Applications and APIs have become the backbone of modern digital business.
They power customer experiences, process sensitive data, and drive revenue across industries. As reliance on web applications and APIs grows, so does their attractiveness to attackers. Web application firewalls play a critical role in protecting these assets, yet not all WAFs deliver the same level of effectiveness, visibility, or ease of use.
This whitepaper from Fastly provides a practical buyer’s guide to evaluating web application firewall solutions. It is designed to help security and DevOps teams cut through marketing claims, understand real differences between vendors, and select a WAF that meets current needs while scaling for the future.
Rather than focusing on theory, the guide presents a structured checklist that highlights must-have capabilities, deployment considerations, usability factors, and long-term operational impact.
You will learn how:
- Core WAF features such as OWASP Top 10 protection form the foundation of application security
- Fastly emphasizes accuracy and low false positives to keep applications available
- Deployment flexibility across cloud, edge, containers, on-premises, and hybrid environments reduces future risk
- Visibility and unified dashboards eliminate WAF blind spots and security black boxes
- Bot mitigation, DDoS protection, and API security strengthen layered defenses
- Automation and Infrastructure as Code support faster deployment and scaling
- Vendor consolidation improves security posture while reducing cost and complexity
The guide also explores how modern WAF solutions move beyond signature-based detection by using context-aware analysis, machine learning, and behavioral signals to block both known and emerging threats with minimal tuning.
This whitepaper is designed for security leaders, application security teams, DevOps engineers, and IT decision-makers responsible for protecting applications and APIs in dynamic, high-traffic environments.
Download the whitepaper from Fastly to gain a clear, structured framework for evaluating WAF solutions and selecting a platform that delivers accuracy, visibility, and long-term value.
