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F5 Shape Security vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

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

F5 Shape Security
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Fraud Detection and Prevention (19th)
Imperva Application Securit...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
148
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (3rd), Bot Management (1st), API Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. F5 Shape Security is designed for Fraud Detection and Prevention and holds a mindshare of 1.7%, down 1.8% compared to last year.
Imperva Application Security Platform, on the other hand, focuses on Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection, holds 7.4% mindshare, up 7.3% since last year.
Fraud Detection and Prevention Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Shape Security1.7%
ThreatMetrix4.4%
Riskified3.0%
Other90.9%
Fraud Detection and Prevention
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform7.4%
Cloudflare11.2%
Radware Cloud DDoS Protection Service6.7%
Other74.7%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Nikolay Dimitrov - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Engineer at Paysafe / IBM
Easy to configure and blocks bot attacks for web users
The solution is deployed on the F5 cloud. The solution's real-time analytics help you see what has been blocked. It helps to see whether the attack category was an automation attack or a fake browser. F5 Shape Security has a normal dashboard. We are doing F5 Shape Security migrations for 30 customers. F5 Shape Security uses Javascript. For a lot of competitors, the Javascript can be reverse-engineered by attackers to bypass the protection. F5 Shape Security has machine learning authentication of the Java script. If you had hacked it, the encryption would have been changed. It's really hard for attackers to reverse engineer the F5 Shape Security JavaScript. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
reviewer2818155 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Application protection has improved and reporting and dashboards still need refinement
I believe Imperva Application Security Platform should have a more interactive wizard. While the dashboard is good, it could be more eye-catching. Based on my perspective, I recommend modifying the dashboards, especially the main dashboard where I can see the traffic hit count, alerts, and other latest information. In terms of reporting, I find it challenging to create reports; in my earlier days, it was difficult. Over time, I have learned how to create reports, but it should be easier to do so. I have used other tools such as firewalls or SolarWinds, where creating a report is straightforward and does not take much time, unlike in Imperva, where I have to add many elements. Modifications in the integration aspects would also be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"F5 Shape Security's most valuable feature is performance."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ease of configuration."
"There are a number of features that are valuable such as the account takeover and various antivirus features."
"It's worth it. It's a fine solution for medium/big companies worried about attacks that happen in the wild."
"The implementation of Imperva Cloud WAF is easy, and because it is a cloud solution with no appliance to install, the actual installation will only take a few hours and full implementation can be completed within 24 hours."
"Human contact Fast SLA Trustworthy and excellent communication Highly-functional back office with user friendly reports and intelligence on bad IPS and malicious software is at very high level and very quick."
"Our ROI is about 45% since deployment on reduction of our cloud bill."
"This product is a reliable defense from malicious attacks on a network environment."
"I would say compare it to other solutions in the marketplace feature by feature and see how Incapsula reporting and analytics dashboards compare and bot control compares – their solution for bot control is pretty good – and check those features with other enterprise level solutions, you get a lot for your money."
"The Imperva Web Application Firewall feature I have found the most valuable is the ease of deployment."
 

Cons

"The tool's price is high."
"I want the solution's custom exclusion rules to be more granular."
"It would be useful if the solution used more intelligence in attack protection. For example, firewalls are to be dependent on the configuration, but if they could have some data science around it the solution would be even better. The profiling of the traffic, and making decisions surrounding that should be intelligence-based, instead of being based on the configuration of the firewall itself."
"They recently separated the WAF and the DAM management gateways in order for each of these to be managed from different areas, so I believe it now requires additional investments for what was previously a single complete solution."
"It's quite expensive."
"We faced challenges with high costs, as the customer perceived pricing for gateways to be excessive, but we handled multiple billing instances with sophisticated setups."
"HTML minification could be improved. The actual HTML minification does not provide the maximum HTML minification nor provides the best result."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is a good system, but we found that the visibility of the diverse-path server, e.g. where the traffic is coming from, the different IPs, etc., needs improvement."
"They could improve by minimizing false positive results."
"The price of Imperva Web Application Firewalls is expensive compared to others."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is moderately priced."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is expensive."
"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."
"Imperva’s pricing is a bit higher in the market since it offers a full-blown WAF."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"There is a license or subscription renewal that our customers pay."
"It is not expensive compared to the other similar solutions in this category."
"The cost is somewhere around $10,000 a site. For every site, you pay individually. For every DNS entry, you have you pay."
"The price of Imperva Web Application Firewalls is expensive compared to others."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Healthcare Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise71
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise. For example, the initiation of an attack on the endpoint level cou...
 

Also Known As

Shape Security
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wells Fargo, Loblaw, JetBlue, Zoosk
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about ThreatMetrix, BioCatch, NICE and others in Fraud Detection and Prevention. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.