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Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs NGINX App Protect comparison

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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
6.5
Cloudflare enhanced speed, security, and data protection, providing significant ROI and improved operations and client satisfaction for businesses.
Sentiment score
7.7
Organizations experienced significant ROI with Check Point CloudGuard WAF, enhancing security, reducing costs, and improving NIST compliance.
Sentiment score
6.9
Organizations saw positive ROI with NGINX App Protect during COVID-19, improving security and integration, anticipating future benefits.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.
When we are attacked, we can understand how important the solution is.
When you migrate to the cloud, it feels like saving 90% of your time.
Most of the operations happen in the background, so I do not spend much time on it.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Cloudflare's customer service is efficient for paying users, but responses can vary in speed and effectiveness for others.
Sentiment score
7.4
Mixed feedback on CloudGuard WAF support; praised for effectiveness but some users report delays and suggest improvements.
Sentiment score
6.3
NGINX App Protect support is praised for promptness and helpfulness but inconsistencies and costs affect user satisfaction.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.
The key factor is the language in which the support is offered, which, in this case, is in Thai.
They need to increase the number of people for 24/7 support.
They were responsive even before we committed to buying their solution.
I also received full technical support, especially during the implementation.
They were quick and efficient when we had issues.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Cloudflare is praised for seamless scalability, managing enterprise-level traffic efficiently and earning high customer satisfaction during peak events.
Sentiment score
8.5
Check Point CloudGuard WAF offers excellent scalability and flexibility, efficiently handling traffic and supporting multi-cloud environments seamlessly.
Sentiment score
6.5
NGINX App Protect is scalable with diverse options but faces deployment, traffic, and configuration centralization challenges noted by users.
It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.
The tool offers very good performance, even during high-traffic periods.
I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.
If I need to scale, I open a Whatsapp group with the director and the team, and we quickly proceed to do so.
They have sufficient resources, and there are no challenges from a scalability perspective.
It handles increasing traffic easily because we can extend our demands based on our needs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare is widely regarded as stable and reliable, with improvements noted in uptime and performance on higher plans.
Sentiment score
8.3
Check Point CloudGuard WAF is highly stable and reliable, with minimal downtime and quick issue resolutions, crucial for finance.
Sentiment score
8.4
NGINX App Protect is praised for stability and integration, outperforming competitors, though minor improvements in HTML5 are needed.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.
It is very stable.
It is very stable, never crashing or giving me an error that I can see.
I did not have any issues in the last three years during which I had more than ten critical services running on CloudGuard.
It is a quality solution, and I would rate its stability as eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare requires improvements in analytics, CDN speed, API, technical support, DNS management, documentation, pricing clarity, and international and reseller support.
Check Point CloudGuard WAF needs cost reduction, improved support, simpler UI, better integration, enhanced protection, and comprehensive reporting.
NGINX App Protect requires improved flexibility, UI, API, automation, network support, pricing, integration, and feature enhancements like security and documentation.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version.
The provider could improve by providing better guidance and support during the configuration process.
It's not something you manipulate, it's not an antivirus where you deal with signatures, updates, and upgrades every day.
I would say that the more automation this product has, the easier it will be to work with it.
There was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service.
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers cost-effective, scalable plans with no setup fees, starting from free for small businesses to enterprise-level solutions.
Enterprise buyers find Check Point CloudGuard WAF pricing competitive despite initial costs, valuing features, support, and flexible packages.
NGINX App Protect costs $3,000-$400,000 annually, considered expensive but competitive, with no hidden fees and strategic cost management possible.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
I find it to be cheap.
I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high.
It is more expensive than f5, where we purchased everything as bundles, and Check Point costs more, but it is worth the money.
It is less costly than Cloudflare, Fortinet, and other vendors.
I know that its price is relatively expensive compared to other products but it gives benefits that are worth it.
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare enhances security, speed, and SEO with easy-to-use features like CDN, SSL, DDoS protection, and centralized management.
Check Point CloudGuard WAF offers scalable management, AI-driven security, seamless integration, reduced maintenance, and enhanced compliance with real-time alerts.
NGINX App Protect provides comprehensive security features including automation, containerization, and flexible API connectivity for robust application protection.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
Techniques like minification and image compression reduce the size of assets, leading to better performance and faster user load times.
The solution has been able to compare it to the market, and I think the product has taken great strides in automating quite a bit of things, and they use a lot of AI.
Upon implementation and evaluation with third-party penetration testing, it meets rigorous security standards required for dealing with financial institutions.
It can protect against zero-day attacks and hidden anomalies.
The solution preemptively blocks zero-day attacks and detects hidden anomalies effectively.
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

Cloudflare
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Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
Check Point CloudGuard WAF
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (9th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (11th)
NGINX App Protect
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (16th), Container Security (23rd), API Security (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Dialungana Malungo - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects our web applications and APIs and has a very low false positive rate
CloudGuard WAF is a very straightforward solution. I do not have to worry about signatures. Most of the solutions that are out there are mainly based on signatures, and I have to do a lot of maintenance to get the signature updates, and sometimes, due to a lack of resources, I am not able to do so. With CloudGuard WAF, I have peace of mind, because most of the features are AI-based, and there is not much configuration that needs to be done on my side. Once set, I only go to CloudGuard WAF to check. I do not have to worry about signatures or updates. Everything is done perfectly, and I have a sense of peace because I know our applications are safe. It is very important for us that CloudGuard WAF protects our applications against threats without relying on signatures. That is definitely one of the key features I need.
Saurav Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers protection to users from external threats
NGINX App Protect secures our company's application, and it has helped me a lot, considering that we have critical infrastructure in India where we see how lots of attacks come onto our organization's servers. The tool offers protection against multiple threats present in India's IT ecosystem. The tool helps our company to make our payments secure, meaning it has the ability to provide a secure payment environment in India. Speaking about the improvements in our company's application performance since implementing NGINX App Protect, the gRPC support for the solution is very low. My company is not getting any proper documentation on how to deploy gRPC over NGINX App Protect. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. People can use the product as their company's base server, WAF, or for its proxy manager, depending on the business requirements. My company follows PCI DSS compliance because we operate in a payment-related industry. Right now, my company follows all the standards, so we comply with all the requirements and policies. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about CloudGuard for Application Security?
We have not had any incidents. We could realize its benefits immediately. We watched and monitored the traffic, and i...
What needs improvement with CloudGuard for Application Security?
There are improvements that can be made regarding pricing since it has a high initial cost. If they could reduce that...
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 t...
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 requir...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Check Point CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard AppSec
NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Orange España, Paschoalotto
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Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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