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Check Point CloudGuard WAF 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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Check Point CloudGuard WAF
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (10th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (14th)
Imperva Web Application Fir...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
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.
Dialungana Malungo - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects our web applications and APIs and has a very low false positive rate
CloudGuard WAF is a very straightforward solution. I do not have to worry about signatures. Most of the solutions that are out there are mainly based on signatures, and I have to do a lot of maintenance to get the signature updates, and sometimes, due to a lack of resources, I am not able to do so. With CloudGuard WAF, I have peace of mind, because most of the features are AI-based, and there is not much configuration that needs to be done on my side. Once set, I only go to CloudGuard WAF to check. I do not have to worry about signatures or updates. Everything is done perfectly, and I have a sense of peace because I know our applications are safe. It is very important for us that CloudGuard WAF protects our applications against threats without relying on signatures. That is definitely one of the key features I need.
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

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is external DNS. It is also very secure. They have their own main server and once you configure it, the product takes care of everything. There are no issues in resolving IPs and low latency is also present."
"The technical support is good."
"Cloudflare has many features."
"CloudGuard WAF has been great."
"The solution's ability to handle multiple websites and applications without needing more expensive hardware is a key advantage."
"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security helped reduce the cost of ownership for our web application firewall by 50%."
"Check Point CloudGuard WAF works well for preemptively blocking Zero Day attacks and detecting hidden anomalies."
"They offer free trials, which is quite appreciative and grabs more attention from new users and businesses."
"The portal is quite intuitive."
"I find the configuration and real-time monitoring features valuable."
"By using a cloud application security solution, our company can save costs by reducing the need for additional security hardware and software and improving operational efficiency."
"One good thing about Imperva Web Application Firewall is it can be on the cloud and also it can be on-premise."
"It mitigates all of the availabilities of risks around web applications."
"It has fewer false positives"
"Very scalable and very stable firewall for web applications, with a good interface in its cloud version. Mitigation is its most valuable feature. The technical support for this product is also good."
"We can prevent attacks or issues even before they happen."
"Imperva has a complete picture of how the applications are utilizing it. It is handy. DDoS is good. It has an internally managed database. It is very easy to integrate. We have integrated it with SIEM services."
"If you are using the appliance as opposed to the virtual deployment, it can stand as the network layer-two and provide real transparency."
"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

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."
"There are some issues with the CDN services."
"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."
"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."
"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"Support could be improved, particularly in terms of availability."
"We would like the solution to be more economical since it is not accessible to all clients."
"For now, the product is doing all that I need, however, I need the support of IPv6."
"CloudGuard could improve in areas such as ease of integration with Fortinet and reducing costs associated with deployment in cloud environments like Azure."
"When I migrate the traffic from our mobile application to CloudGuard, we are not getting what we expected."
"For the next release, I would suggest considering features like enhanced threat intelligence integration."
"In terms of features, I do not have any negatives. Their integration is extremely quick. It is better than others I have been involved with in the past. Their pricing model, however, can be better."
"The creation of security profiles for each application takes a lot of time."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall can improve by providing better features, such as improved prevention of zero-day attacks. Additionally, it should include a VR meta-analysis."
"I think that better bot protection is needed in this solution."
"Some of the features should be included in the next release is a file integrating monitoring tool. This feature should be improved."
"They recently separated the WAF and the DAM management gateways in order for each of these to be managed from different areas, so I believe it now requires additional investments for what was previously a single complete solution."
"The only disadvantage of Imperva is that it is a pretty costly solution."
"Sometimes our web application firewall will slow down."
"The reporting is missing some features, such as: only two export formats, and the time period does not include the last day, week, year."
"It is complicated to integrate the solution's on-cloud version with other platforms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is cheap."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"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."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"I find the pricing to be reasonable."
"It is not cheap, but it is worth it."
"The sales team or account managers from Check Point are top-notch. As I am using other products as well, my pricing was competitive compared to others."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly and competitive."
"The base solution costs approximately 30,000 euros, with an additional 2,000 euros per year for licenses and support."
"The pricing is competitive compared to other solutions on the market. So, the licensing cost is average."
"If the pricing for the Infinity platform covers everything, it would be more straightforward. I had a hard time selling it to our CEO as a former CFO because of the differentials. There are different deltas year to year over a five-year period. It is very difficult to explain. It would be easier to digest for our executives if there was a flatter scale"
"Check Point CloudGuard WAF is expensive compared to Azure WAF."
"Everybody complains about the price of this solution."
"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is expensive."
"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."
"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."
"The tool is expensive."
"There is a license for this solution and we purchase the license annually with no additional fees."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Insurance Company
8%
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 do you like most about CloudGuard for Application Security?
We have not had any incidents. We could realize its benefits immediately. We watched and monitored the traffic, and i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudGuard for Application Security?
I am less knowledgeable with prices because I only define the requirements and look at the execution. I know that its...
What needs improvement with CloudGuard for Application Security?
I would like it to be able to analyze more complex functions, although I did not examine the case study of more compl...
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
Check Point CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard AppSec
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.
Orange España, Paschoalotto
BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,475 professionals have used our research since 2012.