F5 Rules for AWS WAF vs NGINX App Protect comparison

F5 Rules for AWS WAF and NGINX App Protect are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 Rules for AWS WAF is ranked #29 with an average rating of 9.0, while NGINX App Protect is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.5. Additionally, 100% of F5 Rules for AWS WAF users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of NGINX App Protect users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 Rules for AWS WAF and NGINX App Protect based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Rules for AWS WAF vs. NGINX App Protect Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Rules for AWS WAF vs. NGINX App Protect

December 2025

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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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reviewer2783919

Associate Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Managed security rules have protected our public e‑commerce sites and simplified ongoing defense

I advise anyone looking for a great tool to secure their public-facing applications to start using F5 Rules for AWS WAF. These are managed rule sets, so you do not need to worry about continuous improvements or ensuring your application is secure; F5 Rules for AWS WAF will take care of that and is always making the necessary improvements in these rule sets to ensure security. I am very impressed with the rule sets and the continuous engineering from their security team to ensure the required rule set availability. I really appreciate the fantastic job they are doing. F5 Rules for AWS WAF can be integrated with AWS CloudFront, Application Load Balancer, Lambda, and API Gateway. I am satisfied with all these services as they are our intermediary points for services exposed to the public or globally. I gave this product a rating of ten out of ten.

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Jean-Marc Porchet

Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Blocking IPs and detecting bots enhances security for medical websites

I was researching products like NGINX App Protect and F5 Advanced WAF for long-term options. I have some use for such a solution, but probably not before next year Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications. We were able to block groups of IP addresses that…

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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

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

"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."

"The technical support is good."

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

"The most valuable feature of the solution is external DNS. It is also very secure. They have their own main server and once you configure it, the product takes care of everything. There are no issues in resolving IPs and low latency is also present."

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

"The most valuable feature is its usability."

"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."

More Cloudflare pros

"I advise anyone looking for a great tool to secure their public-facing applications to start using F5 Rules for AWS WAF."

"F5 Rules for AWS WAF has positively impacted our organization for security through the implementation of traffic rules in our application."

"I advise anyone looking for a great tool to secure their public-facing applications to start using F5 Rules for AWS WAF."

"There's a cache, or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications."

"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is its open source."

"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is its flexibility."

"Overall, I rate NGINX App Protect between eight and nine."

"WAF is useful to track mitigation, inclusion, prevention, and the parametric firewall."

"NGINX App Protect is stable."

"We were looking for a product that is capable of complete automation and a container based solution. It's working."

"The stability of the product is very impressive since it handles 60,000 to 70,000 requests or transactions per second."

More NGINX App Protect pros

Cons

"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."

"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."

"The pricing could be improved."

"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."

"Support response time could be improved."

"The product needs to improve its automation."

"DNS Management."

"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."

More Cloudflare cons

"An area for improvement I see is that while everything is in good shape, I demand continuous improvisation of these rule sets."

"It's too early to talk about a return on investment with F5 Rules for AWS WAF."

"The setup of NGINX App Protect is complex. The full process took one week to complete. Additionally, we had to change the network infrastructure platform which took one month."

"Its technical support could be better."

"It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service, to avoid disruptions after implementation."

"The integration of NGINX App Protect could improve."

"The solution needs to be improved in the e-commerce portal."

"The product's user interface is an area with shortcomings as it can be quite confusing for users, making it an area where improvements are required."

"Right now, the tool doesn't provide an option revolving around update feeds, specifically the signature update option in the UI."

"The price of NGINX App Protect could improve."

More NGINX App Protect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."

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

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

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

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"We are using the free version."

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

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"The price of NGINX App Protect is not much different from the products that fall under the leader category of Gartner Magic Quadrant."

"There are not any additional costs we had to pay to use NGINX App Protect."

"The pricing is reasonable because NGINX operates on an instance basis."

"The product's price is high."

