Fortinet FortiADC vs Imperva Web Application Firewall comparison

The compared Fortinet and Imperva solutions aren't in the same category. Fortinet is ranked #7 in ADC , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 10.3% mindshare in the category. Imperva is ranked #5 in WAF , with an average rating of 8.9, and holds a 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Imperva users who would recommend it.

Fortinet FortiADC

Read 24 Fortinet FortiADC reviews

3,487 Views
2,933 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Read 52 Imperva Web Application Firewall reviews

4,968 Views
3,925 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiADC

Imperva Web Application Fir...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiADC and Imperva Web Application Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, HAProxy and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC).

To learn more, read our detailed Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Report (Updated: April 2025).

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Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

April 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

Fortinet FortiADC

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (7th)

Imperva Web Application Fir...

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)

Mindshare comparison

Fortinet FortiADC and Imperva Web Application Firewall aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Fortinet FortiADC is designed for Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) and holds a mindshare of 10.3%, up 7.8% compared to last year.
Imperva Web Application Firewall, on the other hand, focuses on Web Application Firewall (WAF), holds 5.8% mindshare, down 6.7% since last year.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Saeid Khanipour Ghobani

IT Manager at Technology Evaluation Center

High-level load balancing and routing protocols but scalability is limited to 200 gigabits

The initial setup and configuration are very easy because the solution includes a simple OS. Initial configuration takes about ten minutes for simple environments. It is important to assess the environment and decide what services, servers, and web applications are needed. The solution can be configured in router mode or one-arm mode which uses source NAT as destination NAT to send traffic to the firewall. One-arm mode is more complex and requires discussions with our engineers. For example, you have a website with Node.js for your programming language, Amazon S3 for your CDN, NGINX for your web server, and you use both React and reCAPTCHA. Our team meets with your developer to learn your website and OS through a multi-step process and then we configure the solution to protect everything.

Read full review

Abdullah Jin

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Offers bot protection and DDoS Protection and protects public-facing portals

Support is one thing I wish Imperva could improve. They follow the phone model and keep rotating you from one customer service person to another. The layer one support isn't very clear about the workings of the product. My feedback is primarily about Imperva Cloud, not on-premise. On-premise is a whole new story. Support is the issue for Imperva Cloud. It's also a bit pricey. It's a premium service and very expensive. The licensing model is not very straightforward. Every feature is priced separately, and to enjoy maximum protection, you'll have to spend a lot of money. The licensing model is a bit complex, and each feature is very pricey. For example, API security and web application protection are two separate license packages.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can do patches offline without causing customers outages. The web application firewall features, especially those related to the OWASP Top Ten, provide automated protections. This allows more flexibility in patching the backend applications. Additionally, it offers visibility into the requests being made to the applications, and you can't protect what you can't see."

"This ensures that clients can connect to their applications without interruption."

"Content caching and content compression are good features."

"Because ADC is the intermediary between the servers and the end-user application, it gives thorough information about the traffic, what the problem is."

"The most valuable feature is its simplicity."

"It's a good product because it supports all the features that ADC solutions in the market can support, like F5 solutions, for example, such as the LTM of F5."

"It helps with defining server load balancing tasks and managing SSL certificates, ensuring the communication flow through the Fortinet gateway."

"The most valuable feature is the SSL offloading capacity."

More Fortinet FortiADC pros

"It mitigates all of the availabilities of risks around web applications."

"The most valuable features of Imperva Web Application Firewall are the monitoring of databases and the dashboards are easy to understand."

"Imperva is a Gartner leader, so its scalability, performance, and features are excellent."

"The solution is very scalable. It is one of the most important features. You can also expand resources and features as well."

"Imperva WAF's strongest features are the detection of web application threats and vulnerabilities in the source code."

"The features I have found most valuable with Imperva Web Application Firewall are account takeover protection, advanced bot protection, and API security."

"The solution is scalable."

"The solution integrates seamlessly with other tools and has a good alert mechanism."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pros

Cons

"I think it would be helpful if Fortinet put more video examples on their cookbook site."

"I will queue all the details clearly on the ticket, including the diagram, log files, and everything else. Once a case is assigned, they ask the same questions again without checking the submitted details."

"FortiADC is complex to configure so the interface should be improved."

"When the FortiADC is part of a platform with components like FortiManager and FortiGate, automation and pushing configuration are very inconvenient."

"I had a terrible experience with Fortinet support. I only used support once when I bought the solution. I got no response for two days. However, I believe that it's no longer the case. Fortinet solutions have problems when they're launched. For example, we had issues with Fortinet's authenticator when it came out. We also had trouble with FortiNAC in the beginning."

"The L7 Persistent load-balancing algorithm has not worked for me after having tested it many times with my customer's in-house application. I'd like to suggest that the company make sure that all load-balancing algorithms work properly with most applications, even those that are in-house apps."

"There is a mismatch between the number of features they are offering and the device capacity on how much it can handle."

"Fortinet has some drawbacks, and it can be a bit challenging to scale."

More Fortinet FortiADC cons

"An improvement for Imperva WAF would be to reduce the number of false positives and create more strong use cases based on AI/ML or behavioral analytics."

"I think that better bot protection is needed in this solution."

"I would like the solution to improve its support response time."

"I'd like the option to pick your bot protection."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the API integration. It was complex for us. Additionally, The onboarding could be better."

"There is nothing specific where the application firewall is falling short."

"I loved the approach of the cloud. The cloud has a lot of new features, like advanced web protection and DDoS protection. If those could also be on-boarded onto the on-prem versions, that would be ideal. They need to pay attention to both deployment options and not just favor one."

"It should be more user-friendly. Like other web solutions, it would be helpful to be able to easily do policy configuration and identification inside the application. Understanding the in-depth configuration of a policy is somewhat difficult for an engineer, and they can improve that."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product has affordable pricing."

