Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

Check Point Software Technologies and Microsoft are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Check Point Software Technologies is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.7, while Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.2. Additionally, 100% of Check Point Software Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 78% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and Check Point CloudGuard WAF are competitors in web application protection. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has an advantage in pricing, offering better value for certain users through its Azure service integration.

Features: Microsoft Azure Application Gateway integrates well within the Azure ecosystem providing features such as SSL offloading, URL-based routing, and protection against common web vulnerabilities. Check Point CloudGuard WAF emphasizes advanced threat intelligence, automatic scaling, and in-depth threat detection capabilities to counter sophisticated attack vectors. Check Point CloudGuard WAF is recognized for offering more advanced built-in threat protection tools aimed at organizations that need comprehensive security.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Azure Application Gateway could enhance its advanced threat protection capabilities to match the sophistication seen in other solutions. Its routing and security customization features would benefit from more flexibility outside the Azure environment. Additionally, the integration with non-Azure services could be improved for broader applicability. Check Point CloudGuard WAF could work on reducing the high initial setup cost, potentially making it more accessible for smaller enterprises. Its integration with other cloud platforms might need simplification to enhance ease of use. Additionally, optimizing its resource utilization efficiency could lead to better performance under high load conditions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Azure Application Gateway provides a streamlined deployment process within Azure environments with extensive support documentation, facilitating rapid implementation. Check Point CloudGuard WAF offers flexibility across various cloud platforms backed by dedicated customer service, allowing for more tailored deployments in non-Azure environments.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is generally more cost-effective with its scalable pay-as-you-go model, appealing to businesses heavily using Azure services which leads to a higher ROI. Check Point CloudGuard WAF, though potentially incurring higher initial costs, justifies this through its enhanced security offerings, catering to enterprises prioritizing comprehensive threat protection.

To learn more, read our detailed Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

January 2025

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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

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

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.

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Ashish Upadhyay

Founder at BlockMosiac

Automation capabilities also help streamline security processes and smooths down API integration processes and detects API availability

There is room for improvement in the pricing strategy. By reducing their cost and extending the trial period, Check Point can attract more partnerships and customers, keeping up with other vendors in the field. It has a trial period, but they can extend it so we can better evaluate how it's working in our environment and how well it is suited. It should be converted to activate some discounts on buying standard versions. This will attract more of us, and we'll get more time to check the application and how it works. Additionally, their effort to involve IT teams would mean continuous adaptation to meet business requirements. This can help with the price picture and increasing the trial period so we can better evaluate the cost-effectiveness. Also, Check Point need to continue developing new features and arrangements in line with changing business requirements. The analysis time while it analyzes itself is very time-consuming. They need to improve the latency and minimize the steps involved. Also, the documentation needs to be updated, more improved, and simplified... so that even a beginner can start with this application. It can make things more beginner-friendly. Also, Check Point can bring some updates to the integration features with other security solutions, making it easier to integrate. For instance, it needs to integrate with solutions someone might have various firewall solutions from IBM and others, depending on which ones the business wants to integrate with.

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Sooryanarayan Hegde

Technical Architect at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Easy management and configuration, affordable, and has good features

We use all the features. It is very useful. Using WAF, we can control the WAF rules based on our application requirements. We can control what rules should be used and what should be disabled. The role of the tool is limited to HTTP traffic. It does exactly what it must do. It's a regional service. We know how to use it for DR scenarios. WAF has been the most valuable in protecting applications. We use at least three instances in the back end to give the best performance for our applications. The management and configuration of the solution is quite easy. All certificate renewals are automatically taken care of by Key Vault.

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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 is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service."

"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."

"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."

"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."

"It's very user-friendly."

More Cloudflare pros

"The first valuable feature is that it is not a complex process to get it up and running. It was not complex at all. We were in a close relationship with the team that developed the app, and it worked in a few hours. The second valuable feature is the information that comes out of it."

"It offers good functionality of the application that is currently running."

"It helps us streamline our revenue streams, and we're spending less money on application security."

"It offers high performance and improved productivity for users."

"The solution offers continuous security monitoring and alerting, which can help organizations detect and respond to security incidents in real time."

"The tool helps us to block IPs and applications."

"The solution's ability to handle multiple websites and applications without needing more expensive hardware is a key advantage."

"We have not had any incidents. We could realize its benefits immediately. We watched and monitored the traffic, and it was amazing to see the results."

More Check Point CloudGuard WAF pros

"We use the product in front-end and back-end applications to do the load balancing smartly."

"The tool is easy to use and quite flexible. It has policy management features as well. The solution screens all traffic to our web applications before passing it to the application. We recently tested it on one of our poorly developed applications, and the upgrade gave us a 100% result based on our tests. It's very effective as a security measure, and people can detect threats even through the web application."

"It is a scalable solution...The installation phase of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is very easy."

"The production is a valuable feature."

"In my experience, Microsoft products have a smooth integration and facilitate easy management and monitoring. Using Azure Application Gateway allows us to efficiently handle the system loads."

"I rate Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's scalability a ten out of ten. My company has more than 1000 users who use it daily."

"The tool helps manage microservices by providing developers with a platform to conduct tests and assessments on the web application. The custom domain option is one of the most valuable features I've found. This feature is incredibly helpful for the end-users of the web application. With the custom domain feature, you can change the lengthy link to a shorter, more memorable one. For example, instead of using a lengthy default link, you can customize it to something like imail.com, which is much easier to remember and share."

"Azure Application Gateway's most valuable feature is ease of use. The configuration is straightforward. It isn't difficult to adjust the size of your instances in the settings. You can do that with a few clicks, and the configuration file is the same way. You can also set rules and policies with minimal time and effort."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pros

Cons

"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."

"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."

"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."

"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."

"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."

"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."

