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F5 BIG-IP vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall (WAF)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    F5 BIG-IP

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AF5 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.N/A

    Imperva Web Application Firewall (WAF)

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AThe Imperva Web Application Firewall (WAF) is based on technology acquired with Incapsula and the former WebSphere WAF.N/A
    Pricing
    F5 BIG-IPImperva Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    F5 BIG-IPImperva Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    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
    F5 BIG-IPImperva Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    Considered Both Products
    F5
    Chose F5 BIG-IP
    BIG IP can do many things at once, where other technologies are more limited
    Incentivized
    Imperva, a Thales company
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    99%
    Would buy again
    195 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    158 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    194 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    132 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    95%
    Implementation went as expected
    148 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    F5 BIG-IPImperva Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Akamai App & API Protector
    Score8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    F5 BIG-IPImperva Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.2
    (129 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    5.2
    (6 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    F5 BIG-IPImperva Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    F5
    Definitely in larger environments, more mature organizations that obviously have the budget to spend and want best in class. Where it struggles is those organizations that don't have the funding and money to spend on it and need more basic functionality. So I'd say that's smaller customers we've worked with and kind of mid-market. They tend to get scared when they get the quotes. Also we've had some struggles with account team consistency. So for the sales team, just a lot of turnover and a lot of missteps on customer calls.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Imperva, a Thales company
    Imperva web application firewall does a great job in giving us control over access to our public web servers. With our regular hosting provider, we couldn't block access based on geography, or really anything. So we had to rely on traditional access controls to protect the data. But with the WAF, we can block countries such as North Korea, or we could stop any SQL Injection attempts, or even do a temporary block of IP in the case of detected brute-forcing.
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    Pros
    F5
    • I mean from a basic level, it actually satisfies all the use cases we have, which is basically to have multiple web servers for the front end and then you want that to be equally split across. The traffic comes in from all over the world. We use DRA protection and everything, but then we also internally want to make sure all the servers are being utilized and we provide much more availability across all servers. We just make sure BIG-IP sits in between and handles the traffic accordingly. And it's pretty basic and it comes to drawing traffic. It's pretty easy to configure and set it up and then forget.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Imperva, a Thales company
    • Alert Aggregation - Correlates different violations into perceived correlated attacks.
    • Ease of deployment - as one of the only WAFs that allow bridge mode deployment, this can be deployed with without downtime and no Network Architecture modifications. If the need for proxy is required at a later time, Transparent Reverse Proxy can be deployed within seconds and minimal configuration.
    • Custom Policies - Custom security policies are easy to configure.
    • Reporting - There are a good amount of pre-configured reports available by default.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    F5
    • Recently we have been deploying F5 web application firewall and we have started the deployment. We have already moved applications out there, but we are not yet to the point wherein I could comment any positive feedback or any negative feedback because we are still going through it, right. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't see any drawbacks or any shortcomings on the F5 product lineup.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Imperva, a Thales company
    • The UI can use a little work (but is largely decent)
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    F5
    So far experience with F5 BIG-IP has been good, but we are only 6 months into the deployment and will depend on how things run over time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Imperva, a Thales company
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    F5
    It's not difficult to understand the parts of application configurations and features. Setting up new virtual servers with multiple profiles, certificates, and nodes is easy for new users through the web interface, which also translates to programability in scripts, DevOps, or other configuration management use-cases. Users from different backgrounds such as networking and infrastructure can use F5 BIG-IP, while users who are familiar with API calls can easily configure objects without needing to understand the platform at all.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Imperva, a Thales company
    There are just a couple of points that are hard to find, that probably could be elsewhere. But these are minor; everything else is right where you'd expect it to be.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Imperva, a Thales company
    We haven't needed support from Imperva since implementation. But during that time, their personnel were very quick to respond to questions. Since then, it's been largely doing its thing for us (which is exactly what we'd hoped).
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    In-Person Training
    F5
    Practical cases and hands on , many hours of training with tipical cases
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Imperva, a Thales company
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    F5
    implementation is fine
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Imperva, a Thales company
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    F5
    That's the one thing that really stood out. It was a lot easier to use from an administrator standpoint, so I think that's the one thing that really made our team decide to go with this product versus another competitor. Just ease of use.
    Incentivized
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    Imperva, a Thales company
    Ultimately, it was the easiest to work with that was still a "known" company (we've been burned too many times by up-and-comers). We needed something that gave us a lot of control but then didn't need its handheld on a daily basis. Imperva gives us a lot of that and we are still able to navigate it with ease.
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    Return on Investment
    F5
    • F5 BIG-IP has a highly positive impact on the customers. The main impact is on the security of the web applications.
    • F5 BIG-IP provides an easy and safe way to connect employees to assets and applications that reside in an on-premises environment.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Imperva, a Thales company
    • Meet compliance requirements - Check.
    • Better Insight into web application - Absolutely great, checks all the traffic against RFC standards and will alert on common development mistakes that duplicate application traffic or provide attack vectors for potential attackers.
    • Have had several issues blocking a customer without producing alerts, while it happened only one week out of 2 years of working with the devices, it did produce a lot of headaches.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots