Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs SonicWall Web Application Firewall [EOL] comparison

Cloudflare and SonicWall are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Additionally, 95% of Cloudflare users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SonicWall users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cloudflare Web Application Firewall and SonicWall Web Application Firewall [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, F5, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF).

To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: November 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

November 2025

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Helped 879,259 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

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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Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

Effectively protects clients from automated threats and ensures global security

I cannot say much about areas of improvement for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall because I haven't gone through deep understanding of it, as I am still learning. However, they need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long. If I took 48 hours to answer a request at my company, it would be a tough time to see or address the issue, and it would be frustrating.

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Narender Reddy

IT Manager at iLenSys Technologies Pvt Ltd

A stable and durable solution that can be used for security and tunneling

We use SonicWall Web Application Firewall for security and tunneling We should get the logs from the solution, and it should communicate with the local DNS. There is some lag in the solution's technical support response time. I have been using SonicWall Web Application Firewall for one year.…

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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

"It is a fast and secure DNS."

"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."

"Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick."

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"

"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"

"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."

"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."

"It's very user-friendly."

More Cloudflare pros

"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."

"The setup process is very simple for me."

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

"We like that there's load balancing, firewall capabilities, DDoS protection, et cetera, all covered by Cloudflare."

"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."

"It is configurable via API."

"The Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's most valuable feature is its ease of configuration."

"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"Capture ATP is a good additional feature in the latest version."

"We use SonicWall Web Application Firewall for security and tunneling."

"The solution offers better data protection than competitors."

Cons

"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."

"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."

"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."

"DNS Management."

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."

"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."

"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."

More Cloudflare cons

"Its stability could be better."

"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."

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

"They need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long."

"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."

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

"The learning curve was steep initially."

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

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"We should get the logs from the solution, and it should communicate with the local DNS."

"The solution needs an access management feature with API integration so we can assign certain levels of access within groups."

"We have a lot of unknown errors popping up in the latest version."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."

"We are using the free version."

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

"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."

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

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

More Cloudflare 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."

"It is not too pricey."

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

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

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

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

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

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

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is competitive."

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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

15%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

No data available

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	15
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

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...

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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...

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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.

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What do you like most about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The product has a valuable security control functionality.

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

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

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What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't really use the rule-based logic feature or utilize the WAF's ability to scale as a cloud-based service. I don...

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Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 52% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

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

More Cloudflare Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

F5 Advanced 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

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

December 2025

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

November 2025

SonicWall Web Application Firewall [EOL] report

Download SonicWall Web Application Firewall [EOL] product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Cloudflare WAF

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

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

The SonicWall Web Application Firewal l (WAF) solutions enables the defense-in-depth strategy to protect your web applications running in a private, public or hybrid cloud environment. compromise the application, steal data and/or cause a denial-of-service.

SonicWall

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

AMANZIMTOTI HIGH SCHOOL

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

November 2025

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