Imperva Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

Imperva and Microsoft are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Imperva is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.9, while Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.2. Additionally, 97% of Imperva 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 12, 2025

Imperva Web Application Firewall and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway compete in the web security and traffic management market. Imperva has the upper hand in security features and ease of deployment, while Azure Gateway is preferred for cloud flexibility despite configuration challenges.

Features: Imperva's strength lies in dynamic profiling, threat intelligence, and DDoS protection, which users find flexible and high-performing. Its ability to integrate with multiple tools enhances security setups. Azure Gateway focuses on traffic management, offering scalability and seamless integration with Microsoft services, although its security features are deemed less sophisticated than Imperva's.

Room for Improvement: Imperva could improve its GUI and policy management for better user-friendliness and cloud integration. Enhancements are desired in bot protection. Azure Gateway should refine its UI flexibility, third-party integrations, and simplify configuration, while addressing performance in updates and scaling.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Imperva is praised for straightforward deployment in diverse environments, bolstered by generally positive customer service, though localized support is requested. Azure Gateway excels in public cloud deployment but faces challenges in private and on-premises settings, with mixed reviews on support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Imperva is seen as expensive, with a high ROI due to its security offerings, particularly for critical sectors like banking, though pricing complexities exist. Azure Gateway offers a pay-as-you-go model, appealing to those seeking cost-effective cloud-native solutions, viewed as more affordable than Imperva.

To learn more, read our detailed Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall 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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Abdullah Jin

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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Shehzad Ali

Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation

Offers time and cost savings with integration, but user interface needs improvement

We are using it for our internal application development. We are testing those features of application gateways. We are integrating it with our solutions, application, Azure Application Gateway Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well. It provides a range of services, so it…

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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

"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."

"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."

"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."

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."

"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."

"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

More Cloudflare pros

"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."

"The dynamic profiling of websites is the solution's most valuable feature. The security is also good."

"The compliance is the most valuable aspect."

"One good thing about Imperva Web Application Firewall is it can be on the cloud and also it can be on-premise."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is stable."

"Imperva WAF's strongest features are the detection of web application threats and vulnerabilities in the source code."

"Imperva is a Gartner leader, so its scalability, performance, and features are excellent."

"The solution is cloud-based and offers us good uptime. It has combined web and API security. Therefore, with one license, you access both application security and also API security."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pros

"It does an excellent job of load balancing."

"The solution's integration is very good."

"We find it valuable because it is compatible with our existing Azure solution."

"It has a filter available, although we are not currently using it because it is not part of our requirements. But it is a good option and when it becomes part of our requirements we will definitely use it."

"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway gives us a lot of benefits, including domain mapping."

"Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well."

"We can control what rules should be used and what should be disabled."

"Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pros

Cons

"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."

"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."

"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."

"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."

"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."

"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."

More Cloudflare cons

"The tool needs to improve CPU and storage memory."

"Some of the features should be included in the next release is a file integrating monitoring tool. This feature should be improved."

"The product's customization capabilities are a bit problematic, requiring support cases for backend modifications."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is a good system, but we found that the visibility of the diverse-path server, e.g. where the traffic is coming from, the different IPs, etc., needs improvement."

"The initial setup could be simplified. Every time you have to install the solution you have to get in touch with support or somebody that can to do that for you."

"The tool's UI is complicated. It would be best to have a more accessible UI dashboard to make the job easier."

"The UI interface needs improvement."

"I loved the approach of the cloud. The cloud has a lot of new features, like advanced web protection and DDoS protection. If those could also be on-boarded onto the on-prem versions, that would be ideal. They need to pay attention to both deployment options and not just favor one."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall cons

"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."

"It could be easier to change servicing."

"Customer service can be improved. There is room for improvement, specifically in paid support, by providing more direct contact."

"The pricing of the solution is a bit high. The solution should offer different pricing systems."

"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is not scalable."

"I want the solution's support to improve. The tool is also expensive."

"Application Gateway’s limitation is that the private and the public endpoint cannot use the same port."

"For the first-time user, it is difficult to understand so the user-interface needs to be improved."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."

"We are using the free version."

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

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

"The price is reasonable."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."

"There is a license for this solution and we purchase the license annually with no additional fees."

"The solution's pricing is an issue."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."

"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."

"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."

"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."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

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

"It is not expensive."

"The solution's pricing is not complex. It is not expensive from our point of view."

"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."

"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a pretty affordable product. My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs of the solution. The additional costs apart from the licensing costs of the solution vary."

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

"The product is not expensive."

"The solution is fairly priced."

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

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance 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

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

My recommendation is Imperva.

See all answers

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...

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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 ...

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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...

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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

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 13% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 2% of the time

More Imperva Web Application Firewall Competitors

F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 12% of the time

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 12% of the time

AWS WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

February 2025

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Download Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

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

Imperva Web Application Firewall is a versatile solution that protects web applications and databases from various attacks, including DDoS, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection attacks. It offers data security, availability, and access control and can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud.

The solution has good security against web attacks and offers advanced bot protection, API security, and mitigation features. Imperva WAF is easy to configure and deploy; it has good customer service and an excellent user interface.

Imperva

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.

BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens

Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

January 2025

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