F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF vs. F5 Distributed Cloud API Security

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
F5 Networks offers the Advanced Web Application Firewall (WAF) to provide bot defense, advanced application protection, anti-bot SDK, and other features.N/A
F5 Distributed Cloud API Security
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
F5's Distributed Cloud API Security provides discovery and deep insights from use of AI/ML. It can be used to block API attacks in real time and eliminate vulnerabilities at their source. The SaaS-based portal enables users to manage and go deep for threat analytics, forensics, and troubleshooting of modern applications.N/A
Pricing
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAFF5 Distributed Cloud API Security
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAFF5 Distributed Cloud API Security
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAFF5 Distributed Cloud API Security
Considered Both Products
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
Chose F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
because its integration are very well, making a stronger solutions to cover many more attacks.
F5 Distributed Cloud API Security

No answer on this topic

Features
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAFF5 Distributed Cloud API Security
API Security
Comparison of API Security features of Product A and Product B
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
-
Ratings
F5 Distributed Cloud API Security
8.4
24 Ratings
0% below category average
Data Protection00 Ratings8.924 Ratings
Audit Logging00 Ratings7.622 Ratings
Input Validation00 Ratings8.121 Ratings
Content Filtering00 Ratings7.822 Ratings
Denial of Service (DoS) Protection00 Ratings8.623 Ratings
Security Notification and Alerts00 Ratings9.123 Ratings
API Key Management00 Ratings8.822 Ratings
Cross-origin Resource Sharing (CORS) Protection00 Ratings8.720 Ratings
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F5 Big-IP Advanced WAFF5 Distributed Cloud API Security
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Medium-sized Companies
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Score 8.8 out of 10
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
NGINX
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Score 9.7 out of 10
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Score 9.4 out of 10
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User Ratings
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAFF5 Distributed Cloud API Security
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(16 ratings)
8.8
(30 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
8.0
(6 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(5 ratings)
8.5
(29 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(3 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(22 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAFF5 Distributed Cloud API Security
Likelihood to Recommend
F5
I believe that in industrial environments like ours where we have to have bare metal devices near the production environment combined with hybrid cloud, that is a good platform. That's a good use case. It optimizes traffic. It helps us stay more secure in our data centers. Now with regards to that are fully operating in the cloud, I'm not really sure if we would make the same decision considering the option that I said to have something that is self-provision to avoid too much management of virtual machines on the cloud. So that's an area of improvement.
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F5
I believe it covers everything related to the applications' security aspects, but there are a lot of improvements that need to be made. For example, better granular controls like bot categories listed on the distributed console and a granular URL-based control for the rate-limiting option are needed.
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Pros
F5
  • So the product definitely is helping us for sudden attacks through DDOS, some injection ingestion into UI URLs, and definitely it's capturing those and I definitely see that as an advantage for us. They can stop the hackers from using our endpoints.
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F5
  • It auto-discovers APIs, even the ones engineers forget to document. Then profiles them without needing changes to our codebase.
  • Shadow API exposure.
  • It's pretty decent at abnormal behavior detection.
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Cons
F5
  • The UI for events. E.g., clicking the "Accept" button does nothing.
  • Traffic learning suggestions are often very incorrect. We were originally suggested to use "Automatic" learning, and had to completely scrap the policy due to the suggestions.
  • "All in one" dashboard for viewing application URL/parameter overrides per policy.
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F5
  • More accurate detection of advanced persistent threats (APTs) targeting APIs.
  • A greater emphasis on checking APIs' schema and contract may prevent them from accepting misconfigurations or malicious input.
  • More customized, dynamic, and targeted protection for high-value APIs or high-risk user groups.
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Likelihood to Renew
F5
We just love work with f5
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F5
F5 Distributed Cloud API Security provides robust API protection with solid threat detection, excellent visibility, and seamless integration into our architecture
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Usability
F5
Most* of it is very intuitive and easy to use. The "Help" section is fairly fantastic. See some of my other comments about things like the "Traffic Learning" section being wildly wrong sometimes, and also the event logs with UI buttons that don't do anything. Overall though, it's an excellent product.
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F5
Great product. Working with F5 for many years, we found the products F5 provided are all cutting edge technology. Although in F5 Distributed Cloud API Security we still have a lot to find out, but we believe this experience will be very good. Especially on the security side. Trust in F5.
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Reliability and Availability
F5
No answers on this topic
F5
Always available
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Performance
F5
No answers on this topic
F5
The UI is cloud-native and generally responsive. Report generation is easy Integrates with cloud providers
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Support Rating
F5
Highly knowledgeable engineers who understand complex networking and application-delivery issues.


Strong escalation paths — once a case reaches senior engineers, resolutions are fast and accurate.


Comprehensive documentation and many self-service resources for troubleshooting.


Clear communication with well-structured updates throughout the ticket lifecycle.


Excellent for critical incidents, with reliable guidance during high-severity outages.


Deep product expertise across BIG-IP, ASM/Advanced WAF, GTM/DNS, and modern F5 services.
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F5
Lo hacemos mediante un partner We did it through a partner
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Implementation Rating
F5
No answers on this topic
F5
F5 Distributed Cloud API Security is our company looking forward product. With more and more API is using in both on prem, private cloud, public cloud and multi cloud environment, we as a financial institution, we are keep into the security settings to protect the information. That's the main reason we want to use this product.
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Alternatives Considered
F5
-Stable data path equals to less crashes -Almost all the features working as expected -Provides more granular controls in allowing false positives -Request evaluation is accurate -Irules feature is a plus
Read full review
F5
We ran a short POC with Salt. Its data classification and attack replay features were impressive. What held us back was the limited support for hybrid deployments and poor integration into our CI/CD pipelines, as F5 did.
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Scalability
F5
No answers on this topic
F5
Centralized policy management: You can manage API security policies consistently across locations without duplicating effort, which supports scaling.


API discovery and monitoring at scale: It automatically discovers APIs and monitors them in real time across large and complex environments.
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Return on Investment
F5
  • In our case it has been great because the pricing is just right for all the features that we have on the platform and the flexibility. In fact, we acquired another license last year, so that's something that we're interested in. We are currently moving towards the cloud with our ERP systems and eliminating the IBM platform, so we would like to see that F5 virtual option available on Azure.
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F5
  • F5 Distributed Cloud API Security mitigates many API-related security threats, including bot attacks, DDoS, data breaches, and unauthorized access attempts.
  • F5 Distributed Cloud API Security uses robust threat detection, machine learning, and real-time monitoring for speedier identification.
  • Reductions in security events result in fewer breaches, reduced downtime, and lower attack remediation costs.
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ScreenShots

F5 Distributed Cloud API Security Screenshots

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