Array ASF Series Web Application Firewall vs AWS Web Application Firewalls (WAFs): 2026 Comparison

Array ASF Series Web Application Firewall

Mid-market and enterprise teams defending legacy and cloud applications simultaneously will get the most from Array ASF Series; its multiple deployment modes (bridge, routing, TAP) let you protect workloads across VMware, Hyper-V, and AWS without ripping out your infrastructure. The auto-learning algorithms and behavioral bot detection catch attacks that signature-based WAFs miss, and SSL offloading removes a real performance tax on busy application teams. Skip this if you're a startup looking for a lightweight cloud-native WAF or need deep API schema validation; Array prioritizes layer 7 attack prevention over API-specific threat modeling.

AWS Web Application Firewalls (WAFs)

Teams already deep in AWS infrastructure will move fastest with AWS WAF because it threads directly into API Gateway, CloudFront, and ALB without separate agent deployment or data exfiltration concerns. The free tier eliminates budget friction for prototype and mid-tier workloads, and native CloudWatch integration means you're not bolting on a separate SIEM. Skip this if your web applications sit outside AWS or you need API schema validation and runtime threat detection; AWS WAF does request filtering well but doesn't understand your API's legitimate behavior the way specialized API security tools do.