"The price is competitive"

"Compared to F5, FortiADC pricing is better."

"The solution is less expensive than F5 or Imperva and is the most reasonably priced option available."

"The solution's pricing is an issue and should be improved."

"I believe the price is good. It's fair. There are no extra costs."

"The solution could be more cost-effective."

"I rate Fortinet FortiADC's pricing one out of ten. It is fixed."

More Fortinet FortiADC pricing and cost advice

"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."

"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."

"Everybody complains about the price of this solution."

"There is a license for this solution and we purchase the license annually with no additional fees."

"There are a couple of different licensing models."

"It is very costly, but the return on investment is very high. Its cost was around $70,000, and we got it back in just six months."

"It is a very affordable solution."

More Imperva Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?

For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.

See all answers

Do you recommend Fortinet FortiADC?

I recommend Fortinet FortiADC. My experience with Fortinet has been very positive. Our company has been using it for around five years. We mainly use FortiADC for the load balancing of application ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiADC?

The user interface is very easy and integrates with Sandbox easily.

See all answers

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

My recommendation is Imperva.

See all answers

DDoS solutions: Any other solutions to consider aside from Radware DDoS Protection Service and F5 Silverline DDoS Protection?

You can have a look to Imperva Cloud WAF, the anti-DDoS mitigation is under 1s and works very well. I observed a lot of DDoS attacks that were well managed (even not seen by the customer) by Imperv...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 27% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 25% of the time

NetScaler vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 12% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 9% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Fortinet FortiADC

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiADC Competitors

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 15% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Imperva Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

More Imperva Web Application Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiADC

April 2025

Download Fortinet FortiADC product report

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Web Application Firewall

April 2025

Download Imperva Web Application Firewall product report

Also Known As

FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiADC is a robust application delivery controller (ADC) that delivers application optimization, application security, and application availability. FortiADC is a valued offering from Fortinet, which is widely recognized as a trusted supplier of dynamic security solutions worldwide. FortiADC offers dynamic security functions (AV, DDoS, and WAF) in addition to advanced application connectors for a simplified deployment and complete transparency to an organization's networks and applications. FortiADC offers three primary deployment options: physical machine, virtual machine, (VM) and cloud solution options.

Fortinet FortiADC Benefits

FortiADC security protocol: FortiADC integrates with FortiSandbox to improve the overall antivirus security protections where every file is scanned for known and unknown malicious risks. If a file is identified as malicious or problematic, it will be blocked in the future.
SSL protocol: FortiADC securely uses the most up-to-date cryptography to provide exceptional encryption and decryption using a hardware-based SSL ASIC. FortiADC offers complete transparency to inspect all traffic for threats, improves server response time, and reduces backend server load, SSL inspection and SSL offloading. FortiADC integrates seamlessly with Gemalto’s SafeNet Hardware Security Module (HSM).
FortiADC connectors: FortiADC Fabric Connectors offer open API-based integration and coordination with numerous software-defined networks (SDNs), third-party partners, and cloud management providers. Fortinet Fabric Connectors provide deep open and turnkey integration with recognized third-party vendors such as AWS, K8s, OCI, and SAP, in multi-vendor solutions, improving scalability, simplified management, and automation.
Business stability: FortiADC load balancing for on-premise global server load balancing (GSBL) and in the cloud (FortiGSBL Cloud) will ensure users can maintain a reliable and available network by improving the ability of scaling applications throughout numerous data centers to reduce application response times and enhance disaster recovery. Users are able to define protocols based on network latency concerns, overall data performance, and site availability.

Fortinet FortiADC Features

Application availability
- 4-7 application load balancing: DNS, HTTPS, RTMP, RADIUS, MySQL and more
- External fabric connectors: Splunk Integration, AWS/OCI Connector, Kubernetes Service.
- Security fabric connectors: FortiSIEM, Fortigate BanIP Integration, FortiAnalyzer, and more.
- Deployment modes: High availability (AA/AP Failover), Router mode, transparent mode (switch), one-arm mode (proxy with X-forwarded for support.
Web application firewall (WAF)
- Security services: Captcha support, cookie support, HTTP header security, XML/SOAP/JSON validation, CSRF protection, API gateway, and more.
- Application security: Web attack signature, bot detection, web vulnerability scanner, OWASP Top-10 Wizard, API protection and more.

Application enhancement
- HTTP and TCP improvement: TCP buffering, HTTP compressions/decompression, HTTP caching (dynamic and static objects), Bandwidth monitoring using quality of service (QoS), TCP buffering, and more.
- Authentication offloading: Two-factor authentication (Fortitoken/Fortitoken Cloud and Google Authentication), NTLM, AUTH2.0, SAML 2.0 (SP and Idp) RADIUS, LDAP, Kerbos, and local.
- Networking: Integration with Ansible, Cisco ACI, OpenStack and Nutanix, NVGRE and VXLAN support, VLAN and port trunking support, IPv6 Support (SLB, firewall, routing and interfaces), Dynamic NAT, Hide NAT, Static NAT for added scalability and flexibility.
- Management: Syslog support, SNMP using private MIBs with threshold-based traps. REST APIs, VDOMS, data analytics, real-time monitoring graphs, role-based monitoring, intuitive reporting, FortiView integration, and more.

Fortinet

Imperva Web Application Firewall is a versatile solution that protects web applications and databases from various attacks, including DDoS, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection attacks. It offers data security, availability, and access control and can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud.

The solution has good security against web attacks and offers advanced bot protection, API security, and mitigation features. Imperva WAF is easy to configure and deploy; it has good customer service and an excellent user interface.

Imperva

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens

Buyer's Guide

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

April 2025

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