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FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) vs HAProxy comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.5
Cloudflare enhanced speed, security, and data protection, providing significant ROI and improved operations and client satisfaction for businesses.
Sentiment score
7.3
FortiWeb enhances security, cuts costs, saves resources, offering a 70% ROI and improving financial and operational efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.8
Companies favor HAProxy for cost-effective traffic management, saving on load balancers, and retaining customers annually with positive ROI.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Cloudflare's customer service is efficient for paying users, but responses can vary in speed and effectiveness for others.
Sentiment score
6.7
FortiWeb's customer service is inconsistent, with varied experiences in responsiveness, regional support, and subscription cost concerns.
Sentiment score
7.3
HAProxy's customer service has mixed reviews with suggestions for better documentation, though premium support is appreciated but inconsistent.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.
The key factor is the language in which the support is offered, which, in this case, is in Thai.
Their support is truly exceptional when I compare it with similar large-sized companies.
The back-end development team is available, and if any issue arises, they will help us immediately by providing solutions when contacted.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Cloudflare is praised for seamless scalability, managing enterprise-level traffic efficiently and earning high customer satisfaction during peak events.
Sentiment score
7.2
FortiWeb WAF is scalable, supporting diverse users, with high ratings but some licensing flexibility challenges noted.
Sentiment score
7.8
HAProxy scales efficiently, supporting diverse loads and thousands of users, adaptable for both small and large business needs.
It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.
The tool offers very good performance, even during high-traffic periods.
I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare is widely regarded as stable and reliable, with improvements noted in uptime and performance on higher plans.
Sentiment score
8.1
FortiWeb is seen as stable, routinely scoring high, but users suggest using FortiAnalyzer for enhanced security management.
Sentiment score
8.1
HAProxy is highly rated for stability and reliability, though some users occasionally face configuration and compatibility challenges.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare requires improvements in analytics, CDN speed, API, technical support, DNS management, documentation, pricing clarity, and international and reseller support.
FortiWeb WAF requires improvements in integrations, performance, support, scalability, and more enterprise features to compete with competitors.
HAProxy needs better pricing, monitoring, documentation, dashboard functionality, performance stability, and enhanced GUI and TCP session control.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client.
If the GUI includes notifications and improved logging capabilities that allow us to see traffic and store logs for six months, that would be very helpful.
If some of my customers want to migrate from F5 to Fortinet Firewall, or the Fortinet WAF solution, there are some migration issues.
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers cost-effective, scalable plans with no setup fees, starting from free for small businesses to enterprise-level solutions.
FortiWeb Web Application Firewall offers flexible pricing, core and advanced features, and scalable licensing for cost-efficient protection.
HAProxy is free open-source software offering economic benefits, easy setup, and optional affordable extended features for integrated solutions.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
I find it to be cheap.
I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high.
If the customer has multiple websites, the price reduces automatically because it depends on the number only.
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare enhances security, speed, and SEO with easy-to-use features like CDN, SSL, DDoS protection, and centralized management.
FortiWeb Web Application Firewall provides user-friendly setup, protection against attacks, scalability, and cost-effective security features like machine learning.
HAProxy offers load balancing, security, customization, scalability, open-source benefits, and efficient traffic management with user-friendly setup and cost savings.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
Techniques like minification and image compression reduce the size of assets, leading to better performance and faster user load times.
The solution has been able to compare it to the market, and I think the product has taken great strides in automating quite a bit of things, and they use a lot of AI.
Fortinet's pricing is way more competitive than Cisco or Palo Alto.
The features of FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) that have proven most effective in protecting web applications include web filtering, DDoS protection, geo-location blocking, and blocking SQL injection attacks.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
FortiWeb Web Application Fi...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (15th)
HAProxy
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (3rd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (18th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (12th), Bot Management (10th), Service Mesh (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Martin Janzsó - PeerSpot reviewer
Has good integration with load-balancing applications
Regarding areas for improvement, the documentation needs work. We had issues with a customer because the documentation didn't clearly show which devices can connect with FortiWeb WAF, leading to misconfiguration and difficult meetings. We also need deeper technical support - finding who's responsible for technical aspects is challenging. Hungary has a good Fortinet office with strong sales and pre-sales employees.
Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for for small and quick load-balancing tasks
What I like best about the product is its simplicity and speed. When you need to set up a load balancer quickly, HAProxy offers options like sticky sessions and round-robin. It's also fast to configure, including adding SSL for security. While it may have fewer options than other solutions like F5, HAProxy gets the job done for basic load-balancing tasks. The reliability features of HAProxy were particularly useful in a scenario where I needed to test load balancing between two Tomcats. Since these domains were inaccessible, I set up a third Docker with HAProxy, which had access to the Tomcat domains. I then configured HAProxy to handle the load balancing. This setup allowed the client to interact with HAProxy. The solution's integration with other elements is easy.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise15
 

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 FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtration, web filter, application filter, and IPS.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
The pricing for FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) is reasonable. That said, it depends on how many websites we ...
What needs improvement with FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
Their AI technology is good. Overall, Fortinet is only good. The improvement needed is in their response time. In the...
Do you recommend HAProxy?
I do recommend HAProxy for more simple applications or for companies with a low budget, since HAProxy is a free, open...
What do you like most about HAProxy?
The solution is effective in managing our traffic.
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
 

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.
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Find out what your peers are saying about FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) vs. HAProxy and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,783 professionals have used our research since 2012.