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Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (4th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
Check Point CloudGuard WAF
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (5th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th)
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (25th)
 

Featured Reviews

HA
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.
reviewer2751468 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Robust threat protection improves security and operational efficiency
Areas where Check Point CloudGuard WAF can improve include simple policy tuning, as the protection seems strong, though initial rule tuning can be complex. More guided workflows or templates would help speed up deployment, along with deeper integration with the DevOps pipeline, and while it handles API well, more dedicated API security would add value. In addition, it could be improved with better integration with the DevOps pipeline, more granular reporting, as the dashboards provide good high-level visibility, but sometimes digging into specific attack patterns or trends requires manual effort, and simple tuning of the ML models would be beneficial.
reviewer2161107 - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Room for improvement with user interface while competitive pricing impresses
It is managed through Infrastructure as Code, so all configurations can be managed in the code itself, which is beneficial. Because it uses rules, it is easy to set up, and we have many different sites where the configurations are straightforward. Though the UI is not very interactive, which is a downside, we can manage many things. The UI is not very intuitive and could be better. However, we manage all the configurations through code, which is easy to maintain. It has extensive anomaly detection capabilities, so the traffic is classified into several categories where thresholds can be defined and customized based on false positives and false negatives. This is advantageous because you do not need to tweak it very often. Once you set it up, an audit once a quarter would suffice. Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Even when there is a high load on our servers, Cloudflare is able to cache the data and serve it to users, ensuring they can still access the website."
"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"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."
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."
"It is a very scalable and stable solution."
"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."
"I find the configuration and real-time monitoring features valuable."
"It is a highly scalable solution with a quick turnaround time for deployment and running of the software across any IT system."
"The solution's ability to handle multiple websites and applications without needing more expensive hardware is a key advantage."
"I rate it ten out of ten."
"One of the best features of CloudGuard WAF is its user-friendly GUI dashboard."
"Overall, the product is excellent."
"Fastly (Signal Sciences) integrates and tags the intermittent traffic based on patterns. It generates signals and provides them in a dashboard where we can view them and decide whether to allow or deny traffic. It's a more advanced and easy-to-navigate dashboard."
"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily."
"When configuring a web application firewall using Signal Sciences, we configure a rule whereby no one except a few people can access the application."
"Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate."
 

Cons

"For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components."
"Eventually, things go sideways and require fixes when it would have been easier to prevent the issue initially."
"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."
"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."
"The web user interface needs some improvement, even though the functionality is good."
"I do not know if it is already there, but I would like to have complete visibility between the posture management and firewall as a service."
"I feel like I need more clarity in understanding pricing for DDoS protection."
"The web user interface needs some improvement, even though the functionality is good."
"CloudGuard could improve in areas such as ease of integration with Fortinet and reducing costs associated with deployment in cloud environments like Azure."
"Improving the process for handling licensing renewals would be a welcome enhancement."
"CloudGuard for Application Security, like the other Check Point applications, has been presenting major latency problems when entering their administrative portal."
"Check Point CloudGuard WAF can be improved; initially, the setup is very complicated, and there's not a lot of documentation available, plus it didn't have something for anti-bot, but other than that, it is fine."
"Fastly don't support caching for China users. That's the only feature lacking compared to Akamai."
"Even if we create some custom rules, Signal Sciences cannot capture some of the malicious traffic."
"The areas that could be improved in Signal Sciences include the effectiveness of rules, as many didn't function optimally and required custom rule-writing to address bypasses for WAF."
"The UI is not very intuitive and could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The price is reasonable."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"The pricing is competitive compared to other solutions on the market. So, the licensing cost is average."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly and competitive."
"If the pricing for the Infinity platform covers everything, it would be more straightforward. I had a hard time selling it to our CEO as a former CFO because of the differentials. There are different deltas year to year over a five-year period. It is very difficult to explain. It would be easier to digest for our executives if there was a flatter scale"
"I find the pricing to be reasonable."
"Check Point CloudGuard Application Security's pricing is not friendly."
"Considering all the benefits we've observed, we find the price to be satisfactory."
"It is not cheap, but it is worth it."
"I work for an Indian banking client. In India, companies are on a budget. The company liked Check Point very much, but it was a little bit costly compared to FortiWeb. However, it had more features compared to FortiWeb."
"The pricing is 50% less than Akamai."
"Signal Sciences is pretty cheap compared to other solutions."
"The product has an affordable cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Security Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudGuard for Application Security?
The setup cost was taken with the head of the department, who handled the pricing and everything.
What needs improvement with CloudGuard for Application Security?
Currently, there is nothing in the areas of Check Point CloudGuard WAF that I would like to see improved or enhanced ...
What do you like most about Signal Sciences?
The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Signal Sciences?
The pricing is very competitive compared to other providers. The pricing is definitely a factor in our decision-makin...
What needs improvement with Signal Sciences?
We do use it, but the UI can be improved as we mostly work through the CI/CD. It provides support, but sometimes it i...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Check Point CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard AppSec
Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF, Signal Sciences RASP
 

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
Chef, Adobe, Datadog, Etsy, GrubHub, Vimeo, SendGrid, Under Armour, Duo, AppNexus
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,768 professionals have used our research since 2012.