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F5 Advanced WAF vs Fortinet FortiWeb comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025
Review summaries and opinions
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 ROI
Sentiment score
6.5
Cloudflare users experienced increased performance, security, and cost-effectiveness, leading to improved loyalty and revenue despite difficult ROI calculations.
Sentiment score
7.8
F5 Advanced WAF provides high ROI with scalable security, efficient onboarding, regulatory compliance, and strong data protection.
Sentiment score
6.5
Fortinet FortiWeb offers cost-effective security, reducing expenses by up to 80%, enhancing reliability, and mitigating cyber threats.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
Product Manager at Infozion
For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.
Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
In terms of return on investment with Cloudflare, it costs my time to set them up, but basically once they're set up, it's done.
Owner at Hga consulting
Subscription models offer clearer ROI due to a more competitive pricing scheme.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 Customer Service
Sentiment score
7.0
Cloudflare's customer service is quick, but technical support feedback is mixed, with improvement needed in responsiveness and detailed assistance.
Sentiment score
7.1
F5 Advanced WAF support is professional, helpful, but needs quicker responses; higher SLAs offer faster service and better experience.
Sentiment score
6.6
Fortinet FortiWeb's support is responsive and competent, though users note room for improvement in expertise and response times.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
General Manager at bKash Limited
Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.
Senior Consultant CDN at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to call them.
Owner at Hga consulting
If there is a bug, the support is usually understanding and resolves issues.
CEO at CyberApp
I have interacted with F5's support, and while I have no major complaints, they could improve.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Their support is truly exceptional when I compare it with similar large-sized companies.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The expertise of engineers varies across different time zones, affecting the effectiveness of the support provided, especially during our daytime.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
The back-end development team is available, and if any issue arises, they will help us immediately by providing solutions when contacted.
Technical Support Engineer at Intimesolutions
 Scalability Issues
Sentiment score
8.1
Users praise Cloudflare for seamless scalability, effective traffic management, easy upgrades, and robust global infrastructure without disruptions.
Sentiment score
7.6
F5 Advanced WAF excels in scalability and adaptability, supporting diverse applications, ideal for medium to large enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.1
Fortinet FortiWeb is scalable but limited in hardware upgrades; virtual machines offer more adaptability for various needs.
It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
The tool offers very good performance, even during high-traffic periods.
Engineer at SITMEXICO
I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.
Independent Consultant at Unaikui
You can add additional boxes that combine together to achieve a bigger throughput for investigation and research.
Security Team Lead at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 Stability Issues
Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare is highly rated for stability and uptime, with few past issues, especially on higher-tier plans.
Sentiment score
8.5
F5 Advanced WAF is praised for stability and reliability, scoring highly in sectors like banking and telecom.
Sentiment score
7.9
Fortinet FortiWeb is generally reliable, with minimal stability issues, although some users face occasional configuration or version challenges.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
General Manager at bKash Limited
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
Independent Consultant at Unaikui
The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.
Engineer at SITMEXICO
We have not faced any significant issues during deployments.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
 Room For Improvement
Enhancements needed in Cloudflare: analytics, CDN latency, API integration, user support, DNS, pricing, documentation, server coverage, WAF, and cache.
F5 Advanced WAF needs easier interfaces, better integration, enhanced support, and improved features for user-friendliness and efficiency.
Fortinet FortiWeb needs improvements in upgrades, support, threat intelligence, user interface, cloud integration, reporting, stability, and load balancing.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
General Manager at bKash Limited
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
Managed Services Manager at Adapture Technology Group
Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements.
Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)
Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
If the GUI includes notifications and improved logging capabilities that allow us to see traffic and store logs for six months, that would be very helpful.
Technical Support Engineer at Intimesolutions
Fine-tuning is a room for improvement in Fortinet FortiWeb.
Joint Director at PAA
After the customer submits a specific question and requests troubleshooting help from Fortinet support, it takes at least three to five days to provide a proper answer.
Security Team Lead at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 Setup Cost
Cloudflare offers scalable pricing, from free to enterprise plans, providing significant value especially for mid-sized companies.
F5 Advanced WAF is costly but valued for its advanced features, comprehensive protection, and flexibility in high-stakes environments.
