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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
6.5
Cloudflare users experienced increased performance, security, and cost-effectiveness, leading to improved loyalty and revenue despite difficult ROI calculations.
Sentiment score
6.0
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway enhances cost-control and efficiency, offering 30-40% savings and reducing staffing needs, despite cost assessment challenges.
Sentiment score
6.9
Organizations saw positive ROI with NGINX App Protect during COVID-19, improving security and integration, anticipating future benefits.
For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.
Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
In terms of return on investment with Cloudflare, it costs my time to set them up, but basically once they're set up, it's done.
Owner at Hga consulting
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway significantly impacts our cost savings while maintaining higher performance.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
We have seen a return on investment in terms of time-saving and cost-saving by not creating our own infrastructure.
Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Cloudflare's customer service is quick, but technical support feedback is mixed, with improvement needed in responsiveness and detailed assistance.
Sentiment score
6.3
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's customer service is praised for responsiveness but criticized for delays and varying technical expertise.
Sentiment score
6.3
NGINX App Protect support is praised for promptness and helpfulness but inconsistencies and costs affect user satisfaction.
Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.
Senior Consultant CDN at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to call them.
Owner at Hga consulting
I have primarily worked not with the tool's customer support but with the product's sales engineers and technical sales engineers, who seem to know their stuff.
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
There is room for improvement, specifically in paid support, by providing more direct contact.
Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation
I would rate Microsoft support as good because they have a very skilled technical support team in the background
Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates
They were quick and efficient when we had issues.
Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Users praise Cloudflare for seamless scalability, effective traffic management, easy upgrades, and robust global infrastructure without disruptions.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is praised for scalability and features, despite some challenges and integration flexibility with cloud platforms.
Sentiment score
6.5
NGINX App Protect is scalable with diverse options but faces deployment, traffic, and configuration centralization challenges noted by users.
It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
The tool offers very good performance, even during high-traffic periods.
Engineer at SITMEXICO
I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.
Independent Consultant at Unaikui
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a very scalable product.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a scalable solution.
Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare is highly rated for stability and uptime, with few past issues, especially on higher-tier plans.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is seen as stable and reliable, with most users rating it highly despite some configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
8.4
NGINX App Protect is praised for stability and integration, outperforming competitors, though minor improvements in HTML5 are needed.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
Independent Consultant at Unaikui
The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.
Engineer at SITMEXICO
The stability is good, and except for a few instances, I don't see the non-availability of Azure Cloud services.
Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates
It is a quality solution, and I would rate its stability as eight out of ten.
IT Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Enhancements needed in Cloudflare: analytics, CDN latency, API integration, user support, DNS, pricing, documentation, server coverage, WAF, and cache.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway struggles with high costs, complexity, poor integration, limited features, and insufficient support and documentation.
NGINX App Protect requires improved flexibility, UI, API, automation, network support, pricing, integration, and feature enhancements like security and documentation.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
Managed Services Manager at Adapture Technology Group
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.
Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)
There are some performance considerations when it comes to dynamic content that involves fetching data from databases or using APIs.
Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions
There is room for improvement in terms of support, such as assigning agents directly for more straightforward engagement.
Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation
In future releases of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, I would like to see more AI functionalities and a better dashboard as well as some customizations.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has room for improvement because it offers many features, but its configuration is a bit difficult, at least from the developer point of view.
Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates
There was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service.
IT Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers scalable pricing, from free to enterprise plans, providing significant value especially for mid-sized companies.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's pricing is seen as both expensive and competitive, depending on features and integration benefits.
NGINX App Protect costs $3,000-$400,000 annually, considered expensive but competitive, with no hidden fees and strategic cost management possible.
I find it to be cheap.
Engineer at SITMEXICO
I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions
The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive.
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Azure solutions are quite expensive.
Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation
When it comes to pricing for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, I would rate it a seven out of ten.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare enhances performance and security with CDN caching, DDoS protection, and an easy-to-use dashboard, benefiting many users.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway enhances traffic control and security with features like URL routing, autoscaling, and customizable policies.
NGINX App Protect provides comprehensive security features including automation, containerization, and flexible API connectivity for robust application protection.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)
Techniques like minification and image compression reduce the size of assets, leading to better performance and faster user load times.
Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions
The solution has been able to compare it to the market, and I think the product has taken great strides in automating quite a bit of things, and they use a lot of AI.
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
We are using it for some of the security features for our applications, particularly for securing traffic in transit with SSL.
Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation
The Web Application Firewall (WAF) in Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has been very effective in protecting applications from security threats.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
The gateway's Web Application Firewall feature enhances security as it is the first entry point to your network from the outside world.
Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates
The most valuable feature is the ability to operate in a DevOps environment and to be configured through API and pipeline by the developers themselves.
IT Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications.
Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (4th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
Microsoft Azure Application...
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)
NGINX App Protect
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (15th), Container Security (27th), API Security (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

HA
Owner at Hga consulting
Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility
I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.
DevenderVannela - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates
Ensures efficient traffic management and robust security while simplifying complex configurations
The best features for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway basically protect your application and provide security-related features and also divert the traffic to different instances of your application. I have used URL-based routing, which helps manage traffic efficiency. It is a bit hard to manage in the long run, but it does provide value. I have used the gateway's Web Application Firewall feature, which enhances security as it is the first entry point to your network from the outside world. It helps protect against unwanted requests and other threats that can be configured. Regarding the integration with Azure Active Directory, it helps with authentication processes to configure all the users or the groups. The monitoring capabilities on Azure provide insight into application performance and potential threats because monitoring comes with many products. On Azure, you have Azure Monitor itself to help you monitor the application by collecting data. You have Application Insights and the logging workspace on Azure. By combining these three, you can implement monitoring solutions on Azure applications. Auto-scaling is important because it helps in resource management for customers. Scaling is one of the key features of moving to cloud for any customer. During peak times or special events, such as retail site promotions, user load increases significantly. To address this, based on the number of incoming requests or server capacities such as CPU and memory, you can automatically identify these peak scenarios and configure either scaling up or down automatically based on certain parameters.
JP
Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Blocking IPs and detecting bots enhances security for medical websites
I was researching products like NGINX App Protect and F5 Advanced WAF for long-term options. I have some use for such a solution, but probably not before next year Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications. We were able to block groups of IP addresses that…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise23
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise11
 

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 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
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: December 2025.
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