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AWS WAF vs Human Defense Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Web Application ...
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Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (6th)
AWS WAF
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (7th)
Human Defense Platform
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Fraud Detection and Prevention (32nd), Bot Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS WAF4.6%
Imperva Application Security Platform7.4%
Fortinet FortiWeb5.4%
Other82.6%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Fraud Detection and Prevention Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Human Defense Platform1.3%
ThreatMetrix4.9%
Riskified3.4%
Other90.4%
Fraud Detection and Prevention
 

Featured Reviews

DB
CTO at PlayNirvana
Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.
Azam S M - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC
Has successfully filtered malicious traffic and allowed country-specific access controls
For improvement in AWS WAF, we can have better monitoring. One of the things that should be improved in AWS WAF is the monitoring; we need to identify the requests and where they are coming from. If it's a bot, we should differentiate the requests, whether they are automated or not. The way we see it now is just mentioned as a percentage from bots and actual users, which should include proper graphs and detailed information. We also need a feature where we can filter specific requests. If there are scripts in the requests, we should be able to filter those requests to see if there are any scripts running from them.
it_user785406 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager/Team Leader at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
They ensure that our campaigns have run in the highest quality of settings, leading to savings on ad spending
Primary use case of this solution is to detect fraud traffic (also mark the network which is sending the fraud traffic) and block the fraud traffic. These metrics help us to minimize wasted ad spend and provide our clients an extra layer of confidence around our campaigns As a result of the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."
"The product has improved our security posture by blocking bad actors."
"The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10."
"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."
"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."
"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."
"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."
"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."
"What I like best about AWS WAF is that it's a simple tool, so I could understand the basics of AWS WAF in two to three hours."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability because it automatically scales up or scales down as per our requirements."
"The product’s availability, ease of configuration, and documentation are valuable."
"As a basic WAF, it's better than having nothing, so if you need something simple out of the box with default features, AWS WAF is good."
"AWS WAF is pay-as-you-go, I only pay for what I'm using; there is no subscription or any payment upfront, and I can terminate use at any time, which is an advantage."
"The initial setup was very straightforward. Deployment took about ten minutes or less."
"We integrate AWS WAF with several platforms within cloud hosting and other security solutions and provisions in our business. Regarding AI, it's been around for about 20 years, so it's not new. It's just a new buzzword. I've been in security for 30 years and remember using AI when I started 25-30 years ago. We have multiple forms of AI within our business."
"The customized billing is the most valuable feature."
"PerimeterX helped us to ensure that our campaigns have run in the highest quality of settings, leading to savings on ad spending."
 

Cons

"Support can be challenging at times."
"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"A key challenge arises when dealing with numerous integrations with HVAC systems. Depending on the specifics, there might be some configuration mismatches, which necessitate specific support."
"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"
"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."
"The learning curve was steep initially."
"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well."
"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."
"Compatibility and integration functionalities, especially with services like Kafka for event-driven messaging, could be better."
"It's a bit difficult to apply the right rules for the right security."
"Rule exclusion could be a bit more transparent."
"In a future release of this solution, I would like to see additional management features to make things simpler."
"We should be able to do proper whitelisting."
"There is a lot of innovation talk, however, implementation might be lacking."
"The solution's pricing could be improved."
"We haven't faced any problems with the solution."
"As bots are getting better and the product should keep getting updates in preventing new ways of attack and security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"It is not too pricey."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"For Kubernetes microservices, AWS is more expensive compared to OCI. AWS costs approximately 70 cents per hour, while OCI is 50% cheaper."
"It has a variable pricing scheme."
"The product is moderately priced."
"The pricing should be more affordable, especially as it pertains to small clients."
"AWS WAF has reasonable pricing."
"AWS is not that costly by comparison. They are maybe close to $40 per month. I think it was between $29 or $39."
"AWS WAF is pay-as-you-go, I only pay for what I'm using. There is no subscription or any payment upfront, I can terminate use at any time. Which is an advantage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
University
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise28
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...
What are the limitations of AWS WAF vs alternative WAFs?
Hi Varun, I have had experienced with several WAF deployments and deep technical assessments of the following: 1. Im...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS WAF?
AWS WAF is affordable; it depends on the number of rules you apply. The licensing cost for AWS WAF is just pay-as-you...
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Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
AWS Web Application Firewall
PerimeterX Bot Defender, BotGuard for Applications, HUMAN MediaGuard
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
eVitamins, 9Splay, Senao International
theTradeDesk
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Fortinet, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: May 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.