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Azure Front Door vs NGINX App Protect comparison

 

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
7.6
Azure Front Door offers cost savings and efficient management, yielding a clear return on investment despite initial transition uncertainties.
Sentiment score
6.9
Organizations saw positive ROI with NGINX App Protect during COVID-19, improving security and integration, anticipating future benefits.
Azure Front Door offers a quick return on investment once it is set up.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Azure Front Door receives high marks for customer service, with users praising knowledgeable support staff and clear documentation.
Sentiment score
6.3
NGINX App Protect support is praised for promptness and helpfulness but inconsistencies and costs affect user satisfaction.
I am able to set up a critical call with Microsoft, and they respond quickly to tickets with the highest severity.
They were quick and efficient when we had issues.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Azure Front Door offers scalable, reliable solutions for enterprises, enhancing performance and managing applications efficiently despite higher costs.
Sentiment score
6.5
NGINX App Protect is scalable with diverse options but faces deployment, traffic, and configuration centralization challenges noted by users.
I consider the scalability of Azure Front Door to be strong.
I find that Front Door can become expensive for large-scale projects with more transactions and users.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Azure Front Door is praised for high stability and reliability, though some DNS management issues are occasionally noted.
Sentiment score
8.4
NGINX App Protect is praised for stability and integration, outperforming competitors, though minor improvements in HTML5 are needed.
I rate Azure Front Door's stability a nine because it is easy to make updates through Azure Portal.
It is a quality solution, and I would rate its stability as eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Front Door requires enhancements in multi-cloud support, load balancing, IP support, latency, UI, pricing, rules, monitoring, and APIs.
NGINX App Protect requires improved flexibility, UI, API, automation, network support, pricing, integration, and feature enhancements like security and documentation.
If I could use Azure Front Door with private IP addresses, it would be more beneficial.
The only significant adjustment required is with URL set parameters that need to be passed for an existing domain.
There was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Front Door's pay-as-you-go pricing offers flexibility, with costs and value balancing for various project needs.
NGINX App Protect costs $3,000-$400,000 annually, considered expensive but competitive, with no hidden fees and strategic cost management possible.
Azure Front Door is cheaper for small projects, companies, or applications compared to using separate tools.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Front Door provides scalable, secure, and affordable solutions with advanced features like SSL offloading, load balancing, and DDoS protection.
NGINX App Protect provides comprehensive security features including automation, containerization, and flexible API connectivity for robust application protection.
Azure Front Door includes a built-in web application firewall, which performs signature-based checks of the request payload, offering protection against common attacks or malicious requests.
Azure Front Door provides DDoS protection and features related to WAF.
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.
Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Front Door
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
13th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (18th)
NGINX App Protect
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (21st), API Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Azure Front Door is 4.5%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX App Protect is 1.8%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

SayedAbdelrhman - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Tomaz Sobczak - PeerSpot reviewer
Signature-based detection, DOS protection, and bot protection
NGINX App Protect is easier to automate and configure, or manage from an API. This is good for securing applications. However, it's not suitable for more complex tasks. NGINX App Protect positively impacted performance changes. There's a cache or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications. It can also offload some functions from servers, which NGINX can handle faster.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Retailer
6%
 

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...
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.
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 to look at options.
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 requirements and specifications to deploy the service, to avoid disruptions after impl...
 

Also Known As

Azure Front-Door
NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Front Door vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,874 professionals have used our research since 2012.