F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall) vs. Plesk vs. VMware vCenter

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF leverages F5's Advanced WAF technology, delivering WAF-as-a-Service and combining signature- and behavior-based protection for web applications. It acts as an intermediate proxy to inspect application requests and responses to block and mitigate a broad spectrum of risks stemming from the OW ASP Top 10, persistent and coordinated threat campaigns, bots, and layer 7 DoS.N/A
Plesk
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Plesk is a server control panel, providing a solution that enables usres to build and manage multiple sites from a single dashboard. Users can also run updates, monitor performance and onboard new prospects all from the same place. Plesk also boasts a robust toolkit for Wordpress management, and supports other CMS. It is available on the public cloud of the user's choice.
$12
per month
VMware vCenter
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
VMware vCenter is an advanced server management software that provides a centralized platform for controlling vSphere environments for visibility across hybrid clouds. VMware vCenter is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.
$6,044
per year
Pricing
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)PleskVMware vCenter
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Web Admin Edition - Dedicated
$12
per month
Web Admin Edition - VPS
$12
per month
Web Pro Edition - VPS
$18.50
per month
Web Pro Edition - Dedicated
$18.50
per month
Web Host Edition - VPS
$30.50
per month
Web Host Edition - Dedicated
$54.50
per month
Basic
6,044
per year
Production
6,244
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)PleskVMware vCenter
Free Trial
YesYesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscounts available for an annual subscription.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)PleskVMware vCenter
User Ratings
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)PleskVMware vCenter
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(182 ratings)
9.0
(9 ratings)
8.3
(55 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.8
(12 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
7.8
(7 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Online Training
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall)PleskVMware vCenter
Likelihood to Recommend
F5
It is doing its job effectively, and its scalability is superb. So, if you have a mixed environment with cloud and on-premise systems to protect this product, provide a solution to the challenge. However, its management is more suited to DevOps teams rather than to the ones responsible for on-premise systems, making the management a bit more complex.
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Plesk International GmbH
Plesk is well-suited for website creators who have been developing websites on a regular basis. If one is new to website development, Plesk could be a bit confusing and difficult to navigate. However, if one has experience on another type of platform, like CP (Control Panel) which is used by other web hosts out there, then it will be much easier to navigate the Plesk panel. Keep in mind there is definitely a learning curve, as Plesk really is quite different. Overall, new users will learn to love the ability to have more control over their websites.
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VMware by Broadcom
The VMware vCenter server is very useful in maintaining the CPU/RAM/datastore resources are balanced when there are multiple ESX/ESXi host servers. It is clear what resources are being used, and it is easy to migrate VMs to different ESX/ESXi hosts. Being able to remotely connect to the VM servers in vCenter when you cannot have other remote connections helps in maintenance and troubleshooting.
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Pros
F5
  • Layer seven attacks are becoming far more common. Traditionally it was always layered three, layer four, where you get an additional firewall, but with the application layer attacks become more frequent, more popular, et cetera. So having the web application firewall protecting us, and then with the recent Log4j, that's the most recent use case when it gave us that instant level of protection whilst we remediated the Log4j that we had that and the F5 Distributed Cloud WAF was protecting us.
  • I have a great relationship with the account manager, my account manager, and I think he drives the best price possible, um, for me, and I'm happy with that price.
  • F5 Distributed Cloud WAF is always innovating and evolving.
  • We run a very competitive proof value where we run numerous competitors against each other, and then we evaluate from that and then make the selection, and F5 Distributed Cloud WAF was the winner.
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Plesk International GmbH
  • Automatically update the CMS, plugins, and templates of all your websites, depending on your CMS, all at the same time, with just a few strokes of your keyboard.
  • Enables one to set up a schedule to back up your websites, automatically, and easily download/save the backup files off-site, for safety.
  • Makes it easy for users to use a backup file to reinstall a website, with just a few strokes of the keyboard. Excellent service!
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VMware by Broadcom
  • VSAN storage management and redundancy - high performance IO with built in fault tolerance across the cluster, not reliant on a single hardware item
  • VM fault tolerance. The ability to relocate a running VM and restart VMs from failed or isolated nodes
  • Resource management and alerting. Tracking load across physical systems and allowing us to rebalance for better utilisation
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Cons
F5
  • Lack of warnings, currently the console does not provide a warning when deleting key-value entry.
  • The web GUI could use some tweaking, currently no undo option when removing exclusion rules.
  • Configuration complexity, currently menus and options are hidden, making it hard to configure vs on prem.
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Plesk International GmbH
  • Interface Improvement: It is a bit hard to find specific functions
  • Additional integration with third party services would be great
  • categorization of services to make management easier
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VMware by Broadcom
