Imperva Web Application Firewall vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

Imperva and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Additionally, 97% of Imperva users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 19, 2025

Imperva Web Application Firewall (WAF) and Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks compete in the web application security category. Based on feature strengths, Cortex Cloud has the upper hand due to its in-depth multi-cloud security features.

Features: Imperva WAF offers profiling policies, advanced bot protection, and inline transferring mode for seamless integration with other tools. It provides account takeover protection and employs threat intelligence. Cortex Cloud provides comprehensive multi-cloud security with features like automated forensics, robust runtime protection, and dynamic workload identity creation. It also manages cloud security posture and supports numerous integrations.

Room for Improvement: Imperva WAF could benefit from a more intuitive interface and better customization for reporting and alerts. Enhancements in bot protection and API security are needed. Cortex Cloud would improve from seamless integration among its components and better UI. Improvements in alert accuracy and API security, as well as enhanced automation in licensing and alert management, are recommended.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Imperva WAF offers flexible deployment models, including on-premises and hybrid cloud, but requires better support and streamlined deployment procedures. Its technical support is noted for responsiveness. Cortex Cloud focuses on cloud-based deployment but needs improved customer support and onboarding processes, as its support is slower with complex issues.

Pricing and ROI: Imperva WAF is considered expensive with complex licensing for WAF and DAM, yet offers significant ROI in sectors like banking. Cortex Cloud is also costly, beneficial for large enterprises due to its feature set. Its credit-based licensing model provides flexibility, though costs can be high for smaller organizations, with additional expenses for professional services.

To learn more, read our detailed Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

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.

Read full review

Mohammad Qaw

Senior Security Consultant at helpag

It gives you one console to see all of your assets, review their configurations, and build your processes

Most customers use Prisma Cloud for visibility and compliance. Prisma has so many features, but many organizations do not use them. They primarily use the visibility part to connect all their cloud accounts and hosts for visibility to see if they are missing any security controls or if they have any misconfigurations. You can connect it to cloud environments such as Azure, AWS, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba, etc., or to an on-prem data center. Prisma Cloud gives you so many options to automate processes related to your daily operations. When it comes to cybersecurity, you can automate things with their existing APIs. They also have out-of-the-box integrations with many solutions. I have not seen any limitations. Everything is customizable. You can do whatever you want, defining the reporting and custom use cases. They recently updated the UI, so it's much better than before.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."

"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."

"The tool is user-friendly."

"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."

"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"

"Cloudflare has many features."

"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."

More Cloudflare pros

"Imperva monitors all traffic, even customer access, to the web application. Then, Imperva uses features like signatures to identify attacks like cross-site scripting or SQL injection."

"Protection is the best solution since it has profile functionality."

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

"I have had a positive experience with Imperva Web Application Firewall's tech support so far. They are knowledgeable and respond on time."

"Learning mode and custom policies are helpful features."

"The most valuable feature of Imperva, in addition to its strong knowledge base, is its effective protection for web applications."

"The features I have found most valuable with Imperva Web Application Firewall are account takeover protection, advanced bot protection, and API security."

"The most valuable features of Imperva Web Application Firewall are the monitoring of databases and the dashboards are easy to understand."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pros

"Prisma Cloud's real-time detection and monitoring of our entire system is the most useful."

"Prisma Cloud stands out as a user-friendly and powerful CSPM solution thanks to its comprehensive capabilities, built-in features, and flexible tagging system."

"CSPM is the most valuable feature."

"Prisma Cloud also provides the visibility and control you need, regardless of how complex or distributed your cloud environments become. It helps to simplify that complexity. Now we know what the best practices are, and if something is missing we know."

"We are provided with a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications without having to manage and reconcile compliance reports."

"We were pleased with Prisma's custom and built-in reports. We could go into the dashboard and see all these notifications telling us which subscriptions didn't have TLS 1.2 enabled. The security controls were the most valuable features."

"Prisma Cloud's comprehensive platform offers a range of features, including runtime security and vulnerability assessments, through its Prisma Cloud Compute component."

"I was looking for a vulnerability scanner and I was looking for one place in which I could find everything. This tool not only does vulnerability scanning, but it also gives me an asset management tool."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks pros

Cons

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

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

"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."

"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."

"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."

"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."

More Cloudflare cons

"The UI interface needs improvement."

"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."

"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."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the API integration. It was complex for us. Additionally, The onboarding could be better."

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

"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."

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

"I don't really use it and therefore can't speak to areas of improvement."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall cons

"I think Prisma Cloud could improve its preventive governance policy and CWP run time modules."

