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Atomic ModSecurity Rules vs F5 Advanced WAF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Atomic ModSecurity Rules
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
29th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Atomic ModSecurity Rules is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 3.4%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Advanced WAF3.4%
Atomic ModSecurity Rules0.8%
Other95.8%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Vahid Babaey - PeerSpot reviewer
PhD Student at University of North Carolina at Charlott
Open rules have enabled me to secure web apps against obfuscated SQL injection and XSS attacks
The best feature Atomic ModSecurity Rules offers is the open source aspect. I believe that because it's open source, all of the developers, programmers, and security experts are able to update this WAF and provide more rules, creating a more secure WAF for all of the clients and customers around the world. By accessing Atomic ModSecurity Rules, it has helped me significantly. Because of this open source feature, I am able to generate new rules and update the WAF and use this WAF in my research and also give it to other clients and customers to use the updated WAF. All of this is done just because of the open-source feature, because it can be updated.
reviewer2797602 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Granular security policies have protected critical applications and ensure safe user and admin access
Improvements could be made regarding the log information from the backend CLI. There are enhancements needed; if a request gets blocked on the TCP layer, there should be traces or data to verify which source generated these requests, including the source and port information for initiation. These data are missing from F5 Advanced WAF. Besides that, another improvement could be refining the bot detection to minimize false positives; it should be able to verify more granularly between legitimate and non-legitimate clients. Overall, I find everything else good. A wish list feature I have is for the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) to respond more promptly. Their response time needs improvement; while they do not take excessive time, it can be enhanced, especially given it is a security product.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The best feature Atomic ModSecurity Rules offers is the open source aspect, because all of the developers, programmers, and security experts are able to update this WAF and provide more rules, creating a more secure WAF for all of the clients and customers around the world."
"F5 Advanced WAF secures our connectivity and combines both the main functions of WAF (balancing and web application security)."
"This solution is an enterprise-class firewall that provides both load-balancing and security, and once it's deployed, it works smoothly and without issue."
"Overall, the technical support is excellent."
"The solution uses AI to protect against botnet attacks."
"It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the rules per the requirements."
"What a WAF is happens to be exactly what we are using F5 WAF for: a firewall for our web applications."
"After we introduced the web application firewall, it increased our ability to expose more of the services to the public."
"I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it."
 

Cons

"Additionally, I know that ModSecurity can block only SQL injection and XSS attacks, no more types of attacks."
"I would like for there to be a cloud-based solution, this would also help to improve scalability."
"The contextual-based component needs a lot of help to catch up with the next-gen products."
"I would like to see a better interface and better documentation compatibility with other products. It's more complicated with OWASP."
"The solution is very expensive so should only be used in the right environment."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve resource usage, it is CPU intensive. Additionally, adding automated remediation would be a benefit. For example, an easy button alerts us of the events that are occurring, and what we want to do at the time. An automated approach where somebody could be alerted very quickly. Instead of going and reconfiguring everything, an automated approach is what I'm looking at."
"All features of Advanced WAF offer numerous functions, which means tuning configuration is not simple."
"F5 Advanced WAF needs better integration within the application, like remote dashboards."
"There are opportunities for improvement in updating the user interface to a more modern look."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price of F5 Advanced WAF could improve it is expensive."
"There is a perpetual license that comes with your hardware. There is also an additional fee for support."
"The pricing for F5 Advanced WAF is comparable to a Rolls-Royce. Its price is a bit high when you compare it with other vendors. F5 Advanced WAF is a bit expensive. The customer was on a three-year plan and it was around $560,000."
"I am not sure about pricing but licenses are available on Google."
"A yearly license for F5 Advanced WAF is expensive."
"F5 bundles up services and the bundle is what you pay for rather than individual components."
"It is expensive. Its price should be better. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. Its licensing is also based on the model. There are no additional costs."
"There are various plans available for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF as a Service, including a trial version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
29%
Hospitality Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Atomic ModSecurity Rules?
Atomic ModSecurity Rules can be improved by first studying and reading the structure of new obfuscated attacks, then trying to generate more specific and better rules to block these attacks, and th...
What is your primary use case for Atomic ModSecurity Rules?
My main use case for Atomic ModSecurity Rules is in my research, which tries to make websites secure against web attacks like SQL injection and XSS attacks. On one side, I try to generate some obfu...
What advice do you have for others considering Atomic ModSecurity Rules?
I would rate Atomic ModSecurity Rules nine out of ten. I chose nine out of ten because I have not studied other WAFs. I know that ModSecurity is the only open source WAF, but I believe that the oth...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?
F5 Advanced WAF is somewhat costly compared to other vendors, but it is worth the investment due to the stability it provides to the environment and infrastructure.
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
Improvements could be made regarding the log information from the backend CLI. There are enhancements needed; if a request gets blocked on the TCP layer, there should be traces or data to verify wh...
What is your primary use case for F5 Advanced WAF?
My main use case for F5 Advanced WAF is to protect external and internal applications from cyber attacks and to prevent malicious payloads and malicious data from reaching servers. Even if maliciou...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Radware, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: October 2026.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.