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AWS WAF vs Azure Web Application Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Businesses see financial benefits from Cloudflare through improved uptime, security, and performance, enhancing returns despite measurement challenges.
Sentiment score
7.5
AWS WAF delivers high ROI and customer satisfaction by enhancing security and preventing hacks despite potential costs.
Sentiment score
6.0
Azure WAF cuts costs, eliminates third-party needs, improves ROI, meets security requirements, and offers reliable, favorable protection.
You would only lose money if you had an attack and you need to calculate the cost against the risks.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
We have had ROI with the tool's use since it never gave us downtime and made us lose millions.
Recently, they have been under serious attack with major exploits, such as Log4j, affecting Fortinet and Palo Alto, and even Cisco and VMware.
AI-based recommendations save on time and money.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Customer service is highly rated, especially for Enterprise plans, but response times could improve for complex issues.
Sentiment score
6.8
AWS WAF support is generally good, though some users desire faster, more flexible, and friendlier service experiences.
Sentiment score
7.1
Azure Web Application Firewall support varies; premium plans offer better service, while others find self-reliance sufficient.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
We'd like a dedicated account manager.
You can get a support engineer with the best qualifications.
They are good at troubleshooting and configuring things.
I am very satisfied with the response from Microsoft dedicated architects if it happens that I have to call for their support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cloudflare is highly regarded for its scalability, smoothly accommodating various user needs and handling significant traffic across business sizes.
Sentiment score
7.9
AWS WAF offers scalable, reliable security for businesses of all sizes, highly rated for its effective traffic handling capabilities.
Sentiment score
7.6
Azure Web Application Firewall offers flexible scaling options, dependent on subscription, with high ratings for managing large deployments.
I would rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten since I didn't encounter any issues with it.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten because I had no issues with it.
I rate the scalability a ten out of ten.
Some Azure applications, like the web application firewall, require a certain level of SKU for hosting setup.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare is generally praised for stability and reliability, despite occasional issues and past outages, requiring proper configuration for best performance.
Sentiment score
8.5
AWS WAF is highly stable and reliable, with users rating its performance and dependability between eight and ten.
Sentiment score
8.0
Azure Web Application Firewall is stable and reliable, with rare performance issues, mainly solved by system restart.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
I rate Cloudflare eight out of 10 for stability.
Very rarely do I see any latency issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Users suggest Cloudflare improve analytics, CDN errors, support, DNS, APIs, pricing, server access, DDoS features, and documentation.
AWS WAF needs improvements in automation, user interface, support, integration, pricing clarity, documentation, and proactive threat detection.
Azure WAF needs improvements in management, deployment simplicity, affordability, IP support, and comprehensive documentation for better user experience.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
Compared to other vendors and Cloudflare, there will be more downtime.
Features like bot protection or DDoS mitigation, available with other WAF vendors, do not come natively with AWS WAF.
Upgrading the platform regularly is necessary for security, however, frequent updates every six months or year from Azure can be a maintenance overhead.
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare provides free and paid plans from $20, with straightforward pricing catering to small, medium, and enterprise businesses.
AWS WAF offers reasonable pay-as-you-go pricing, becoming cost-effective for heavy traffic but potentially costly with additional services.
Enterprise users find Azure Web Application Firewall cost-effective and straightforward compared to AWS and GCP, especially in Brazil.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
It is cheaper than other options.
It's cost-effective, but I think they should have a custom pricing model for enterprise customers based on the features you use.
It is even a lower cost compared to AWS and GCP.
Sometimes, when opting for a higher SKU, it's not the WAF itself that's costly but the additional requirements.
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare provides speed enhancement, security, and ease of use with CDN, DDoS protection, SSL, and traffic analytics for website optimization.
AWS WAF provides robust threat protection, seamless integration, and custom rules, enhancing web application security with scalability and affordability.
Azure Web Application Firewall offers scalable, easy-to-configure protection with flexible pricing, enhancing security against DDoS and unauthorized access.
Our scenario consisted of two web servers in different allocations to control access demands, and the load balancer did the job as expected, bringing security and stability to access points.
For me, the valuable feature is DDoS protection.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
The cloud-native nature of AWS is crucial since most of our workload is in AWS, making AWS WAF native to Amazon Web Services.
With Microsoft, everything is within a single suite, making it easier to configure and plan.
It is almost impossible to access these assets from outside, requiring a very skilled attacker to obtain asset tokens of a customer using Azure.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
AWS WAF
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (1st)
Azure Web Application Firewall
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (13th), Microsoft Security Suite (20th)
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes
Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.
Kavin Kalaiarasu - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS's cloud-native security simplifies rule enforcement but needs better DDoS integration
The dashboarding could be improved, and the default metrics provided by AWS WAF could be upgraded. The rate at which AWS updates their managed rule sets could be better. Features like bot protection or DDoS mitigation, available with other WAF vendors, do not come natively with AWS WAF. Instead, they are part of AWS Shield. Providing DDoS protection as part of their WAF solution would be beneficial.
Mano Senaratne - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive suite simplifies configuration while frequent updates require management
Mainly, it comes with the complete suite of Microsoft services. I can use it in conjunction with the best options and other features that come with it. Configuration is much easier than using different platforms. For example, if I have hosted the application in AWS and am using the Application Firewall from Azure, there are certain additional steps to follow when configuring them. With Microsoft, everything is within a single suite, making it easier to configure and plan. Azure continually upgrades platforms and sends us messages to upgrade to the next version, simplifying the process. Later, it's much easier if I want to upgrade the software platform, scale it, or move it to a different application host as the whole suite comes together. The return on investment is good. If I am doing applications for clients, I can invoice them for better costs. Most applications that I run and use have a better return on investment.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
What are the limitations of AWS WAF vs alternative WAFs?
Hi Varun, I have had experienced with several WAF deployments and deep technical assessments of the following: 1. Im...
How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft...
What do you like most about AWS WAF?
The most valuable feature of AWS WAF is its highly configurable rules system.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Web Application Firewall?
The pricing is okay at the moment. Sometimes, when opting for a higher SKU, it's not the WAF itself that's costly but...
What needs improvement with Azure Web Application Firewall?
While using it, I identified certain areas where it would have been good to have additional features. Right now, I ca...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
AWS Web Application Firewall
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
eVitamins, 9Splay, Senao International
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Find out what your peers are saying about AWS WAF vs. Azure Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.