"The challenge that Palo Alto and Prisma have is that, at times, the instructions in an event are a little bit dated and they're not usable. That doesn't apply to all the instructions, but there are times where, for example, the Microsoft or the Amazon side has made some changes and Palo Alto or Prisma was not aware of them. So as we try to remediate an alert in such a case, the instructions absolutely do not work. Then we open up a ticket and they'll reply, "Oh yeah, the API for so-and-so vendor changed and we'll have to work with them on that." That area could be done a little better."

"It would be ideal if they could somehow reduce the deployment time."

"We have discovered that Prisma is not functioning properly with GCP."

"Support is an area that needs improvement."

"We are encountering issues with the new permissions required for AWS integration with Prisma."

"One major observation is that it is not possible to implement Prisma Cloud on-premises. This is the limitation. Prisma Cloud itself is on a cloud. It is sitting on AWS and Google Cloud. It is a SaaS solution, but some of my clients have a local regulatory requirement, and they want to install it locally on their premises. That capability is not there, but government entities and ministries want to have Prisma Cloud installed locally."

"This solution is more AWS and Azure-centric. It needs to be more specific on the GCP side, which they are working on."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"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."

"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."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

"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 pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is expensive."

"The price of Imperva Web Application Firewalls is expensive compared to others."

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

"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."

"The solution's pricing is an issue."

"Imperva’s pricing is a bit higher in the market since it offers a full-blown WAF."

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

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"Prisma Cloud is more expensive than some other solutions, but when we consider all of its use cases, the cost averages out."

"If you pay for three years of Palo Alto, it's better. If you're planning on doing this, it's obviously not going to be for one year, so it's better if you go with a three-year license... The only challenge we have is with the public cloud vendor pricing. The biggest lesson I have learned is around the issues related to pricing for public cloud. So when you are doing your segmentation and design, it is extremely important that you work with someone who knows and understands what kinds of needs you will have in the future and how what you are doing will affect you in terms of costs."

"The pricing for Prisma Cloud is high. Providing a pay-as-you-go model or pricing options tailored for medium and small enterprises could help attract more clients."

"In general, Prisma Cloud is much cheaper than cloud-native services."

"This solution is good for a company with at least 400 people that must be connected remotely. For smaller companies, it can be too expensive."

"Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks has helped the company save some money. Cost-wise, it's okay."

"I find the pricing to be expensive."

"Prisma Cloud is remarkably expensive."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

17%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

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 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 ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks ?

Prisma Cloud helps support DevSecOps methodologies, making those responsibilities easier to manage.

See all answers

What Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform do you recommend?

We like Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, since it offers us incredible visibility into our entire cloud system. We...

See all answers

What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?

Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valu...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 17% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 13% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

Radware Alteon vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 3% of the time

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Wiz vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 22% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 12% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 5% of the time

Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 5% of the time

AWS Security Hub vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

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Cloudflare

March 2025

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Imperva Web Application Firewall

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

March 2025

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks report

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Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto

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

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks delivers comprehensive security for cloud environments, focusing on workload protection, identity creation, and seamless AWS integration. Its cloud visibility and control, combined with thorough vulnerability scanning, help maintain robust security across multi-cloud platforms.

Prisma Cloud provides essential capabilities for cloud security posture management, container security, and compliance monitoring. Enterprises utilize it to secure cloud configurations, detect vulnerabilities, and ensure regulatory compliance, spanning AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. Its runtime management, identity-based micro-segmentation, and threat detection enhance cybersecurity. Despite needing improvements in documentation, integration complexities, UI, and the need for role-based access control refinement, it remains pivotal for securing assets across cloud infrastructures, particularly with its capabilities for vulnerability scanning and CI/CD pipeline integration.

What are the key features?

Workload Identity Creation: Establishes identities for cloud workloads, enhancing security through precise access management.
Dynamic Workload Protection: Protects applications dynamically, securing resources during runtime.
Integration with AWS Products: Seamlessly integrates with AWS services, maximizing the efficiency of cloud operations.
Automated Forensics: Provides detailed insights through automated investigations and runtime mapping between containers.
Application Dependency Map: Enables compliance and asset management through comprehensive inventory functionality.

What benefits or ROI should users expect?

Proactive Threat Prevention: Enhances security measures with advanced threat detection and prevention.
Cloud Visibility and Control: Offers control across multi-cloud environments, ensuring users maintain a strong security posture.
Prevention Capabilities: Users value its ability to prevent vulnerabilities and threats effectively.
Integration Capabilities: Supports seamless integration into existing cloud infrastructures and CI/CD pipelines.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Prisma Cloud is implemented to strengthen cybersecurity measures, facilitate regulatory compliance, and enhance governance. Organizations leverage its features to secure sensitive data, monitor configurations, and integrate security processes within CI/CD workflows, ensuring robust protection across complex cloud infrastructures.

Palo Alto Networks

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

Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

January 2025

Free Report: Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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