Azure Web Application Firewall vs Symantec Web Application Firewall comparison

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Microsoft is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.3, while Broadcom is ranked #30 with an average rating of 9.0. Microsoft holds a 2.5% mindshare in WAF, compared to Broadcom’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Symantec Web Application Firewall and Azure Web Application Firewall compete in the web security market. Azure's integration capabilities and flexibility give it a slight edge in adaptability and network integration.

Features: Symantec Web Application Firewall is known for advanced threat protection, real-time threat intelligence, and precise attack mitigation. Azure Web Application Firewall provides seamless integration with Microsoft's ecosystem, automated policy updates, and user-friendly management tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Symantec Web Application Firewall has a straightforward setup process with responsive support, making it efficient for fast deployment. Azure Web Application Firewall leverages Microsoft's cloud infrastructure for streamlined deployment and comprehensive support, benefiting organizations already within Azure's ecosystem.

Pricing and ROI: Symantec Web Application Firewall may incur higher initial expenses, offering long-term savings from reduced breaches. Azure Web Application Firewall has competitive pricing within Azure's service plans, with strong ROI due to efficient performance and smoother scalability within cloud environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 886,011 peers since 2012

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 ...

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.7%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Web Application Firewall is 2.5%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Web Application Firewall is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	4.7%
Azure Web Application Firewall	2.5%
Symantec Web Application Firewall	0.7%
Other	92.1%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

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.

Read full review

Kevin Rua Jefwa

Global IT Solutions Specialist at RELIEF INTERNATIONAL INC

Offers robust analytics and seamless cloud integration with minor room for user interface improvement

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. It helps when looking for threats. It reduces issues significantly because the filtering capabilities are high. Given that it's a cloud solution, we have very minimal downtime, especially because we have Microsoft support. On a scale of one to 10, I would give it an eight.

Read full review

Vatsal Mehta

Director, Co-Founder & CEO at HEDEHI Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Boosts Security Measures with Easy Deployment and Implementation

Regarding areas for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall, I think they can enhance the features they currently focus on, as there are various types of web applications, and it would be great if they could develop features to cater to all these types. For example, a feature to scan for unauthorized plugins or extensions could let us know if those extensions are authorized, unauthorized, or malicious. There's room for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall by introducing AI into their dashboard so that we can query the dashboard and fetch data insights, similar to querying ChatGPT for answers. They currently have this feature but can make improvements for better querying to get insights.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has a valuable security control functionality."

"This solution does a good job of preventing web application attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting attacks."

"It is configurable via API."

"It's pretty convenient and pretty easy to set up and run. And then kind of for static content, it also offers caching."

"The product has improved our security posture by blocking bad actors."

"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."

"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."

"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"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."

"We have found the most valuable features to be the web application, minimal skills required for management, control through policies, and automation."

"We already have some of our workloads published outside of Azure, and this allows them to connect to the database."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is that it allows us to publish our applications behind the firewall."

"It is almost impossible to access these assets from outside, requiring a very skilled attacker to obtain asset tokens of a customer using Azure."

"The best features of Azure Web Application Firewall are that it provides security and protection from poorly designed web applications."

More Azure Web Application Firewall pros

"The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats."

"The best feature of Symantec Web Application Firewall is that it is very easy to use, and the deployment and implementation processes are really easy."

"This product is doing what it should and what we are expecting from it."

"The best feature of Symantec Web Application Firewall is that it is very easy to use, and the deployment and implementation processes are really easy."

"The setup was straightforward."

"It provides us with a sense of security."

"The interface is user-friendly."

"The setup was straightforward."

Cons

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

"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 dashboard could be more user-friendly."

"There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules."

"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."

"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."

"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well."

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

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

"I think deployment should be simplified so that a non-techie can handle it."

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

"The documentation needs to be improved."

"There is a need to be able to configure the solution more."

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

"There is a need to be able to configure the solution more."

"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

"It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."

"One of our issues is that sometimes scanning slows down the endpoints."

"Sometimes scanning slows down the endpoints."

"It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."

"There's room for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall by introducing AI into their dashboard so that we can query the dashboard and fetch data insights, similar to querying ChatGPT for answers."

"I'm not convinced that it's necessary the best solution going forward in the future."

"On a scale from one to 10, I would give it a five. I'm not convinced that it's necessarily the best solution going forward in the future."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

"The solution is expensive."

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

886,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	12

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Symantec Web Application Firewall?

Regarding areas for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall, I think they can enhance the features they curr...

See all answers

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

Our use case for Symantec Web Application Firewall is primarily for security purposes as we develop web application s...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Web Application Firewall?

I would recommend Symantec Web Application Firewall to other users due to all the benefits I mentioned earlier, such ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

AWS WAF vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 9% 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

F5 Advanced WAF vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Azure Web Application Firewall Competitors

NetScaler vs Symantec Web Application Firewall

Compared 38% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Symantec Web Application Firewall

Compared 21% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Symantec Web Application Firewall

Compared 17% of the time

Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs Symantec Web Application Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Symantec Web Application Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

More Symantec Web Application Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

April 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Azure Web Application Firewall

April 2026

Download Azure Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

Symantec Web Application Firewall report

Download Symantec Web Application Firewall product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

Symantec WAF, Blue Coat Protecting Web Applications

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

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

The Symantec Web Application Firewall (WAF) enables you to secure and accelerate your web applications.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall

March 2026

Free Report: Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

886,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall report.

See our list of best Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendors.

We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.