Airlock vs NGINX App Protect comparison

Ergon Informatik and F5 are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Ergon Informatik is ranked #24 with an average rating of 10.0, while F5 is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.1. Ergon Informatik holds a 0.8% mindshare in WAF, compared to F5’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Ergon Informatik users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of F5 users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Airlock and NGINX App Protect based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, F5, Imperva and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF).

To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.4%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Airlock is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX App Protect is 2.2%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	5.4%
NGINX App Protect	2.2%
Airlock	0.8%
Other	91.6%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

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Tiodor Jovovic

Chief Business Officer at Sky Express

Provides endless features and can be adapted to every single application that exists in the world

WAF is the most beneficial feature for security posture. Our customers are more than satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The level of detail of the configuration is the most significant aspect. We can adapt it to every single application that exists in the world. The product helps with the compliance processes.

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Valerio Guaglianone

Dev Ops Engineer at adesso AG

Long-term web protection has supported reliable traffic management but needs a simpler interface

NGINX App Protect is a good product. I have used both versions from F5 -also the free version- (I mean the NGINX/NGINX One/App Protect free trial period), and I think it is a good product. It's stable, affordable, and easy to manage. NGINX App Protect is a comprehensive security solution that combines advanced WAF, DoS protection, API security, and DevSecOps automation in a lightweight, scalable package ideal for modern cloud-native architectures. The adaptive machine learning capabilities are truly commendable, as the solution can establish traffic baselines and detect anomalies in real time. It automatically adjusts security policies, minimizing the need for manual intervention and reducing false positives. Additionally, it supports scalable deployment across diverse environments, including on-premises, cloud, Kubernetes, and containers, offering both flexibility and scalability I have experience with the web server, F5 load balancer, and similar products provided by Ergon, for eg. the web application firewall and the Microgateway for K8S. I'm also familiar with F5 BIG-IP products.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The setup process is very simple for me."

"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."

"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."

"The product has a valuable security control functionality."

"It protects web applications efficiently."

"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."

"It is configurable via API."

"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"Our customers are more than satisfied with the user experience provided by the product."

"WAF is useful to track mitigation, inclusion, prevention, and the parametric firewall."

"We have seen a return on investment using NGINX App Protect."

"There's a cache, or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications."

"The tool's most valuable feature is the OWASP certification. Additionally, the tool's ability to enforce strong passwords and OTP within minutes is impressive. With its analytics and recommendations, it is a very good solution."

"It is a stable solution."

"NGINX App Protect is stable."

"It has the best documentation features."

"NGINX App Protect has complete control over the HTTP session."

More NGINX App Protect pros

Cons

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

"We don't even use Cloudflare Bot Management because it's too expensive; you need to pay per request, and it's much cheaper to get one or two additional machines."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."

"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"

"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."

"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."

"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"The tool must be simplified."

"Currently, the policies have to be handled manually, and you have to create from scratch, which can be a bit time-consuming, in a large environment."

"Setting policies and parameters through the UI should be more automated because the process is manual, where we can only edit one rule at a time."

"The dashboard could provide a more comprehensive view of the status of the connections."

"The price of NGINX App Protect could improve."

"The configuration needs to be more flexible because it is difficult to do things that are outside of the ordinary."

"NGINX App Protect could improve security."

"The product's user interface is an area with shortcomings as it can be quite confusing for users, making it an area where improvements are required."

"It doesn't have more advanced features like no false-positive security, which you can configure in Advanced WAF."

More NGINX App Protect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"The solution is expensive."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The tool is cheap."

"NGINX App Protect is expensive."

"The solution's price is reasonable."

"There is a monthly or annual subscription to use NGINX App Protect. There are not any additional costs to the subscription."

"Really understand the licensing model, because we underestimated that."

"The product's price is high."

"The licensing fees for this solution are pretty expensive for what it does, but there is no alternative."

"The price of NGINX App Protect is not much different from the products that fall under the leader category of Gartner Magic Quadrant."

"The pricing is reasonable because NGINX operates on an instance basis."

More NGINX App Protect pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

18%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

11%

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...

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What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX App Protect?

I will not be able to answer about my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for NGINX App Protect, as so...

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What needs improvement with NGINX App Protect?

I think NGINX App Protect could be improved by having it come out of the box with NGINX.

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What is your primary use case for NGINX App Protect?

My main use case for NGINX App Protect is primarily in our infrastructure layer with Kubernetes, as I am using it to ...

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Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

AWS WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

AWS WAF vs Airlock

Compared 19% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Airlock

Compared 17% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Airlock

Compared 10% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Airlock

Compared 9% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Airlock

Compared 9% of the time

More Airlock Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 8% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 7% of the time

AWS WAF vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 7% of the time

Haltdos Enterprise WAF vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 4% of the time

More NGINX App Protect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

March 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

Download Airlock product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX App Protect

March 2026

Download NGINX App Protect product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

Airlock Suite

NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

The problem of internet security is almost as old as the internet itself. But there is a reliable solution: Airlock Suite from Ergon. Airlock Suite is underpinned by superb Swiss engineering expertise, many years of experience and well thought-out concepts that master the most complex challenges. Airlock Suite deals with the issues of filtering and authentication in one complete and coordinated solution - setting new standards for usability and services.

Ergon Informatik

NGINX App Protect application security solution combines the efficacy of advanced F5 web application firewall (WAF) technology with the agility and performance of NGINX Plus. The solution runs natively on NGINX Plus and addresses some of the most difficult challenges facing modern DevOps environments:

Integrating security controls directly into the development automation pipeline
Applying and managing security for modern and distributed application environments such as containers and microservices
Providing the right level of security controls without impacting release and go-to-market velocity
Complying with security and regulatory requirements

NGINX App Protect offers:

Expanded security beyond basic signatures to ensure adequate controls
F5 app‑security technology for efficacy superior to ModSecurity and other WAFs
Confidently run in “blocking” mode in production with proven F5 expertise
High‑confidence signatures for extremely low false positives
Increases visibility, integrating with third‑party analytics solutions
Integrates security and WAF natively into the CI/CD pipeline
Deploys as a lightweight software package that is agnostic of underlying infrastructure
Facilitates declarative policies for “security as code” and integration with DevOps tools
Decreases developer burden and provides feedback loop for quick security remediation
Accelerates time to market and reduces costs with DevSecOps‑automated security

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Raiffeisen, SGKB, Generali, Visana

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

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