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Azure Web Application Firewall vs Fortinet FortiWeb comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Azure Web Application Firewall
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (13th), Microsoft Security Suite (19th)
Fortinet FortiWeb
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (4th)
 

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.
Thomas Zebar - PeerSpot reviewer
Is priced well, is stable, and the initial setup is straightforward
I previously used Barracuda Web Application Firewall. I hope that Azure Web Application Firewall will look at other products and replicate some of their functionality. Azure WAF is doing great because it is designed to host web applications in Azure. However, it can be improved with other services. Barracuda is the most advanced firewall in the industry, so Azure WAF could pick some of its features and replicate them into its own application firewall. Barracuda WAF was deployed in parallel to the traffic. Azure WAF should not be deployed in the middle of the traffic. It should support both public and private points of presence. Additionally, like Barracuda, Azure WAF should have an inspection engine that covers not just Microsoft products, but also products from other manufacturers. This would be a great addition to the product and would increase its security functionality.
Kacem CHAMMALI - PeerSpot reviewer
Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb
The xFF, or X-Forwarded-For feature, IP reputation, and protected hostname. We can block access using the IP address, so no one can connect to our web server or website using the real IP. They need to use the FQDN instead. Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb and the option to protect the hostname. All traffic passes through FortiWeb. Machine learning capabilities in FortiWeb: I don't use machine learning all the time. In the initial phase of FortiWeb deployment, we use the learning process to detect the traffic passing through FortiGate to our website.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."
"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."
"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"
"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."
"Cloudflare has many features."
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"It's a good option if you want a solution that's ready to go and easy for your team to learn. It's cloud-based, so you don't need to buy or maintain any hardware infrastructure."
"The integration it has with GitHub is great."
"The most valuable feature is that it allows us to publish our applications behind the firewall."
"It's great for protecting against DDoS attacks."
"We have found the most valuable features to be the web application, minimal skills required for management, control through policies, and automation."
"It's quite a stable product and works well with Microsoft products."
"Azure WAF is extremely stable."
"It has been a stable product in my experience."
"I have recently been looking at the SSL certificate features and the learning mode of the appliance. This appliance learns from the pattern of SSL attacks."
"If I need something from tech support, I can get it answered within the hour."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Fail-Open."
"This product is very user-friendly."
"We were able to protect our web servers from outside attacks."
"FortiWeb offers a good price for the marketplace. In the Sri Lankan market, it's hard to find high-end products that can match FortiWeb's pricing. For high-end solutions, the price is always extremely high."
"SSL Offloading simplifies the public certificate handling and brings additional protection features."
"It can scale well."
 

Cons

"The pricing could be improved."
"The product needs to improve its automation."
"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."
"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."
"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."
"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."
"The documentation needs to be improved."
"The management can be improved."
"We would like to see additional site services using AI to provide information about blocking requests and offer analytics on the origin of calls."
"There is a need to be able to configure the solution more."
"The support for proxy forwarding could improve."
"The knowledge base could be improved."
"In Brazil, we have some problems with the phone service that affect our connection with the cloud. However, it isn't common."
"Deployment should be simplified so that a non-techie can handle it."
"The solution is not very scalable, to scale up would require another deployment with a new appliance and a change to the network."
"The Layer 7 DDoS attacks need improvement, it could be better."
"The solution is rather complicated. If you know what to do, it's not bad, but it's complicated for a first time user to configure the solution. What I'd like to improve are the custom signatures."
"It may be better if it were easier to create roles."
"Fortinet FortiWeb could improve data integration."
"The product's scalability could be better."
"The initial setup process could be improved."
"Lacks a VM demo to enable testing prior to purchase."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft and the pricing is good."
"The price is for this solution is fair and there is a license needed."
"The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The price of the solution depends on your architecture and how you manage it. You can control the cost in Azure quite well. The costs do not directly correlate to expenses in the features we are using."
"Azure WAF has price advantages over other WAF solutions. The pricing model is flexible because you pay on a scale based on the level of protection you need."
"The license to use Fortinet FortiWeb is approximately $14,000."
"​The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution is cheaper compared with other solutions. It has a yearly license."
"The price of Fortinet FortiWeb depends from customer to customer because some customers are considering using other solutions, such as Imperva. The price of Fortinet FortiWeb sits well for the middle-sized customers that we deal with."
"Previously, for each project, the cost was $800 to $1,000 per application. Now, it's $100 to $120. For some of the applications, there is a 90% reduction, and for some of the applications, there is a 50% reduction. We're paying only $500 to $600."
"The costs are standard. We pay around $1,600 yearly."
"It should be somewhere about 36,000 Euros. That's the cost for three years. It's moderately priced."
"All our Fortinet pricing is bundled together for different products, like FortiGate, FortiAnalyzer, and FortiWeb. FortiWeb, by itself, is probably around $2,500 to $3,500."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
Educational Organization
43%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
4%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Web Application Firewall?
The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month. This cost is one of the main reasons why we selecte...
What needs improvement with Azure Web Application Firewall?
Microsoft is constantly working on improvements. We would like to see additional site services using AI to provide in...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
The pricing of Fortinet FortiWeb is affordable and competitive.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
I see no room for improvement at the moment.
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
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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.
Information Not Available
Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiWeb and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.