Cloudflare vs. F5 BIG-IP

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cloudflare
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Cloudflare, from the company of the same name in San Francisco, provides DDoS and bot mitigation security for business domains, as well as a content delivery network (CDN) and web application firewall (WAF).
$20
per month
BIG-IP
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
F5 BIG-IP software from Seattle-based F5 Networks is a load balancing and application protection solution suite available on cloud or via virtual editions, on a subscription or perpetual licensing basis. The BIG-IP suite of products supports a wide range of security and application performance needs. The suite includes BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) traffic management and optimization, BIG-IP DNS, BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) identity and password protection, BIG-IP Application…N/A
Pricing
CloudflareF5 BIG-IP
Editions & Modules
Pro
$20
per month
Business
$200
per month
Free
Free
Enterprise
Contact sales team
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CloudflareBIG-IP
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
CloudflareF5 BIG-IP
Considered Both Products
Cloudflare
Chose Cloudflare
Just Cloudflare having an easier visualization already shoots ahead of its competitors
Chose Cloudflare
I like Cloudflare due to its extensive set of features and powerful tools. Its current distributed architecture can handle the magnitude of today's threats and can fully prevent DDoS attacks of all types and sizes. I love to use this tool because it also enables me to simply …
BIG-IP
Chose F5 BIG-IP
I used NGINX and Cloudflare CDN and now that F5 owns NGINX it’s been an easy switch. Cloudflare has a very intuitive platform that makes it easy to get up and running. Most of my experience is with F5 and I’m happy to say it’s made my experience streamlined enough that I …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
CloudflareF5 BIG-IP
Virtual Private Network
Comparison of Virtual Private Network features of Product A and Product B
Cloudflare
-
Ratings
F5 BIG-IP
7.8
10 Ratings
9% below category average
AES 256-bit Encryption00 Ratings8.47 Ratings
Kill Switch00 Ratings7.04 Ratings
Multi-Platform Support00 Ratings7.25 Ratings
Split Tunneling00 Ratings7.54 Ratings
IP Address Masking00 Ratings8.56 Ratings
No-Logs Policy00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
Multiple Server Locations00 Ratings8.25 Ratings
Automatic Wi-Fi Protection00 Ratings6.33 Ratings
Simultaneous Connections00 Ratings8.48 Ratings
Customer Support Services00 Ratings8.88 Ratings
Best Alternatives
CloudflareF5 BIG-IP
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

Avast Small Business Solutions
Avast Small Business Solutions
Score 8.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
BIG-IP
BIG-IP
Score 9.0 out of 10
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
BIG-IP
BIG-IP
Score 9.0 out of 10
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CloudflareF5 BIG-IP
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(159 ratings)
9.1
(116 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.8
(4 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(8 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(128 ratings)
6.9
(6 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CloudflareF5 BIG-IP
Likelihood to Recommend
Cloudflare
It is easy to set up, and within 10 minutes it is up and running. You can add many domains in one dashboard. So no need for a separate Cloudflare account. I can access all my domain DNS, and customize/add it further. For example by adding the Google Webmaster DNS key or my email provider.
Read full review
F5
I really do think it's well suited for any placement on the edge, especially with the WAF portion. APM is a whole different module unto itself that allows for VPN Connect connectivity, web top access. So it really is for these modules anyway, an edge appliance for us and not really usable in the interior of the network.
Read full review
Pros
Cloudflare
  • Registrar and DNS services are impeccable, with registrations done at cost and without ADs. DNS services setting standards for speed of resolution.
  • DDOS protection. With their content distribution network to back them they have the bandwidth and tools to be both proactive and reactive to bad actors.
  • WAF - Their Web Application Firewall helps mitigate common site vulnerabilities and has active zero-day protection running for breaking exploits
Read full review
F5
  • Easy connection: you can connect to your corporate network with two clicks.
  • IP restriction: F5 has a list of possible insecure IP numbers, if someone tries to connect using one of these numbers, F5 BIG-IP won't connect.
  • Always on feature: Very handy feature, if you install always on, you won't need to click connect.
Read full review
Cons
Cloudflare
  • In some cases, using Cloudflare can actually lead to slower website speeds if the network is congested or if the website's traffic is particularly heavy.
  • Some website owners may find that the level of customization offered by Cloudflare is limited, especially in comparison to other solutions.
  • While Cloudflare is easy to set up and manage, it may be too complex for users who are not familiar with web technologies.
Read full review
F5
  • I think the policy configuration that had some improvements on the ASM word things, improvements may be on the signatures that would be good because it's a little bit confusing on the ASL, how they are updated and deployed, and this staging. So that's something that could be.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cloudflare
lower cost
Read full review
F5
Only way to to this type of tasks
Read full review
Usability
Cloudflare
Everything is extremely concise and all settings apply immediately and take effect globally. There is no reason to explicitly plan/think in terms of individual regions as one would have to traditional cloud offerings (AWS, OCI, Azure). All Cloudflare products integrate seamless as part of a single pipeline that executes from request to response.
Read full review
F5
Great customization and easy to use help reference menus
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Cloudflare
In 6+ years of relying on Cloudflare, I think we experienced one or two brief outages that were Cloudflare's fault.
Read full review
F5
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cloudflare
Their Argo for the global network is the core feature we love.
Read full review
F5
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cloudflare
We really like to talk to a person on the phone or using chat. But the system is very slow and sending to much email to get the issue solve. Something we don't like to spend time writing on the community forum our issue because we don't want to share detail information of our POC.
Read full review
F5
On the occasions when we've had to engage f5 support, they have been great. They have always resolved our issues quickly and been easy to work with and professional. The reason I give them a 10 out of 10, however, is because when we've had issues that have crossed over between the f5 BIG-IP, our Cisco switches, and our Microsoft IIS server the f5 support representatives have been extremely knowledgeable about every product and device involved and have been able to troubleshoot end-to-end without having to engage other vendors.
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Implementation Rating
Cloudflare
Very well executed implementation where our team was able to handle the implementation with guidance.
Read full review
F5
implementation is fine
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Cloudflare
Firebase can be a good starter for basic projects but as I scaled up, I found it lacking the maturity Cloudflare has. Naturaly, I opted for Cloudflare for bigger projects. I still use Firebase, but for small scale hobby projects only.
Read full review
F5
F5 BIG-IP is my first F5 product that I have stared to work, and it brings me more experience doing a lot of migration upgrades from old code version to new code. The way F5 has all configuration help us to develop scrips to improve our process.
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Scalability
Cloudflare
They are built for scale and have the capacity to handle all the traffic we could ever expect to get.
Read full review
F5
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cloudflare
  • A lot of requests are cached and so egress costs from downstream providers are mitigated.
  • DDoS protection has also managed to keep our site up and our cloud computing bill down.
  • Setting up a proxy with a worker made putting various Google Cloud Functions running behind a single URL very easy and performant. Plus they offer API Shield on top of this.
Read full review
F5
  • Having a load balancer of F5 helps to address large traffic limit on organisation's application
  • This means that organisation gets a lot of revenue due to the usage of their application
  • Hence provide a very positive impact onthe inverment or ROl of the organisation
Read full review
ScreenShots