F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF vs Array ASF Series Web Application Firewall: 2026 Comparison

F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF

Enterprise and mid-market security teams protecting APIs and microservices should pick F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF for its behavioral ML-based bot and Layer 7 DoS detection, which catches attacks that signature-based WAFs routinely miss. The tool covers all four major API protocols (GraphQL, REST, XML, GWT) with granular policies designed for distributed architectures, and deploys hybrid across AWS, Azure, and GCP without rip-and-replace. Skip this if your primary concern is CSPM or runtime container security; BIG-IP is application-focused and won't replace your infrastructure monitoring.

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.