Fortinet FortiWeb provides flexible pricing and licensing, appealing to enterprises for cost-effectiveness despite some users noting variable costs.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
Product Manager at Infozion
I find it to be cheap.
Engineer at SITMEXICO
The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive.
General Manager at bKash Limited
Subscription models have competitive pricing, while perpetual licenses involve an upfront higher cost.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The price is affordable and satisfactory.
CEO at CyberApp
For VM machines, the price increases based on CPU configurations of 2, 4, or 8 CPUs.
Presales Engineer at SAUDI PARAMOUNT COMPUTER SYSTEMS
Most security products charge less at the time of purchase because of competition, but when we go to renewals, the prices become very high.
Joint Director at PAA
Fortinet FortiWeb is cost-effective compared to solutions like F5.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
 Valuable Features
Cloudflare enhances performance and security with CDN caching, DDoS protection, and an easy-to-use dashboard, benefiting many users.
F5 Advanced WAF offers comprehensive protection with integration, customization, and features like network intelligence, DDoS prevention, and behavior analysis.
Fortinet FortiWeb provides advanced security features and seamless integration, offering cost-effective, robust protection and easy deployment for enterprises.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)
Techniques like minification and image compression reduce the size of assets, leading to better performance and faster user load times.
Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions
The solution has been able to compare it to the market, and I think the product has taken great strides in automating quite a bit of things, and they use a lot of AI.
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
The perpetual license, despite an initial higher cost, lacks transparency regarding support expiration.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It contains the logic of both negative and positive security combined.
CEO at CyberApp
Fortinet FortiWeb has positively impacted my organization because most of our servers and applications are secure from hackers and other security threats.
Joint Director at PAA
Fortinet's pricing is way more competitive than Cisco or Palo Alto.
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The machine learning-based threat detection is significant, as it uses a learning method that eases the configuration burden, making it very useful.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
 Categories and Ranking
Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
F5 Advanced WAF
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (1st)
Fortinet FortiWeb
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (2nd)
 Featured Reviews
HA
Owner at Hga consulting
Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility
I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.
reviewer2641242 - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Channel Alliances Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Enables flexible licensing and clear ROI evaluation
F5 Advanced WAF sells perpetual licenses as perpetual assets during sales without informing me that support ends after a few years. I find out later and am required to pay for support without receiving updated versions. Deployment training for F5 Advanced WAF is lacking and restricts growth by being inaccessible and costly for partners.
HameedAhmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Joint Director at PAA
Security threats have been reduced through seamless deployment and strong integration with other tools
I have used Fortinet FortiWeb's integration features. We have easily integrated all of the applications with the product. Most of the applications we are using are in-house built. My technical team is looking after the best features. I have not used it extensively for maybe two and a half years. I have been involved in the installation, but I am not actually using the product. I work with it from time to time but not extensively. I would assess Fortinet FortiWeb's adaptive machine learning and artificial intelligence as having new patches installed regarding artificial intelligence, but when we bought it, I think the learning feature was there. Now they have installed artificial intelligence features through patches. We have a complete portfolio of Fortinet in our organization, including FortiMail, Fortinet FortiWeb, and FortiGate, along with multi-factor authentication. All of the products are from Fortinet. Fortinet tools integrate with each other and work in conjunction. I think Fortinet FortiWeb has helped us meet regulatory compliance because we are not a regulatory organization, but our sister organization is regulatory. We have regulatory compliance with the International Civil Aviation Authority, whose audit teams have checked our data center and these security products, and they are satisfied with us. The question about leveraging Fortinet FortiWeb's automated policy management does not pertain to my domain because I am not so technical, but I am in a management role now. My engineer is more technical than me. I would rate this product an eight point five out of ten.
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875,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 Top Industries
By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 Company Size
By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise36
 Questions from the Community
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
What do you like most about F5 Advanced WAF?
It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the r...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
I do not have anything in mind right now that needs improvement. Generally, it works well. If we need any specific fe...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
The pricing for Fortinet FortiWeb varies with different models having different prices. It depends on the requirement...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
There is room for improvement in Fortinet FortiWeb. The team was only from FortiGate itself. They are making new firm...
 Also Known As
Cloudflare DNS
No data available
FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 Overview
 Sample Customers
Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Advanced WAF vs. Fortinet FortiWeb and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
875,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.