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Atomic ModSecurity Rules vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

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

Atomic ModSecurity Rules
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
29th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
147
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Bot Management (1st), API Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Atomic ModSecurity Rules is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 7.4%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform7.4%
Atomic ModSecurity Rules0.8%
Other91.8%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Vahid Babaey - PeerSpot reviewer
PhD Student at University of North Carolina at Charlott
Open rules have enabled me to secure web apps against obfuscated SQL injection and XSS attacks
The best feature Atomic ModSecurity Rules offers is the open source aspect. I believe that because it's open source, all of the developers, programmers, and security experts are able to update this WAF and provide more rules, creating a more secure WAF for all of the clients and customers around the world. By accessing Atomic ModSecurity Rules, it has helped me significantly. Because of this open source feature, I am able to generate new rules and update the WAF and use this WAF in my research and also give it to other clients and customers to use the updated WAF. All of this is done just because of the open-source feature, because it can be updated.
reviewer2818155 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Application protection has improved and reporting and dashboards still need refinement
I believe Imperva Application Security Platform should have a more interactive wizard. While the dashboard is good, it could be more eye-catching. Based on my perspective, I recommend modifying the dashboards, especially the main dashboard where I can see the traffic hit count, alerts, and other latest information. In terms of reporting, I find it challenging to create reports; in my earlier days, it was difficult. Over time, I have learned how to create reports, but it should be easier to do so. I have used other tools such as firewalls or SolarWinds, where creating a report is straightforward and does not take much time, unlike in Imperva, where I have to add many elements. Modifications in the integration aspects would also be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature Atomic ModSecurity Rules offers is the open source aspect, because all of the developers, programmers, and security experts are able to update this WAF and provide more rules, creating a more secure WAF for all of the clients and customers around the world."
"Great product, it will not let you down!"
"The solution can scale."
"Setup was straightforward, very simple. I only entered the domain and Incapsula returned the DNS data that I needed to change for the protection to be configured."
"On the activity log, I can see the exact details, the visit, and the threat."
"An improvement has been to our website: It increases the speed of our response, the capacity of the site, and optimizes the bandwidth.​"
"Thanks to Incapsula, we got easily manageable DDoS protection; HTTP2 and SSL certificates for all the services; CDN in good locations; and we're now sure that our web services can't be exploited remotely because of the WAF feature."
"It is the best product on the market, in my opinion."
"Without tuning, it blocked 88 percent of the vulnerabilities, and when we tuned it, it blocked 98 percent."
 

Cons

"Additionally, I know that ModSecurity can block only SQL injection and XSS attacks, no more types of attacks."
"Clients also often complain about the cost of the solution."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the API integration. It was complex for us. Additionally, The onboarding could be better."
"I have found some issues with caching; seems to be inconsistent."
"Imperva Application Security Platform could be improved if it allowed integration with Active Directory in the cloud, or if it provided visibility of user roles and permissions."
"Its firewall should be made less penetrable so that if an IP is blocked once, it doesn't penetrate again."
"The support for the on-premises version needs improvement."
"I'd like it to work with Let's Encrypt."
"It would be useful if the solution used more intelligence in attack protection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is a very affordable solution."
"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."
"The pricing is somewhat expensive. It is actually a huge investment when compared to other countries."
"The solution's pricing is an issue."
"For enterprise contracts you will be in touch with a dedicated account manager who will guide you regarding licensing."
"It is not expensive compared to the other similar solutions in this category."
"Imperva charges us based on bandwidth, which is better than other vendors that charge us according to data transfer."
"Everybody complains about the price of this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
27%
Hospitality Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Atomic ModSecurity Rules?
Atomic ModSecurity Rules can be improved by first studying and reading the structure of new obfuscated attacks, then trying to generate more specific and better rules to block these attacks, and th...
What is your primary use case for Atomic ModSecurity Rules?
My main use case for Atomic ModSecurity Rules is in my research, which tries to make websites secure against web attacks like SQL injection and XSS attacks. On one side, I try to generate some obfu...
What advice do you have for others considering Atomic ModSecurity Rules?
I would rate Atomic ModSecurity Rules nine out of ten. I chose nine out of ten because I have not studied other WAFs. I know that ModSecurity is the only open source WAF, but I believe that the oth...
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise. For example, the initiation of an attack on the endpoint level cou...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Radware, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.