rules in a centralized way since it saves time, as well as it allows us to protect several applications at the same time by reusing the rules established above.
  • It allows you to save time and money because we only pay for what is used.
Read full review
F5
  • When we had to decide on whether to buy different hardware our team were all in support of renewal for F5 [BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager]
  • F5 [BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager] requires proper training on tools and clear concepts of packets, headers, and content to create WAF policies
  • Overall, we are satisfied by the ROI provided by our F5 AFM and GTMs
Read full review
ScreenShots