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Azure Web Application Firewall vs Imperva Web Application Firewall 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)
Azure Web Application Firewall
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (13th), Microsoft Security Suite (22nd)
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)
 

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.
Mano Senaratne - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive suite simplifies configuration while frequent updates require management
Mainly, it comes with the complete suite of Microsoft services. I can use it in conjunction with the best options and other features that come with it. Configuration is much easier than using different platforms. For example, if I have hosted the application in AWS and am using the Application Firewall from Azure, there are certain additional steps to follow when configuring them. With Microsoft, everything is within a single suite, making it easier to configure and plan. Azure continually upgrades platforms and sends us messages to upgrade to the next version, simplifying the process. Later, it's much easier if I want to upgrade the software platform, scale it, or move it to a different application host as the whole suite comes together. The return on investment is good. If I am doing applications for clients, I can invoice them for better costs. Most applications that I run and use have a better return on investment.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."
"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."
"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."
"It's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."
"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."
"It's great for protecting against DDoS attacks."
"It has been a stable product in my experience."
"The solution has good dashboards."
"It's quite a stable product and works well with Microsoft products."
"The best features of Azure Web Application Firewall are that it provides security and protection from poorly designed web applications."
"The integration it has with GitHub is great."
"The return on investment is good."
"It is almost impossible to access these assets from outside, requiring a very skilled attacker to obtain asset tokens of a customer using Azure."
"If you are using the appliance as opposed to the virtual deployment, it can stand as the network layer-two and provide real transparency."
"The most valuable feature of Imperva, in addition to its strong knowledge base, is its effective protection for web applications."
"The most valuable features of the Imperva Web Application Firewall are performance and flexibility. We can extend or customize the box itself."
"The configurability of the tools and the ease of operation to be the most valuable feature of Imperva."
"The valuable features of Imperva WAF include its effective security breach prevention through automatically updating rules."
"The solution is scalable."
"It mitigates all of the availabilities of risks around web applications."
"It works right out of the box once you integrate the application."
 

Cons

"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."
"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 tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."
"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."
"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."
"The documentation needs to be improved."
"The management can be improved."
"Upgrading the platform regularly is necessary for security, however, frequent updates every six months or year from Azure can be a maintenance overhead."
"Deployment should be simplified so that a non-techie can handle it."
"In Brazil, we have some problems with the phone service that affect our connection with the cloud. However, it isn't common."
"There is a need to be able to configure the solution more."
"The knowledge base could be improved."
"Azure WAF should not be deployed in the middle of the traffic."
"They recently separated the WAF and the DAM management gateways in order for each of these to be managed from different areas, so I believe it now requires additional investments for what was previously a single complete solution."
"The only disadvantage of Imperva is that it is a pretty costly solution."
"I would like the solution to improve its support response time."
"It would be helpful to have a "recommended deployment", or even a list of basic features that should either be used or turned on by default."
"I would like to improve the tool's turnaround time in terms of support."
"The support for the on-premises version 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."
"Sometimes, support tickets don't get addressed quickly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price is reasonable."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"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."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The price of the solution depends on your architecture and how you manage it. You can control the cost in Azure quite well. The costs do not directly correlate to expenses in the features we are using."
"Azure WAF has price advantages over other WAF solutions. The pricing model is flexible because you pay on a scale based on the level of protection you need."
"We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft and the pricing is good."
"The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The price is for this solution is fair and there is a license needed."
"Everybody complains about the price of this solution."
"It is a very affordable solution."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"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."
"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."
"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 is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise19
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Web Application Firewall?
I would place Azure Web Application Firewall at an eight on a scale from one to 10, with one being cheap and 10 being...
What needs improvement with Azure Web Application Firewall?
The pricing needs improvement, and I think for beginners it will be a little bit complicated, so the ease of use coul...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
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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.
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BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.