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Azure Web Application Firewall vs Imperva Web Application Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
74
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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (13th), Microsoft Security Suite (20th)
Imperva Web Application Fir...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)
 

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.
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.
Abdullah Jin - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers bot protection and DDoS Protection and protects public-facing portals
Support is one thing I wish Imperva could improve. They follow the phone model and keep rotating you from one customer service person to another. The layer one support isn't very clear about the workings of the product. My feedback is primarily about Imperva Cloud, not on-premise. On-premise is a whole new story. Support is the issue for Imperva Cloud. It's also a bit pricey. It's a premium service and very expensive. The licensing model is not very straightforward. Every feature is priced separately, and to enjoy maximum protection, you'll have to spend a lot of money. The licensing model is a bit complex, and each feature is very pricey. For example, API security and web application protection are two separate license packages.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."
"Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host."
"It's very user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"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 tool is user-friendly."
"It's great for protecting against DDoS attacks."
"The most valuable feature is that it allows us to publish our applications behind the firewall."
"The integration it has with GitHub is great."
"We have found the most valuable features to be the web application, minimal skills required for management, control through policies, and automation."
"Azure WAF is extremely stable."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Web Application Firewall is its ability to filter requests and block false positives by using custom rules and the OWASP rule set."
"The return on investment is good."
"Configuration is much easier than using different platforms."
"There are some features that are configured by default, so even without doing much, it can still provide a level of protection."
"Imperva is easy to use and deploy. The UI is excellent."
"The dynamic profiling of websites is the solution's most valuable feature. The security is also good."
"We can prevent attacks or issues even before they happen."
"It has fewer false positives"
"The tool's profiling feature maps all the web application directories and related components on the profile directory. It has improved the security of my client's website applications."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is stable."
"There is a quick switch between any of the the nodes if something goes wrong, where there's a there's an attack against a specific area. The security setup is reasonably easy. It's not a problem to do setups and rules and integrations. And, yeah, just the the back end team is also very willing to insist if there's questions that that we cannot answer or with these questions that we do have"
 

Cons

"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."
"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Support response time could be improved."
"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."
"In Brazil, we have some problems with the phone service that affect our connection with the cloud. However, it isn't common."
"The support for proxy forwarding could improve."
"We would like to see additional site services using AI to provide information about blocking requests and offer analytics on the origin of calls."
"I would say that Azure's customer service is not that good...I am not very happy with the support offered."
"From a reporting perspective, they could do more there."
"Upgrading the platform regularly is necessary for security, however, frequent updates every six months or year from Azure can be a maintenance overhead."
"There is a need to be able to configure the solution more."
"Deployment should be simplified so that a non-techie can handle it."
"I'd like the option to pick your bot protection."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is very expensive."
"The support for the on-premises version needs improvement."
"The UI interface needs improvement."
"In the past, I have bugs on the WAF. I've contacted Imperva about them. Future releases should be less buggy."
"It should be more user-friendly. Like other web solutions, it would be helpful to be able to easily do policy configuration and identification inside the application. Understanding the in-depth configuration of a policy is somewhat difficult for an engineer, and they can improve that."
"It would be nice to have more security control over mobile applications so I would suggest adding more mobile security features. It would also be beneficial to see improvements in regards to interface bandwidth performance, CPU time, and RAM size. Learning capability of the device is quite weak."
"The tool's UI is complicated. It would be best to have a more accessible UI dashboard to make the job easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft and the pricing is good."
"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 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."
"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."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"Imperva’s pricing is a bit higher in the market since it offers a full-blown WAF."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."
"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."
"The solution's pricing is an issue."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."
"It is very costly, but the return on investment is very high. Its cost was around $70,000, and we got it back in just six months."
"There are a couple of different licensing models."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
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 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...
Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?
For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you hav...
DDoS solutions: Any other solutions to consider aside from Radware DDoS Protection Service and F5 Silverline DDoS Protection?
You can have a look to Imperva Cloud WAF, the anti-DDoS mitigation is under 1s and works very well. I observed a lot ...
 

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.
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BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.