Azure Front Door vs Imperva Web Application Firewall comparison

Microsoft and Imperva are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Microsoft is ranked #13 with an average rating of 9.0, while Imperva is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8. Microsoft holds a 4.5% mindshare in WAF, compared to Imperva’s 5.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Imperva users who would recommend it.

Azure Front Door

Read 15 Azure Front Door reviews

3,053 Views
1,590 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Read 52 Imperva Web Application Firewall reviews

4,495 Views
2,154 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Azure Front Door

Imperva Web Application Fir...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Imperva Web Application Firewall and Azure Front Door compete in the web security and content delivery network category. Imperva seems to have the upper hand with its comprehensive security features despite challenges in UI, while Azure Front Door is favored for global application deployment and user-friendly configuration but faces some limitations in load balancing.

Features: Imperva Web Application Firewall offers threat radar for detecting potential attacks, seamless integration with existing systems, and robust DDoS protection. On the other hand, Azure Front Door provides extensive CDN capabilities, effective bot protection to prevent automated cyber threats, and efficient load balancing, making it particularly appealing for managing traffic across multiple regions.

Room for Improvement: Users of Imperva indicate that policy management could be streamlined, the complex UI can be confusing, and there are concerns about false positives. Azure Front Door users suggest enhancing global load balancing capabilities and providing better clarification of product functionalities, as some features may not be intuitive for all users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Imperva offers versatility with both on-premises and cloud deployments but some users find the complexity challenging. Its technical support receives praise, though delays occur at times. Azure Front Door is primarily cloud-based, making its deployment relatively straightforward, though it might require additional localized support due to certain technical issues.

Pricing and ROI: Imperva is perceived as expensive but offers substantial ROI, particularly in sectors like banking. Its hybrid environment support allows for variable pricing based on selected protection levels. Azure Front Door provides a pay-as-you-go model with flexible tiers, which can become costly if premium features are selected, but users value the competitive balance of features and pricing.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Front Door vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

June 2025

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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

Azure Front Door

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

13th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CDN (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (18th)

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Azure Front Door is 4.5%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Web Application Firewall is 5.6%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

SayedAbdelrhman

Cloud Solution Architect at MentorMate

Provide bot protection and has proficient documentation

During our discussion with the internal Microsoft team about assessing our environment, they confirmed that we have sufficient security measures, especially regarding edge protection. Internally, we believe we are now certified. In the future, we could consider adding layer four protection from the firewall. Front Door combines CDN and WAF protection, so further enhancing its features could benefit both the customer and us. We monitor the number of users attempting to access our IP or DNS servers. When designing the system, we initially needed to ensure our environment was protected with a WAF. However, WAF is currently too costly for us, so we created private links and connected them to Front Door. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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Mitesh D Patel

Senior Technical Consultant- Cyber Security at Ivalue Infosolution

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The price is one of the most important aspects of the product. It's quite affordable."

"Rules Engine is a valuable feature."

"The solution is good."

"Has a great application firewall and we like the security."

"I find the technical support excellent, and I rate it a ten."

"I am impressed with the tool's integrations."

"The most valuable feature is that I can have CDN and load-balancing capabilities in a single service instead of managing two separate tools."

"You can assign as many web application firewall policies as you want to the same instance of Front Door."

More Azure Front Door pros

"Protection is the best solution since it has profile functionality."

"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 DDoS, malware, and the other malicious threat prevention it provides. Additionally, third-party integration is available. You can forward the log for further analysis."

"We can prevent attacks or issues even before they happen."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is a highly stable solution and is very mature."

"Data masking is the most valuable feature of this solution."

"Configuration for different application sources is most valuable. We can segregate the traffic that an application is carrying and identify the sizing in Imperva."

"One good thing about Imperva Web Application Firewall is it can be on the cloud and also it can be on-premise."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pros

Cons

"There could be improvements regarding its pricing for large-scale projects."

"We should be able to use Front Door defenders with multiple cloud vendors. Currently, they can be used only with the Azure cloud. Azure Front Door should also be able to do global load balancing and provide internal front door services. Microsoft should clearly define what Traffic Manager, Application Gateway, and Azure Front Door products do. These are similar products, and people get confused between these products."

"There is room for improvement and they're working on it."

"It lacks sufficient functionality."

