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Microsoft Azure Application Gateway 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Businesses see financial benefits from Cloudflare through improved uptime, security, and performance, enhancing returns despite measurement challenges.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway saves time and costs by managing infrastructure, offering up to 40% savings on projects.
Sentiment score
7.1
NGINX App Protect provided significant ROI, cost-effectiveness, and improved security, especially crucial during the Covid-19 pandemic.
You would only lose money if you had an attack and you need to calculate the cost against the risks.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
We have had ROI with the tool's use since it never gave us downtime and made us lose millions.
We have seen a return on investment in terms of time-saving and cost-saving by not creating our own infrastructure.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Customer service is highly rated, especially for Enterprise plans, but response times could improve for complex issues.
Sentiment score
6.1
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's customer service feedback varies, ranging from responsive and effective to slow with inconsistent expertise.
Sentiment score
6.1
NGINX App Protect customer support has mixed reviews, with varying responsiveness and cost opinions, and issues with occasional slow responses.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
We'd like a dedicated account manager.
You can get a support engineer with the best qualifications.
There is room for improvement, specifically in paid support, by providing more direct contact.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cloudflare is highly regarded for its scalability, smoothly accommodating various user needs and handling significant traffic across business sizes.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is generally praised for scalability and auto-scaling, though some experience challenges with significant scale-ups.
Sentiment score
6.3
NGINX App Protect's scalability is mixed, with good results for small groups but issues with larger deployments and management.
I would rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten since I didn't encounter any issues with it.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten because I had no issues with it.
I rate the scalability a ten out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare is generally praised for stability and reliability, despite occasional issues and past outages, requiring proper configuration for best performance.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is stable and reliable, though some users report minor issues requiring experience for optimal management.
Sentiment score
8.4
NGINX App Protect is reliable and efficient, scoring highly in stability, but could improve in HTML5 availability.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
I rate Cloudflare eight out of 10 for stability.
 

Room For Improvement

Users suggest Cloudflare improve analytics, CDN errors, support, DNS, APIs, pricing, server access, DDoS features, and documentation.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway requires better pricing, integration, ease of use, documentation, support, and enhanced features for scalability and security.
NGINX App Protect faces issues with configuration, costs, support, integration, documentation, upgrades, security, automation, and communication about features.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
Compared to other vendors and Cloudflare, there will be more downtime.
There is room for improvement in terms of support, such as assigning agents directly for more straightforward engagement.
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare provides free and paid plans from $20, with straightforward pricing catering to small, medium, and enterprise businesses.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's cost is mixed, valued for integration but often seen as pricey, averaging a seven rating.
NGINX App Protect pricing ranges from $3,000 to $40,000+ annually based on architecture, usage, and renewal costs.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
It is cheaper than other options.
It's cost-effective, but I think they should have a custom pricing model for enterprise customers based on the features you use.
Azure solutions are quite expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare provides speed enhancement, security, and ease of use with CDN, DDoS protection, SSL, and traffic analytics for website optimization.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway offers Layer 7 management, WAF security, API-based routing, easy integration, and cost-efficient performance.
Users value NGINX App Protect for flexible deployment, security features, robust functionality, and seamless integration into CICD pipelines.
Our scenario consisted of two web servers in different allocations to control access demands, and the load balancer did the job as expected, bringing security and stability to access points.
For me, the valuable feature is DDoS protection.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
We are using it for some of the security features for our applications, particularly for securing traffic in transit with SSL.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Microsoft Azure Application...
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd)
NGINX App Protect
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (15th), Container Security (23rd), API Security (4th)
 

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.
Shehzad Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Saurav Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers protection to users from external threats
NGINX App Protect secures our company's application, and it has helped me a lot, considering that we have critical infrastructure in India where we see how lots of attacks come onto our organization's servers. The tool offers protection against multiple threats present in India's IT ecosystem. The tool helps our company to make our payments secure, meaning it has the ability to provide a secure payment environment in India. Speaking about the improvements in our company's application performance since implementing NGINX App Protect, the gRPC support for the solution is very low. My company is not getting any proper documentation on how to deploy gRPC over NGINX App Protect. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. People can use the product as their company's base server, WAF, or for its proxy manager, depending on the business requirements. My company follows PCI DSS compliance because we operate in a payment-related industry. Right now, my company follows all the standards, so we comply with all the requirements and policies. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Healthcare 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'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...
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...
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...
What needs improvement with NGINX App Protect?
The product's price is high, making it an area of concern where improvements are required. The tool's licensing model...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
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.
Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.