"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

More Cloudflare cons

"I have faced issues with the tool's blocking aspects. It is hard to open or block web services due to the multitude of cloud centers. I have to do the process manually at times. We have a bug which is hard to solve."

"It was costlier than other solutions."

"The learning curve was a challenge due to initially incorrect configurations. It took approximately a month and a half to understand how the solution works because of inadequate documentation."

"The documentation of each of the tools that they offer needs to be better."

"Support could be improved, particularly in terms of availability."

"We would like to have a solution of this type for the administration of applications from mobile devices."

"You need to know exactly the system. You cannot have someone running the system if they don't have the knowledge to do so."

"There are occasions when it interfaces with other systems, leading to a loss of visibility."

More Check Point CloudGuard WAF cons

"The configuration is very specific right now and needs to be much more flexible."

"I believe that there is room for improvement in terms of additional functionality. It is an advantage to have features readily available for configuration without needing customer-defined rules."

"The monitoring on the solution could be better."

"The tool's pricing could be improved."

"Microsoft needs to work on their documentation."

"The solution could improve by increasing the performance when doing updates. For example, if I change the certificate it can take 30 minutes. Other vendors do not have this type of problem."

"The graphical interface needs improvement because it is not user friendly."

"It could be easier to change servicing."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"We are using the free version."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"I work for an Indian banking client. In India, companies are on a budget. The company liked Check Point very much, but it was a little bit costly compared to FortiWeb. However, it had more features compared to FortiWeb."

"I find the pricing to be reasonable."

"Check Point CloudGuard Application Security's pricing is not friendly."

"The pricing is competitive compared to other solutions on the market. So, the licensing cost is average."

"Considering all the benefits we've observed, we find the price to be satisfactory."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly and competitive."

"The pricing is not that expensive considering what it offers."

"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"

More Check Point CloudGuard WAF pricing and cost advice

"Regarding pricing for Azure Application Gateway, I would rate it at seven."

"Between v1 and v2, there is a lot of change in the pricing. It is very costly compared to AWS."

"There is a need to pay a fixed price per month to use the product. There are no additional payments to be made to Microsoft apart from the charges paid towards the monthly licensing costs attached to the solution."

"The solution is cheaper than Imperva. I rate it four to five out of ten."

"I rate the price of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway an eight out of ten."

"There is some additional cost, such as extended support."

"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"I would rate the pricing a three out of ten, with ten being cheap and one being expensive."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

24%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Security Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudGuard for Application Security?

The base solution costs approximately 30,000 euros, with an additional 2,000 euros per year for licenses and support....

See all answers

What needs improvement with CloudGuard for Application Security?

The learning curve was a challenge due to initially incorrect configurations. It took approximately a month and a hal...

See all answers

What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?

We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Radware DDoS Protection Service vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs Check Point CloudGuard WAF

Compared 23% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Check Point CloudGuard WAF

Compared 17% of the time

AWS WAF vs Check Point CloudGuard WAF

Compared 14% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Check Point CloudGuard WAF

Compared 9% of the time

open-appsec vs Check Point CloudGuard WAF

Compared 9% of the time

More Check Point CloudGuard WAF Competitors

F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 13% of the time

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 11% of the time

AWS WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 11% of the time

HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

NetScaler vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard WAF

February 2025

Download Check Point CloudGuard WAF product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

January 2025

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Download Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard AppSec

Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“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. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Cloudflare

Check Point CloudGuard WAF (Web Application Firewall) is a cloud-native security solution designed to protect web applications and APIs from known and unknown threats. It employs contextual AI and machine learning to prevent zero-day attacks without relying on traditional signature-based detection methods, ensuring that applications remain secure even as new threats emerge.

CloudGuard WAF offers preemptive protection against vulnerabilities by using machine learning to identify and block zero-day threats like Log4Shell and Spring4Shell. It provides precise detection capabilities, minimizing the need for constant fine-tuning and reducing false positives. Designed for cloud-native environments, CloudGuard WAF integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines, supporting automated deployment and configuration through infrastructure as code (IaC) or APIs.

Key Features of CloudGuard WAF:

ML-Based Threat Prevention: Stops application-layer attacks, including those listed in the OWASP Top 10, with minimal tuning and no reliance on signature updates.
API Discovery and Security: Identifies and secures APIs, preventing misuse and enforcing API schemas to protect against unauthorized access.
Bot and DDoS Prevention: Detects and mitigates automated attacks that can disrupt services or degrade customer experiences.
Intrusion Prevention (IPS): Provides protection against over 2,800 web-related CVEs using Check Point’s award-winning IPS technology.

Benefits of CloudGuard WAF:

Zero-Day Protection: Mitigates risks from newly discovered vulnerabilities without waiting for signature updates.
Reduced Operational Overhead: Eliminates the need for constant manual tuning and exception handling, simplifying security management.
Comprehensive API Security: Enhances control over your attack surface by discovering and securing all APIs, including shadow, rogue, and deprecated endpoints.
Fast and Easy Deployment: Deployable within minutes via WAF as a Service (WAFaaS), requiring only a one-time DNS configuration for immediate protection.

CloudGuard WAF is particularly suitable for organizations using modern, cloud-based architectures that require robust, automated security measures for both applications and APIs. Its capabilities are valuable for industries that handle sensitive data, such as finance or healthcare, where compliance and data protection are critical. Pricing and support are typically customized to the specific needs and scale of the deployment, with options for continuous updates and maintenance through Check Point's managed services.

CloudGuard WAF by Check Point provides advanced, AI-driven protection for web applications and APIs, offering automated, precise threat prevention and easy integration with cloud-native environments, ensuring robust security without the need for extensive manual configuration.

Check Point Software Technologies

Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

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

Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

January 2025

Free Report: Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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