starter.wiki

Fastly managed web application firewall

Fastly Next-Gen WAF

A sales-led WAF for applications, APIs, and services with edge, cloud, on-premises, PaaS, and other supported deployment modes.

Visit official site

Editorial verdict

Choose Fastly Next-Gen WAF when its deployment methods and security-operations model fit an existing Fastly or enterprise application-security program and justify custom terms.12

Best for

  • Fastly-aligned application security
  • Several supported deployment locations
  • Teams needing managed signals and rule operations
12

Not ideal for

  • Small applications needing a simple cloud-native WAF
  • Teams without Fastly or enterprise security context
  • Buyers unwilling to manage tuning and deployment duties
12
Main trade-off

Managed security operations can reduce rule-program burden while adding contract, deployment, tuning, telemetry, integration, and provider dependence.12

Product boundary

Whether Fastly's deployment modes, signals, rule operations, and managed-security model fit the protected application.

Fastly Next-Gen WAF supports several deployment methods with different Fastly-managed and customer-managed duties. It does not replace vulnerability remediation, secure delivery, identity, bot, rate-limit, or application-authorization decisions.12

For: Organizations using Fastly or requiring its supported deployment, rule, and managed-security model

  • A simpler provider-native WAF is sufficient
  • Deployment modes or Fastly alignment do not fit
  • Contract, tuning, telemetry, or operating terms are unacceptable

Why teams consider Fastly Next-Gen WAF

  • Deployment choicesOfficial docs cover edge, cloud, on-premises, PaaS, and other supported placements.12
  • Signals and rulesThe product exposes signals, thresholds, request rules, exclusions, monitoring, and virtual patches.12
  • Managed routesEdge and Cloud WAF deployments transfer more infrastructure operation to Fastly than customer-managed agents.12

Pricing

Fastly Next-Gen WAF is contact-sales; commercial scope depends on protected applications, deployment method, traffic, security package, support, and contract.2

Current decision boundary

Custom Next-Gen WAF contract

Verified 2026-07-27: Fastly lists Next-Gen WAF as contact-sales; no public estimate should substitute for a current quote covering deployment, traffic, products, and support.2

Price
Sales-led custom terms2
Deployment variables
Edge, cloud, on-premises, PaaS, or supported embedded routes2
Operating duty
Traffic integration, agents where applicable, signals, rules, tuning, logs, monitoring, and remediation2
Pricing checked View official pricing

Fastly Next-Gen WAF vs alternatives

Cloudflare WAF

Choose when
Cloudflare-proxied web and API traffic
Avoid when
Traffic that bypasses Cloudflare
Compared with Fastly Next-Gen WAF
Edge rules can reduce exposure while introducing false positives, tuning, plan gates, provider-specific expressions, logging, and bypass considerations.34

AWS WAF

Choose when
Supported AWS delivery and application resources
Avoid when
Non-AWS traffic estates
Compared with Fastly Next-Gen WAF
AWS-native integration reduces handoffs while request, ACL, rule, logging, managed-rule, capacity, tuning, regional, and adjacent-service costs remain explicit.56

Resources and sources

Official product, pricing, policy, and operating sources

  • Fastly Next-Gen WAF documentation
    Open
  • Fastly pricing
    Open
  • Cloudflare WAF overview
    Open
  • Cloudflare application services plans
    Open
  • AWS WAF documentation
    Open
  • AWS WAF pricing
    Open
  1. 1
    Fastly Next-Gen WAF documentation

    Fastly · Accessed Official

  2. 2
    Fastly pricing

    Fastly · Accessed Official

  3. 3
    Cloudflare WAF overview

    Cloudflare · Accessed Official

  4. 4
    Cloudflare application services plans

    Cloudflare · Accessed Official

  5. 5
    AWS WAF documentation

    AWS · Accessed Official

  6. 6
    AWS WAF pricing

    AWS · Accessed Official