Radware

Overview

Radware, founded in 1997 and headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, is a NASDAQ-listed (RDWR) global leader in cybersecurity and application delivery. Unlike most vendors that treat security as a CDN add-on, Radware is security-first: its core products include DDoS protection, WAF, Bot Manager, ADC, and cloud security, with CDN acceleration as the underlying network infrastructure.

Radware's CDN runs on its own global edge network, completing all security detection (DDoS scrubbing, WAF matching, Bot analysis) in real time at edge nodes without origin redirection, similar to Imperva. Radware has been a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for DDoS protection and WAF for consecutive years, alongside Cloudflare and Akamai (Kona Site Defender) in the security CDN segment.

Key Strengths

• Industry-leading DDoS protection: AI-driven behavioral analysis auto-detects and mitigates Tbps-scale L3/L4 (SYN/UDP Flood, DNS amplification) and L7 (HTTP Flood, Slowloris) attacks, with hybrid cloud + on-prem DefensePro; see the DDoS-protected server buying guide.
• Web Application Firewall (WAF): Thousands of preset rules cover OWASP Top 10 with custom signatures and positive/negative security models; tuning per the WAF getting-started guide.
• AI-driven Bot management: Machine learning distinguishes humans, benign crawlers, and malicious bots with threat intel from global honeypots; actions include allow, CAPTCHA, block, and rate-limit at session granularity.
• Unified CDN + security architecture: Every CDN node is also a WAF detection point and DDoS scrubbing point, avoiding traffic chaining latency with the lowest end-to-end delay.
• Application Delivery Controller (ADC): Alteon ADC provides load balancing, SSL offload, HTTP compression, and TCP optimization for the best security-performance balance.

Product Ecosystem

DDoS Protection

Multi-layer architecture: L3/L4 scrubbing, rate limiting, and ACLs; L7 WAF rules, behavioral analysis, and challenge pages; hybrid cloud + on-prem DefensePro. The AI engine learns traffic baselines and triggers automatic mitigation within seconds of detecting anomalies.

WAF Capabilities

Three modes: managed rule sets (ERT continuously updated for the latest CVEs), custom rules (regex and operators), and positive security models (allowlist for APIs and sensitive business). Microsecond matching latency with SIEM log streaming.

Bot Management and Crawler Detection

Classifies traffic into humans (allow), benign bots (rate-limit/label), and malicious bots (block/challenge), analyzing 200+ behavioral dimensions including JA3 TLS fingerprints, browser rendering consistency, mouse movement, and request intervals.

Application Delivery Control (ADC)

Alteon ADC offers weighted round-robin, least-connection algorithms, SSL offload, Brotli, HTTP/2 multiplexing, and GSLB multi-datacenter routing, deeply integrated with CDN to reduce intermediate hops.

Limitations

• High cost: Enterprise security CDN starts at thousands of dollars/month with custom plans in the tens to hundreds of thousands annually; a clear premium over Cloudflare's free tier; assess the CDN cost control guide first.
• Enterprise-oriented: Targets large enterprises and government with sales-led onboarding (2-4 weeks) and no self-service signup.
• Fewer global nodes: Lower density than Cloudflare (330+ cities) and Akamai (4100+ nodes); for pure acceleration, Bunny CDN and KeyCDN are stronger on density and unit cost.
• No free tier: All plans require paid subscriptions, out of reach for individual site owners and small businesses.
• Complex configuration: WAF tuning, Bot policies, and DDoS thresholds require security expertise; see the WAF configuration guide.

Use Cases

• Security-first enterprise sites (★★★★★): Finance, government, defense, and large e-commerce with hard DDoS/WAF requirements and first-class AI protection plus ADC optimization.
• Finance and payment platforms (★★★★★): DDoS, credential stuffing, and card testing threats with precise Bot interception; PCI-DSS compliance backed by WAF and SSL offload.
• Government and public sector (★★★★★): National-scale DDoS targets; hybrid deployment keeps sensitive traffic in-region for MLPS 2.0 and data sovereignty.
• Cross-border e-commerce and global enterprises (★★★★): Price-scraping bots, credential stuffing, and card fraud covered by WAF, Bot Management, and DDoS.
• API-intensive business (★★★★): Auto-discovery, threat detection, and rate limiting for OpenAPI/microservices endpoints.
• Small sites and individual site owners (★★): Cost and complexity are barriers; Cloudflare's free tier suffices.

Pricing

All prices are references; actual pricing depends on traffic scale and module mix. Annual or multi-year contracts typically earn 20%-35% discounts; DefensePro on-prem hardware requires one-time purchase plus annual maintenance.

FAQ

• How to choose with Cloudflare? Cloudflare starts with CDN and offers free basic security; Radware is security-native with deeply integrated paid protection. Choose Radware for extreme DDoS/WAF with budget, Cloudflare for general acceleration plus basic security.
• What is the core advantage? AI-driven DDoS and WAF completed in real time at CDN edges, with native Alteon ADC optimizing application performance while securing it; see the CDN security features guide.
• Is there a free trial? No public free trial; negotiate a POC period with sales—all plans are paid; see the CDN beginner's guide.
• Is it suitable for SMBs? Mostly for large enterprises and government; SMBs should evaluate Cloudflare's free or Pro tier.
• How is mainland China acceleration? Limited; node coverage trails Akamai and local CDNs, so mainland-facing sites should use domestic CDN providers; see cross-border website CDN acceleration.