Fortinet FortiWeb vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall comparison

Fortinet and NSFOCUS are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Fortinet is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.0, while NSFOCUS is ranked #45. Fortinet holds a 6.5% mindshare in WAF, compared to NSFOCUS’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NSFOCUS users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiWeb and NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, F5, Imperva and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF).

To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

April 2026

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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 Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.7%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiWeb is 6.5%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiWeb	6.5%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	4.7%
NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall	0.6%
Other	88.2%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. 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. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

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HameedAhmed

Joint Director at PAA

Security threats have been reduced through seamless deployment and strong integration with other tools

I have used Fortinet FortiWeb's integration features. We have easily integrated all of the applications with the product. Most of the applications we are using are in-house built. My technical team is looking after the best features. I have not used it extensively for maybe two and a half years. I have been involved in the installation, but I am not actually using the product. I work with it from time to time but not extensively. I would assess Fortinet FortiWeb's adaptive machine learning and artificial intelligence as having new patches installed regarding artificial intelligence, but when we bought it, I think the learning feature was there. Now they have installed artificial intelligence features through patches. We have a complete portfolio of Fortinet in our organization, including FortiMail, Fortinet FortiWeb, and FortiGate, along with multi-factor authentication. All of the products are from Fortinet. Fortinet tools integrate with each other and work in conjunction. I think Fortinet FortiWeb has helped us meet regulatory compliance because we are not a regulatory organization, but our sister organization is regulatory. We have regulatory compliance with the International Civil Aviation Authority, whose audit teams have checked our data center and these security products, and they are satisfied with us. The question about leveraging Fortinet FortiWeb's automated policy management does not pertain to my domain because I am not so technical, but I am in a management role now. My engineer is more technical than me. I would rate this product an eight point five out of ten.

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it_user933945

Desktop Engineer at eros international media ltd

Offers Application Protection Against Web Attacks

There is a need for expanded licensing terms and options. There's also a need for improved and more agile customization features. The user needs to be able to manage each policy as required; the functionality needs to empower the user. There should be a complete suite of desktop provider policies available to users. Overall, it needs to be more user-friendly.

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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 solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."

"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."

"Technical support has a very fast response time and they are helpful."

"This solution does a good job of preventing web application attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting attacks."

"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."

"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."

"Does a good job preventing web application attacks."

"The product has a valuable security control functionality."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"We use Fortinet FortiWeb to protect our exchange terminal for mail security."

"What we like about Fortinet FortiWeb is it has all the features. We use all of them, so we have to turn on all the options."

"I have recently been looking at the SSL certificate features and the learning mode of the appliance. This appliance learns from the pattern of SSL attacks."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."

"We have found something that can adapt to our environment and that we can use for a long period of time."

"It's the extra security that is the most valuable feature; you have insight into your traffic, there are some great insights into what utilities hackers are trying to exploit, and it blocks a lot of stuff from the internet."

"I believe it is the best option on the market."

"The solution is super easy to use, is inexpensive, and includes great technical support."

More Fortinet FortiWeb pros

"We really appreciate the hybrid security abilities; we get powerful protection for our application needs."

"Since we are using this tool for protection purposes we really appreciate the hybrid security abilities; the main idea here is that we powerful protection our application needs."

Cons

"The learning curve was steep initially."

"We don't even use Cloudflare Bot Management because it's too expensive; you need to pay per request, and it's much cheaper to get one or two additional machines."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"A key challenge arises when dealing with numerous integrations with HVAC systems. Depending on the specifics, there might be some configuration mismatches, which necessitate specific support."

"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well. They have documentation for everything you're looking for, but they lack a single piece of documentation to tie everything together. As a new user or beginner, it took us a little bit of time to figure out how to put all these things in place."

"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."

"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"Most of the deployment is done by our development team because they have some parameters that match the configuration. However, when we initially did the deployment we used a consultant company."

"Their documentation is fairly complete, but it's sometimes a little bit difficult to search for exactly what you're looking for to resolve an issue. There have been times when we've gone to try to search for areas that we needed to get information on, and it has not always been extremely clear exactly how a particular thing needs to be set up."

"There could be ADC offering as well."

"The GUI is not as nice as CheckPoint or Palo Alto."

"It would be good if the solution integrated with other solutions, like SAP."

"Though the reporting is a nice aspect associated with the tool, I feel that it has certain shortcomings and can be made better."

"Fine-tuning is a room for improvement in Fortinet FortiWeb."

"The memory use in each of the appliances is problematic."

More Fortinet FortiWeb cons

"There is a need for expanded licensing terms and options. There's also a need for improved and more agile customization features. The user needs to be able to manage each policy as required; the functionality needs to empower the user. There should be a complete suite of desktop provider policies available to users. Overall, it needs to be more user-friendly."

