


NGINX App Protect and Azure Web Application Firewall are competitors in the web application security space. Azure appears to have the upper hand due to its ease of integration within its ecosystem and cost-effective pricing options.
Features: NGINX App Protect is known for its flexibility, reverse proxy capabilities, and open-source nature. It is effective in managing HTTP sessions and traffic inspection while offering command-line interface support. Azure Web Application Firewall is highlighted for its easy configuration, seamless Azure ecosystem integration, and effective request filtering with custom rules.
Room for Improvement: NGINX App Protect could improve its flexibility in configuration and face challenges with integration and throughput. It also needs better dashboard views and simpler policy management. Azure Web Application Firewall could enhance its documentation and provide clearer deployment tutorials. It would benefit from more affordable pricing plans for medium to small enterprises.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NGINX App Protect supports both on-premises and cloud environments but has inconsistent technical support. Azure Web Application Firewall is easier to deploy within Azure with generally good support, though improvements are needed for non-Microsoft environments.
Pricing and ROI: NGINX App Protect offers varied pricing based on needs and is considered expensive, though beneficial for network security. Azure Web Application Firewall offers flexible, enterprise-friendly pricing, making it attractive for larger deployments, though attention to cost management is essential.
My experience with the pricing or licensing of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is that many features can be accessed for free, so the pricing is definitely reasonable.
Recently, they have been under serious attack with major exploits, such as Log4j, affecting Fortinet and Palo Alto, and even Cisco and VMware.
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I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.
The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.
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.
I reached out to their support, and they helped me resolve the issue effectively.
They were quick and efficient when we had issues.
I would rate the customer support a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10.
The scalability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between 8 to 9, as it depends upon the use cases and what exactly the client needs.
Some Azure applications, like the web application firewall, require a certain level of SKU for hosting setup.
For our company, Azure Web Application Firewall works effectively for scalability.
The scalability of NGINX App Protect is good and open source at its best.
The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.
Very rarely do I see any latency issues.
It is a quality solution, and I would rate its stability as eight out of ten.
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.
I think they're doing a good job with DNS and as support for any domains that I create or that my clients create, it's mandatory for me to ensure they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider.
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.
Upgrading the platform regularly is necessary for security, however, frequent updates every six months or year from Azure can be a maintenance overhead.
The pricing needs improvement, and I think for beginners it will be a little bit complicated, so the ease of use could be enhanced.
There was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service.
The GUI and web GUI configuration could be improved to be easier to manage and use.
I think NGINX App Protect could be improved by having it come out of the box with NGINX.
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.
I would place Azure Web Application Firewall at an eight on a scale from one to 10, with one being cheap and 10 being expensive.
The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.
The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools add a layer that we're able to visualize and see before it actually hits the local firewall.
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.
It integrates effectively with things such as Sentinel and Defender for Cloud, so mostly it's the analytics and now the AI capabilities that have been introduced with Co-pilot.
The most valuable feature is the ability to operate in a DevOps environment and to be configured through API and pipeline by the developers themselves.
Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications.
It is stable, affordable, and easy to manage.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Cloudflare Web Application Firewall | 5.4% |
| Azure Web Application Firewall | 2.8% |
| NGINX App Protect | 2.2% |
| Other | 89.6% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 16 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 6 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 12 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 9 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 5 |
| Large Enterprise | 12 |
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.
Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides centralized protection of your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities. Web applications are increasingly targeted by malicious attacks that exploit commonly known vulnerabilities. SQL injection and cross-site scripting are among the most common attacks.
To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.
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:
NGINX App Protect offers:
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