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

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AWS WAF
Score 7.7 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 9.8 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)
Top Pros
Top Cons
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
1% above 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 8.8 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.8 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
F5 Advanced WAF
F5 Advanced WAF
Score 9.3 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AWS WAFF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(8 ratings)
7.6
(5 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 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
Most suited if you have a very strong presence in AWS. It is natively available as an add on service. You can also track the costs overtime based on usage. There is still a lot of improvement on the features and the user interface that can be implemented over time
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.
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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.
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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.
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F5
  • If unsure, can be overly cautious.
  • There are few changes the end user can make.
Read full review
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.
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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.
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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.
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Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
Unlike these other AWS tools, WAF provides real-time traffic control, rules that can be customized according to the needs of the user, and is based on an implementation in the cloud which avoids the use of memory on computers as well as an account with a very affordable cost for any user or company
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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.
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Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • The overall security of the web application increased effectively after deploying AWS WAF
  • No negative impacts were seen in the business
  • The developers were more confident in the overall security model of the web application being developed and it was easy to integrate WAF into the existing system as the application was also using AWS platform
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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