"There is a need for expanded licensing terms and options. There's also a need for improved and more agile customization features."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"It is not too pricey."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The price of Fortinet FortiWeb is expensive in our Ethiopian currency."

"The solution gives us the best price to performance ratio."

"It is not a cheap product. It is not like a Linux or a Genex that you can deploy. It is a hardware appliance, and it is built for a specific reason and reliability. It is an enterprise-class solution. You wouldn't find an SMB investing in something like this."

"The license cost depends on the size of the box or the size of the solution. It can go from €200 Euros to a few hundred thousand Euros a year depending on your size."

"When I use any other firewall, I have to take a license. It could be a perpetual license or subscription-based. In both cases, we have to pay some amount in advance, whereas in the case of FortiWeb, when using it as a service, I am paying half a dollar only for the domain name, and then I am paying based on the traffic or the number of requests."

"Fortinet FortiWeb's pricing is reasonable. Its licensing costs are yearly."

"There's only one payment for the duration of the license. On a scale from one to five, I would rate pricing at four. I have not encountered any additional costs on my projects involving Fortinet FortiWeb."

"It's an expensive solution, although there are no additional costs."

More Fortinet FortiWeb pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	60
Midsize Enterprise	27
Large Enterprise	36

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...

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What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?

The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?

The pricing for Fortinet FortiWeb varies with different models having different prices. It depends on the requirement...

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What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?

There is room for improvement in Fortinet FortiWeb. The team was only from FortiGate itself. They are making new firm...

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Comparisons

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Compared 16% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Fortinet FortiWeb

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs Fortinet FortiWeb

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiOS vs Fortinet FortiWeb

Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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F5 Silverline Managed Services vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall

Compared 30% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall

Compared 27% of the time

SiteLock vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall

Compared 15% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

April 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

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Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiWeb

April 2026

Download Fortinet FortiWeb product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

April 2026

Download NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)

NSFOCUS WAF, NSFOCUS Web Application Security

Overview

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.

Cloudflare

Fortinet FortiWeb is a Web Application Firewall (WAF) that protects your web applications and APIs from attacks targeting known as well as unknown vulnerabilities. As the surface of your web applications evolves with each change of existing features and deployment of new features, your APIs are left exposed. Fortinet FortiWeb provides the board protection capabilities required to protect web applications without sacrificing performance or manageability.

Fortinet FortiWeb is an automatic, advanced multi-layer solution that provides secure protection by discerning irregular behavior and distinguishing between malicious and benign anomalies. In addition, the approach delivers powerful bot mitigation capacities which authorize harmless bots to connect while blocking malicious bot activity securely. Regardless of where an application is hosted, Fortinet FortiWeb will safeguard business applications by providing deployment options, such as virtual machines, hardware appliances, and containers that can be deployed in the data center, cloud environments, or in the cloud-native SaaS solution.

Fortinet FortiWeb Features and Benefits

APIs and web applications have become integral to the rising demand for business-critical applications. Now more than ever, businesses are in need of an automatic firewall that will provide them with security, without sacrificing performance or reliability. Fortinet FortiWeb offers a variety of features and benefits, including:

Security fabric integration: FortiWeb integrates with other Fortinet solutions to provide advanced protection from persistent threats.
Proven web application and API protection: FortiWeb safeguards applications from all DDOS attacks, malicious bot attacks, and OWASP Top-10 threats.
Advanced visual analytics: FortiWeb offers a unique visual reporting tool that other WAF solutions don’t by providing a detailed analysis of attack elements and sources.
Hardware-based acceleration: With fast and secure traffic encryption and decryption, FortiWeb provides best-in-class WAF protection.
ML-based threat detection: FortiWeb delivers multi-layer machine learning defense protection to defend against zero-day attacks and reduce false positives.
False positive mitigation tools: Reduce daily management of policies through advanced tools to guarantee only unwanted traffic is blocked.

Reviews from Real Users

Fortinet FortiWeb offers an industry-leading Web Application Firewall, and users are satisfied with it for a number of reasons, including the ability to control everything from the dashboard and the PCI-compliant reports it offers.

Carlos P., director of business and digital transformation at SERNIVEL3, notes, "You have the ability to control everything from one single dashboard."

A director at a tech service company, says, "Banks have to be compliant with PCI and other things, and FortiWeb is absolutely amazing in terms of providing these reports. Otherwise, they will have to spend a lot of time on them."

Fortinet

NSFOCUS understands how critical your web servers and applications are to your business and we have designed a closed-loop web application security solution to protect you from web attacks, data breaches and downtime. This solution includes website protection through our Web Application Firewall (WAF) and pro-active vulnerability assessment using our Web Vulnerability Scanning System (WVSS).

NSFOCUS

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG

2016 G20 Summit

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

April 2026

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