Azure Web Application Firewall vs Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service comparison

Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service

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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

Cloudflare

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

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Mano Senaratne

Head of Digital Engineering, Management Consultant at Stax Inc.

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.

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Meshack Okundi

Network and Security Engineer (Contractor) at Clymora Technology Limited

Protects high-risk financial and government websites from evolving threats while helping meet compliance requirements

Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service meets all the basic capabilities expected of a WAF, offers numerous features, and is affordable compared to other WAFs in the market. For others considering Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service, my advice is to focus on the cost-effectiveness, as it is relatively cheaper compared to other WAFs while still offering the necessary features for blocking attacks. Fortinet has created a holistic product that integrates features including AI and API protection, with straightforward automation and articulate reporting that even less experienced engineers can use easily. There is something small or specific that could further improve Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service. I give Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service a rating of nine out of ten.

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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 features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."

"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."

"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."

"The technical support is good."

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

More Cloudflare pros

"It's quite a stable product and works well with Microsoft products."

"I can only strongly recommend using the Azure Web Application Firewall."

"It has been a stable product in my experience."

"The Microsoft support and the analytics are what I appreciate about Azure Web Application Firewall; it integrates effectively with things such as Sentinel and Defender for Cloud, so mostly it's the analytics and now the AI capabilities that have been introduced with Co-pilot."

"The return on investment is good."

"The functions of Azure Web Application Firewall that I found most valuable include its cost-effectiveness, and unlike other WAF products I have worked with such as Barracuda, we have flexibility to create rules."

"The integration it has with GitHub is great."

"The most valuable feature of Azure Web Application Firewall is its ability to filter requests and block false positives by using custom rules and the OWASP rule set."

More Azure Web Application Firewall pros

"Regular updates are one of the aspects I appreciate about Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service, and it is provided by a leading brand in cybersecurity."

"The technical support is really good."

"It is a secure tool."

"Fortinet FortiWeb offers a variety of protections, including machine learning that helps protect web applications."

"The company provides technical support, and they are mostly available 24/7."

"I rate the overall solution ten out of ten."

"The stability of the solution is excellent."

"It is user-friendly and easy to work with."

More Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service pros

Cons

"Support response time could be improved."

"It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market."

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."

"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."

"The solution could be more user-friendly."

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."

"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."

More Cloudflare cons

"From a reporting perspective, they could do more there."

"Azure WAF should not be deployed in the middle of the traffic."

"I would say that Azure's customer service is not that good...I am not very happy with the support offered."

"From my point of view, there is no need for improvement."

"Deployment should be simplified so that a non-techie can handle it."

"The management can be improved."

"The documentation needs to be improved."

"In Brazil, we have some problems with the phone service that affect our connection with the cloud. However, it isn't common."

More Azure Web Application Firewall cons

"The utilization of AI in Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service still needs to be upgraded and improved."

"I do not have any notes on improvement."

"The usability of the interface could be improved as it is not user-friendly."

"The only thing I encountered was related to integration, mostly concerning translation."

"Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service could be improved with better logging capabilities, as many come with less spacing, necessitating a FortiSIM for enhanced functionality."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."

"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."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month."

"We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft and the pricing is good."

"The price is for this solution is fair and there is a license needed."

"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."

"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Energy/Utilities Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Hospitality Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

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...

What is your primary use case for Azure Web Application Firewall?

Because we mostly operate in the cloud and because we're a Microsoft environment, it was the best option in the scena...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service?

My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service is good, and i...

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service?

Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service could be improved with better logging capabilities, as many come with less s...

What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service?

Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service protects our customers' websites, including e-commerce sites, normal website...

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 52% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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AWS WAF vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 16% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 12% of the time

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

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Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 47% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 13% of the time

NetScaler vs Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 10% of the time

Atomic ModSecurity Rules vs Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 9% of the time

Radware Alteon vs Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 8% of the time

More Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service Competitors

Product Reports

Cloudflare

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Azure Web Application Firewall

Download Azure Web Application Firewall product report

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

November 2025

Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service report

Download Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides centralized protection of your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities. Web applications are increasingly targeted by malicious attacks that exploit commonly known vulnerabilities. SQL injection and cross-site scripting are among the most common attacks.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service provides cloud-based web application protection, ensuring businesses secure their web apps against threats without hardware management, offering dynamic scalability and threat intelligence.

Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service offers an advanced security platform that effectively protects web applications from cyber threats by leveraging comprehensive threat intelligence and efficient traffic management. Its cloud-native architecture facilitates seamless integration, allowing for scalable security solutions that adapt to varying demand levels. Known for reducing complexity, it empowers organizations to focus on strategic initiatives without the need for dedicated on-premise resources. The service also provides robust analytics, enabling informed decision-making based on real-time threat landscapes.

What are the key features?

Auto-scaling: Automatically adjusts resources to handle increasing traffic without manual intervention.
Threat Intelligence: Uses comprehensive data to preempt and mitigate potential threats effectively.
Centralized Management: Simplifies monitoring and control of web application security through a single interface.
Robust Analytics: Offers detailed insights into traffic and threat patterns for better decision-making.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces the financial burden of maintaining hardware with a cloud-based approach.
Scalability: Easily adapts to business growth without requiring additional infrastructure investments.
Enhanced Security: Provides up-to-date threat protection, safeguarding critical business data.
Resource Optimization: Frees technical staff to focus on core business objectives by managing security centrally.

In industries such as finance and e-commerce where sensitive data protection is paramount, Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service is extensively implemented to secure web applications against potential vulnerabilities. It ensures compliance with stringent regulatory standards and protects consumer information, thus maintaining trust and brand reputation. Healthcare providers leverage it to protect patient records, a sector that demands the utmost security and confidentiality.

Fortinet

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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Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service