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FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) vs NGINX App Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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
7.3
FortiWeb enhances security, cuts costs, saves resources, offering a 70% ROI and improving financial and operational efficiency.
Sentiment score
6.9
Organizations saw positive ROI with NGINX App Protect during COVID-19, improving security and integration, anticipating future benefits.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
FortiWeb's customer service is inconsistent, with varied experiences in responsiveness, regional support, and subscription cost concerns.
Sentiment score
6.3
NGINX App Protect support is praised for promptness and helpfulness but inconsistencies and costs affect user satisfaction.
The back-end development team is available, and if any issue arises, they will help us immediately by providing solutions when contacted.
Their support is truly exceptional when I compare it with similar large-sized companies.
They were quick and efficient when we had issues.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
FortiWeb WAF is scalable, supporting diverse users, with high ratings but some licensing flexibility challenges noted.
Sentiment score
6.5
NGINX App Protect is scalable with diverse options but faces deployment, traffic, and configuration centralization challenges noted by users.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
FortiWeb is seen as stable, routinely scoring high, but users suggest using FortiAnalyzer for enhanced security management.
Sentiment score
8.4
NGINX App Protect is praised for stability and integration, outperforming competitors, though minor improvements in HTML5 are needed.
It is a quality solution, and I would rate its stability as eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

FortiWeb WAF requires improvements in integrations, performance, support, scalability, and more enterprise features to compete with competitors.
NGINX App Protect requires improved flexibility, UI, API, automation, network support, pricing, integration, and feature enhancements like security and documentation.
If inbuilt larger logging capability is added, it would enhance usability, and features like clickable options to unblock or create exceptions would greatly assist customers in managing their websites.
If some of my customers want to migrate from F5 to Fortinet Firewall, or the Fortinet WAF solution, there are some migration issues.
There was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service.
 

Setup Cost

FortiWeb Web Application Firewall offers flexible pricing, core and advanced features, and scalable licensing for cost-efficient protection.
NGINX App Protect costs $3,000-$400,000 annually, considered expensive but competitive, with no hidden fees and strategic cost management possible.
If the customer has multiple websites, the price reduces automatically because it depends on the number only.
 

Valuable Features

FortiWeb Web Application Firewall provides user-friendly setup, protection against attacks, scalability, and cost-effective security features like machine learning.
NGINX App Protect provides comprehensive security features including automation, containerization, and flexible API connectivity for robust application protection.
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.
Fortinet's pricing is way more competitive than Cisco or Palo Alto.
The most valuable feature is the ability to operate in a DevOps environment and to be configured through API and pipeline by the developers themselves.
Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications.
 

Categories and Ranking

FortiWeb Web Application Fi...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NGINX App Protect
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (21st), API Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) is 1.0%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX App Protect is 1.8%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Martin Ellmann - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides users with ease of policy configuration and good integration capabilities
The solution helps protect our company's web applications against common threats up to 99 percent. We feel very safe with the tool. Speaking about how the tool has effectively mitigated web security threats for an application, I would say that it is an application behind the web portal, so there are about a hundred or thousand people who can access a website. If it is a sensitive application, and we have to watch every access to it to make it really safe, that is the reason why we need WAF on the application. My company doesn't use AI with the tool. I recommend the product to others. I would say that others need to have it if they have a shopping website or something similar. I know it is hard to sell because we find it quite hard whenever my company tries to do so. The solution offers 100 percent integration with other Fortinet security products. The ease of policy configuration in the tool is okay. I rate the tool a nine to ten out of ten.
Tomaz Sobczak - PeerSpot reviewer
Signature-based detection, DOS protection, and bot protection
NGINX App Protect is easier to automate and configure, or manage from an API. This is good for securing applications. However, it's not suitable for more complex tasks. NGINX App Protect positively impacted performance changes. There's a cache or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications. It can also offload some functions from servers, which NGINX can handle faster.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 need to protect. The licensing is based on the number of websites or individuall...
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 past three to four years, whenever we called for support, they responded quickl...
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 to look at options.
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 requirements and specifications to deploy the service, to avoid disruptions after impl...
 

Also Known As

No data available
NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.