  • Currently, the HTML 5-based vSphere Client lets you manage the essential functions of vSphere from any browser, however, it would be nice if they would port all management functions over to the HTML 5-based Client.
  • Performing updates and upgrades to the infrastructure is a bit challenging for someone that may not be as intimate with vSphere. I think the updates/upgrades should be more integrated into the UI and provide the ability to push to the hosts, etc...
  • It would also be nice to have a more robust snapshot management tool to prevent snapshot overgrowth. It would be nice to be able to set a lifespan for the snapshot(s)
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Likelihood to Renew
F5
We gave it an 8 because it protects our web apps well and is reliable. The WAF is flexible and meets most of our needs. It could improve in user interface and make integrations easier, but overall, it’s a solid and effective security tool for us.
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Plesk International GmbH
No answers on this topic
VMware by Broadcom
We are very dependent on this software, it has become a much needed tool to perform the daily tasks that are required to maintain the virtual server environment. VMware has become very pricey over the years, so we are looking for alternatives for cost savings strategy, but nothing has been found to be on par to what we are currently using
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Usability
F5
I believe is a solution that was designed from the start to be simple and easy to use. Coming from Imperva, it simply eased the burden and complexity of managing and securing our apps on different environments (cloud and on-prem). It easy to scale and very quick to deploy (as a cloud waf should be), provide us with DevOps integrations, visibility and automatic insights from multiple events that guarantee peace of mind for us analysts and opp managers.
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Plesk International GmbH
No answers on this topic
VMware by Broadcom
I work with vCenter for 10+ years and i love it. I can find my way around and can help building and expanding the platform. It is easy to use and there are a lot good communities for the extra support when needed. Even the Homelab community is of great value.
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Reliability and Availability
F5
Seems no issue
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Plesk International GmbH
No answers on this topic
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Performance
F5
Unnoticed slowness
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Plesk International GmbH
No answers on this topic
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
F5
I never contacted support for this product.
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Plesk International GmbH
No answers on this topic
VMware by Broadcom
VMware support has always been fantastic and they have been invaluable in solving tougher issues that have been run into. Most of the time, any oddities encountered are fixed by available updates. This can be deduced by support quickly with logs within vCenter. We have not run into something yet that support was unable to help with. They either have a solution already, or they are able to find one quickly.
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Online Training
F5
Online training saves me lots of time
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Plesk International GmbH
No answers on this topic
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
F5
Just make sure you origin servers have F5 IPs allowed.
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Plesk International GmbH
No answers on this topic
VMware by Broadcom
Since moving away from the Windows Server hosting the vCenter application and instead using a virtual appliance, it has become much easier to implement and deploy the new versions. We can easily create a snapshot or clone of the vCenter vApp to ensure any problems encountered during the upgrade can be mitigated with a fall back to the old version to prevent unscheduled downtime.
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Alternatives Considered
F5
The other one that I've used in the past, they're very similar and I haven't used it recently, so I can't do a side-by-side comparison today. But I can say that F5 does everything we want it to do consistent with what this other product did do and it's got enhanced features and of course we have a long history with F5 as a product set in general.
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Plesk International GmbH
Plesk has a much more intuitive platform that allows for customization and scalability within an organization. It has the advantage when it comes to the ability to adapt to the current state of the company and grow with it organically. There are a few limitations that would make me choose a competitor, and there is good value for the price.
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VMware by Broadcom
Citrix Xen Server.... Great Hypervisor but very limited in terms of functionality
MS Hyper-V... [VMware vCenter Server] is better for almost everything and appliance form makes a clear winner for security and ease of deployment
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Scalability
F5
Dont see any issue so far
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Plesk International GmbH
No answers on this topic
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
F5
  • The biggest gain for us was speed. Before F5 Distributed Cloud WAF, onboarding a new app to our WAF stack meant manual rule tuning, traffic sampling and regression testing. Right now, we spin up a service, tag it with the right policy and its ready (production ready) within hours
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Plesk International GmbH
  • We're spending less on server costs by having Plesk manage multiple clients on one server.
  • We're spending less on support costs as Plesk is doing all the heavy lifting for us.
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VMware by Broadcom
  • The positive impact of vcenter is definitely felt in larger organisations in terms of being able to manage multiple servers all in one environment
  • It will decrease the amount of time your server engineers will have to spend in the server room or datacenter.
Read full review
ScreenShots

F5 Distributed Cloud WAF (Web Application Firewall) Screenshots

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