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Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 21, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare WAF offers essential protection with cost-effective features, supporting various platforms and enhancing website visibility and uptime.
Sentiment score
6.3
Users report Imperva's significant ROI, citing cost recovery, DDoS protection, reduced cloud bills, and improved efficiency and compliance.
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.
Owner at Hga consulting
They know how much money they are losing while the system is down, so by increasing the possibility of not having a down website or web application, return on investment can be calculated easily.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's support is praised for responsiveness and helpfulness, despite challenges with contact and Indian support.
Sentiment score
7.2
Imperva's customer service is praised for expertise but criticized for inconsistency, with recent improvements noted by some users.
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.
Owner at Hga consulting
The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
I would rate the technical support of Imperva DDoS as ten.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall excels in scalability and ease of use, supporting large user bases efficiently with minimal management.
Sentiment score
7.9
Imperva Application Security Platform offers strong scalability and reliability, though costs and on-premises flexibility may present challenges.
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.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
99% of customers are using the cloud version of Imperva DDoS protection, so they just purchase the new license and scale as needed.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is praised for its reliable performance, minimal downtime, and effective security features across industries.
Sentiment score
7.8
Users find Imperva Application Security Platform reliable and stable, rating its stability highly despite occasional minor issues.
The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
The stability of Imperva DDoS is very good, as it seems they have a lot of servers around the world.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare's Web Application Firewall requires ModSecurity upgrades, improved logging, integration, accuracy, more controls, and better documentation.
Imperva needs UI improvements, competitive pricing, better integration, real-time analytics, and enhanced support for efficiency and transparency.
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.
Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
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.
Owner at Hga consulting
They need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
Maybe Imperva DDoS could use endpoints to get information about the attacks before they commence from the endpoint level or establish cooperation with endpoint vendors to share this information.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare's WAF offers competitive pricing from $20 to $10,000, seen as cost-effective but could improve transparency.
The Imperva platform's pricing is competitive with advanced features, ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 annually and no setup costs.
I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap and ten is very expensive.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides scalable DDoS protection, configurable rules, advanced features, and comprehensive support with minimal false positives.
Imperva's platform offers robust security features, user-friendly integration, real-time analytics, and scalability for diverse enterprise protection needs.
The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.
Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
All the DNS and everything is routed through Cloudflare, so anybody coming to any of the sites has to go through Cloudflare first, making them the first wall of defense.
Owner at Hga consulting
The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
I have utilized Imperva's Intelligent Traffic Filtering feature. This feature helps me understand how the attack is progressing and what is happening inside the requests to our website.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
133
Ranking in other categories
CDN (4th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Bot Management (1st), API Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.8%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 7.6%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform7.6%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall5.8%
Other86.6%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

AU
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
Effectively protects clients from automated threats and ensures global security
I cannot say much about areas of improvement for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall because I haven't gone through deep understanding of it, as I am still learning. However, they need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long. If I took 48 hours to answer a request at my company, it would be a tough time to see or address the issue, and it would be frustrating.
reviewer1247523 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Solution ensures website availability and proactive threat mitigation
Over the seven years, the most valuable features of Imperva DDoS that I have found are related to DDoS attacks, which are a group of attacks, and not all of them can be resolved on the endpoint level before the website. Using the web firewall before the website is a common use case to protect against malicious requests to the website. I have utilized Imperva's Intelligent Traffic Filtering feature. This feature helps me understand how the attack is progressing and what is happening inside the requests to our website. It allows me to granularly grant or deny access to certain parts of our website. This helps when we know our customers and the types of requests that can be sent from them, enabling us to block some malicious requests. Imperva DDoS has User Behavior Analytics and Threat Intelligence on its board, and this helps us to be protected proactively. Imperva DDoS connects to its database of threats, storing whole information about attacks all over the world in one simple engine. Everyone can use this feature, which can connect to this engine and get information about what is going on at the world level. That is the way to be protected at the company's level. The integration capabilities of Imperva DDoS are very easy and simple. We can run it in 2 hours.
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880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Expert with 51-200 employees
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business83
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
The product has a valuable security control functionality.
What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't really use the rule-based logic feature or utilize the WAF's ability to scale as a cloud-based service. I don't have specific areas that could be improved with Cloudflare Web Application Fi...
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
What do you like most about Imperva Incapsula?
We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. Imperva Application Security Platform and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.