"There is a monthly or annual subscription to use NGINX App Protect. There are not any additional costs to the subscription."

"Really understand the licensing model, because we underestimated that."

"The price of NGINX App Protect is approximately $3,000 annually. All of our licenses are observed by a managed service partner."

"There are no additional fees."

More NGINX App Protect pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing 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

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	11

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Rules for AWS WAF?

From the pricing perspective, I found it to be comparable to other marketplace rules available in AWS Marketplace. It...

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What needs improvement with F5 Rules for AWS WAF?

An area for improvement I see is that while everything is in good shape, I demand continuous improvisation of these r...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for F5 Rules for AWS WAF?

We are providing support to our end customers who have e-commerce websites that need to be exposed to the public, and...

See all answers

What do you like most about NGINX App Protect?

It's very easy to deploy.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% 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

No data available

Azure Front Door vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 12% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 9% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 7% of the time

AWS WAF vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 6% of the time

More NGINX App Protect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Business Rules Management

December 2025

Download F5 Rules for AWS WAF product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX App Protect

December 2025

Download NGINX App Protect product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall

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

F5 Rules for AWS WAF provides advanced security measures for web applications on AWS, ensuring robust protection against dynamic threats while optimizing performance.

F5 Rules for AWS WAF integrates seamlessly into AWS environments, delivering powerful security capabilities. Designed to detect and mitigate a wide range of cyber threats, it enhances cyber defenses efficiently. Its rule sets cover multiple threat landscapes, offering a comprehensive approach that aligns with AWS best practices. This integration can help secure businesses from web-based threats while maintaining application performance.

What are the important features of F5 Rules for AWS WAF?

Comprehensive Threat Coverage: Protects against OWASP Top 10 threats and other common vulnerabilities.
Customizable Rules: Offers flexibility to tailor rules according to specific application needs.
Scalability: Efficiently scales with cloud resources to handle varying levels of traffic without compromising security.
Optimized Performance: Ensures minimal latency by optimizing rules for fast processing.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Enhanced Security: Reduces risk of cyber attacks with proactive threat mitigation.
Cost Efficiency: Lowers security-related expenses by reducing potential breach impacts.
Improved Compliance: Assists in meeting regulatory standards by ensuring application security requirements.
User Trust: Increases consumer confidence by demonstrating a commitment to data protection.

F5 Rules for AWS WAF is widely used across industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail to protect critical web applications. In finance, it safeguards customer data and transactions. Healthcare organizations use it to comply with stringent data protection regulations. Retail businesses rely on its capabilities to secure e-commerce platforms, ensuring a seamless shopping experience without risks.

NGINX App Protect application security solution combines the efficacy of advanced F5 web application firewall (WAF) technology with the agility and performance of NGINX Plus. The solution runs natively on NGINX Plus and addresses some of the most difficult challenges facing modern DevOps environments:

Integrating security controls directly into the development automation pipeline
Applying and managing security for modern and distributed application environments such as containers and microservices
Providing the right level of security controls without impacting release and go-to-market velocity
Complying with security and regulatory requirements

NGINX App Protect offers:

Expanded security beyond basic signatures to ensure adequate controls
F5 app‑security technology for efficacy superior to ModSecurity and other WAFs
Confidently run in “blocking” mode in production with proven F5 expertise
High‑confidence signatures for extremely low false positives
Increases visibility, integrating with third‑party analytics solutions
Integrates security and WAF natively into the CI/CD pipeline
Deploys as a lightweight software package that is agnostic of underlying infrastructure
Facilitates declarative policies for “security as code” and integration with DevOps tools
Decreases developer burden and provides feedback loop for quick security remediation
Accelerates time to market and reduces costs with DevSecOps‑automated security

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

F5 Rules for AWS WAF vs. NGINX App Protect

December 2025

Free Report: F5 Rules for AWS WAF vs. NGINX App Protect

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Rules for AWS WAF vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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