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Imperva Web Application Firewall vs NGINX App Protect 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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
Imperva Web Application Fir...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (7th)
NGINX App Protect
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (16th), Container Security (22nd), API Security (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Mitesh D Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Effectively defends against threats like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and others
It does bring value. For example, consider a BFSI customer. Their application is critical and represents their brand. Without a WAF, an attack could take their application down, harming their reputation. It leads to hampering the customer's workflow. With an Imperva WAF, they protect against attacks like DDoS or SQL injection, ensuring their application remains available and customers are happy. That's the main benefit for both the customer and the organization. The impact depends on the customer's use case. If their business primarily operates online, a CDN is beneficial for traffic optimization. Moreover, the integration options depend on the specific use case of our customers. Generally, integration capabilities are good with SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) parts.
Tomaz Sobczak - PeerSpot reviewer
Signature-based detection, DOS protection, and bot protection
NGINX App Protect is easier to automate and configure, or manage from an API. This is good for securing applications. However, it's not suitable for more complex tasks. NGINX App Protect positively impacted performance changes. There's a cache or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications. It can also offload some functions from servers, which NGINX can handle faster.

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 DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."
"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."
"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."
"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."
"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."
"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."
"Imperva WAF's strongest features are the detection of web application threats and vulnerabilities in the source code."
"We can prevent attacks or issues even before they happen."
"The most valuable feature of Imperva, in addition to its strong knowledge base, is its effective protection for web applications."
"Compared to other web application firewalls in the market, Imperva does things in the most accurate way."
"It has fewer false positives"
"The configurability of the tools and the ease of operation to be the most valuable feature of Imperva."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is stable."
"The solution can scale."
"It's very easy to deploy."
"It has the best documentation features."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the OWASP certification. Additionally, the tool's ability to enforce strong passwords and OTP within minutes is impressive. With its analytics and recommendations, it is a very good solution."
"NGINX App Protect has complete control over the HTTP session."
"The policies are flexible based on the technologies you use."
"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is its open source."
"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is its flexibility."
"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is the reverse proxy."
 

Cons

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"The pricing could be improved."
"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."
"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."
"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."
"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."
"The only disadvantage of Imperva is that it is a pretty costly solution."
"I am looking for more data enrichment. We should have the ability to add our own custom data to the system, to the live traffic."
"It's a complicated tool to keep."
"Support is one thing I wish Imperva could improve."
"It is complicated to integrate the solution's on-cloud version with other platforms."
"The solution works for particular zones but isn't always the best solution for all zones."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the API integration. It was complex for us. Additionally, The onboarding could be better."
"Sometimes our web application firewall will slow down."
"Right now, the tool doesn't provide an option revolving around update feeds, specifically the signature update option in the UI."
"Setting policies and parameters through the UI should be more automated because the process is manual, where we can only edit one rule at a time."
"NGINX App Protect would be improved with integration with Shape and F5 WAF, which would make it easy for users to manage all their web application security with a single solution."
"The solution needs to be improved in the e-commerce portal."
"The configuration needs to be more flexible because it is difficult to do things that are outside of the ordinary."
"It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service, to avoid disruptions after implementation."
"As far as scalability, it takes a long time for deployment."
"It doesn't have more advanced features like no false-positive security, which you can configure in Advanced WAF."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"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 product's pricing is cheap."
"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."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"The price is reasonable."
"There is a license for this solution and we purchase the license annually with no additional fees."
"It is a very affordable solution."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."
"The solution's pricing is an issue."
"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."
"The price of Imperva Web Application Firewalls is expensive compared to others."
"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."
"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."
"NGINX App Protect is expensive."
"There is a license needed to use NGINX App Protect."
"The price of NGINX App Protect is approximately $3,000 annually. All of our licenses are observed by a managed service partner."
"Our licensing costs are about $40,000 a year."
"The pricing is reasonable because NGINX operates on an instance basis."
"Really understand the licensing model, because we underestimated that."
"There is a monthly or annual subscription to use NGINX App Protect. There are not any additional costs to the subscription."
"There are no additional fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing 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.
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 DDoS Protection Service 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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX App Protect?
I don't know the pricing yet because in my other project, I was not part of the buying side and I was just starting t...
What needs improvement with NGINX App Protect?
It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requir...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall
 

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.
BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.