"I'm responsible for the governance and cost control of Azure. I'm not a specialist in any products and therefore I couldn't really speak effectively to features that are lacking or missing."

"This is a relatively expensive solution."

"The tool should improve its cost."

"My suggestion for improvement would be to enhance the Data Export feature to include specific tables, particularly the Azure Diagnostics table."

More Azure Front Door cons

"The UI interface needs improvement."

"If they can bring in generative AI features, that would be useful."

"One potential improvement for Imperva is enhancing its alert system."

"The signature updates could be faster. Sometimes we have to upload signatures to the Imperva portal for checking and analysis before we can use them."

"I don't really use it and therefore can't speak to areas of improvement."

"The tool needs to improve CPU and storage memory."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is very expensive."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the API integration. It was complex for us. Additionally, The onboarding could be better."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is good."

"Considering the standard licensing of the tool, even though we have not checked the billing as of now, it might not be very costly."

"It is on a pay-as-you-go basis."

"The transition to the premium tier has led to increased costs, making it more expensive than the classic tier."

"The product is expensive."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."

"It is a very affordable solution."

"There is a license for this solution and we purchase the license annually with no additional fees."

"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."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is expensive."

"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."

"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...

See all answers

What do you like most about Azure Front Door?

Rules Engine is a valuable feature.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Front Door?

I am not sure about the pricing but believe Azure Front Door might require a higher cost due to its entry point nature.

See all answers

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

My recommendation is Imperva.

See all answers

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 have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.

See all answers

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 of DDoS attacks that were well managed (even not seen by the customer) by Imperv...

See all answers

Comparisons

Cloudflare vs Azure Front Door

Compared 17% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Azure Front Door

Compared 15% of the time

Akamai vs Azure Front Door

Compared 12% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Azure Front Door

Compared 10% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Azure Front Door

Compared 4% of the time

More Azure Front Door Competitors

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 15% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 12% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

More Imperva Web Application Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door

July 2025

Download Azure Front Door product report

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall

June 2025

Download Imperva Web Application Firewall product report

Also Known As

Azure Front-Door

No data available

Overview

Azure Front Door is employed for securing external traffic, global load balancing, integrating web application firewalls, enabling disaster recovery, and enhancing application accessibility.

Organizations leverage Azure Front Door to support data publishing, act as a CDN, and ensure low latency for global users. Clients use it to protect numerous internet-accessible applications, integrate with DNS, and implement custom routes. Favored for caching web content and securely, efficiently distributing traffic to backend services, Azure Front Door offers SSL offloading, traffic inspection, and global scalability. Users value its affordability, ease of implementation, and web application firewall. Azure Front Door provides rich security features, traffic management, and URL rewriting. Load-balancing capabilities enhance performance with additional content security policies and bot protection. Integrations, including with GitOps, along with combined CDN and load-balancing, are also highlighted.

What are the most important features?

SSL Offloading: Reduces the burden on backend services
Traffic Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting incoming traffic
Global Scalability: Ensures performance for users worldwide
Web Application Firewall: Provides in-depth security features
Load Balancing: Distributes traffic to improve performance
URL Rewriting: Customizes URL paths for better navigation
Bot Protection: Shields applications from automated threats
Integrations: Supports technologies like GitOps
Combined CDN and Load-Balancing: Streamlines content delivery and traffic management

What are the benefits or ROI of using this service?

Affordability: Provides cost-effective solutions for web traffic management
Ease of Implementation: Streamlines setup processes for quick deployment
Enhanced Security: Offers robust protection for web applications
Improved Performance: Optimizes traffic distribution and latency
Scalability: Supports growing application demands with global reach

Azure Front Door finds usage across multiple industries due to its versatile applications. E-commerce companies benefit from improved global accessibility and speed, while financial institutions leverage its security features for protecting sensitive data. Media and entertainment sectors use its CDN capabilities for seamless content delivery, and healthcare providers rely on its compliance and protection standards for patient data security.

Microsoft

Imperva Web Application Firewall is a versatile solution that protects web applications and databases from various attacks, including DDoS, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection attacks. It offers data security, availability, and access control and can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud.

The solution has good security against web attacks and offers advanced bot protection, API security, and mitigation features. Imperva WAF is easy to configure and deploy; it has good customer service and an excellent user interface.

Imperva

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

June 2025

Free Report: Azure Front Door vs. Imperva Web Application Firewall

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