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FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
FortiWeb Web Application Fi...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (16th)
Imperva Web Application Fir...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (6th)
 

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.
IgnitiusMolepo - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects internal applications and prevents target attacks
The tool secures our critical applications, especially the mobile money application, which is often targeted by attacks. The solution provides rapid protection and has proven reliable against various threats. It blocks malicious traffic, including dormant and DDoS attacks, and offers integrated Web Application Firewall features to safeguard against compromises. You can set it up for customer-facing web applications because customers don't necessarily know all the IP addresses. It uses a source-based approach where any source accessing the application is defined by its IP. When accessing the application, it checks if they are using HTTP or HTTPS and blocks them if necessary. The tool's performance and security reporting capabilities contribute positively to IT security management. Consolidating management within the solution makes it easier for IT to handle the solutions. All functionalities managed on a single box reduce the number of boxes needed for management.
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

"Even when there is a high load on our servers, Cloudflare is able to cache the data and serve it to users, ensuring they can still access the website."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."
"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"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."
"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."
"The fact that I can log into the platform and see everybody, see logs, authentication failure, and see everything on one platform, is the most valuable feature."
"The machine learning on FortiWeb WAF is valuable."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall helps us to block certain categories of browsing, such as weapons, and other inappropriate content on the client side. We have also blocked social media sites like TikTok and Facebook to enhance user productivity and maintain application security."
"We use it to secure VMs and applications. It protects against DDoS attacks. It's very user-friendly."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtration, web filter, application filter, and IPS."
"The initial setup was easy since it was possible to get remote support for the product."
"The solution's integration with other products is easy. Its most valuable feature is the antivirus engine. The tool helps us comply with GDPR and KVKK standards."
"The solution is transparent and smooth."
"If you are using the appliance as opposed to the virtual deployment, it can stand as the network layer-two and provide real transparency."
"Imperva WAF's strongest features are the detection of web application threats and vulnerabilities in the source code."
"The most valuable features of the Imperva Web Application Firewall are performance and flexibility. We can extend or customize the box itself."
"Learning mode and custom policies are helpful features."
"The dynamic profiling of websites is the solution's most valuable feature. The security is also good."
"Data masking is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"Compared to other web application firewalls in the market, Imperva does things in the most accurate way."
"Its inline transferring mode is the most valuable because it is 100% transparent. When you change the IP, there is no change on the network side. If you can't and want to try to reach an IP, you can reach the server IP. There are many other advanced security features in it. The smallest appliances of Imperva can handle the highest traffic at a customer site. For example, a smaller appliance from Imperva can provide you the same security as an F5 product."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."
"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."
"I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."
"Technical support is lacking."
"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."
"The pricing could be improved."
"The technical support team is bad."
"There could be ADC offering as well."
"There is room for improvement in pricing, and actually, the price is a bit higher because on the same terms I purchased, the support subscription is so high."
"For users not familiar with Fortinet, it could be beneficial to provide more user-friendly analytics and reporting."
"I don't see any issues with the tool apart from the pricing aspect of the product. The price of the product is an area where improvements are required."
"The product is complicated to set up."
"Regarding areas for improvement, the documentation needs work. We had issues with a customer because the documentation didn't clearly show which devices can connect with FortiWeb WAF, leading to misconfiguration and difficult meetings. We also need deeper technical support - finding who's responsible for technical aspects is challenging. Hungary has a good Fortinet office with strong sales and pre-sales employees."
"The documentation is poor."
"Sometimes, support tickets don't get addressed quickly."
"One potential improvement for Imperva is enhancing its alert system."
"It would be useful if the solution used more intelligence in attack protection. For example, firewalls are to be dependent on the configuration, but if they could have some data science around it the solution would be even better. The profiling of the traffic, and making decisions surrounding that should be intelligence-based, instead of being based on the configuration of the firewall itself."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is very expensive."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the console by making it easier to use."
"There is nothing specific where the application firewall is falling short."
"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."
"The signature updates could be faster. Sometimes we have to upload signatures to the Imperva portal for checking and analysis before we can use them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"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."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"We are using the free version."
"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."
"It is a cost-effective product. If you need an extra module in the product, there will be an extra cost in addition to the licensing fee."
"This product offers two pricing options: a standard package and an advanced package."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"It is a cheap solution."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall is not expensive."
"The product provides very good prices to customers. The price is set well and offers great value for money."
"I rate the product price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"I would rate the pricing a four out of ten."
"It is a very affordable solution."
"There is a license for this solution and we purchase the license annually with no additional fees."
"Everybody complains about the price of this solution."
"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."
"It is very costly, but the return on investment is very high. Its cost was around $70,000, and we got it back in just six months."
"Imperva’s pricing is a bit higher in the market since it offers a full-blown WAF."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance 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 FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtration, web filter, application filter, and IPS.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
FortiWeb uses a subscription-based license, but there is also an option for a perpetual license. It's not the cheapes...
What needs improvement with FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
For users not familiar with Fortinet, it could be beneficial to provide more user-friendly analytics and reporting. T...
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 DefensePro 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
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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.
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BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens
Find out what your peers are saying about FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
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