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Imperva Application Security Platform vs Symantec Web Application Firewall 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

Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
148
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (3rd), Bot Management (1st), API Security (1st)
Symantec Web Application Fi...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
31st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 7.2%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Web Application Firewall is 0.9%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform7.2%
Symantec Web Application Firewall0.9%
Other91.9%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Vatsal Mehta - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Co-Founder & CEO at HEDEHI Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Boosts Security Measures with Easy Deployment and Implementation
Regarding areas for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall, I think they can enhance the features they currently focus on, as there are various types of web applications, and it would be great if they could develop features to cater to all these types. For example, a feature to scan for unauthorized plugins or extensions could let us know if those extensions are authorized, unauthorized, or malicious. There's room for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall by introducing AI into their dashboard so that we can query the dashboard and fetch data insights, similar to querying ChatGPT for answers. They currently have this feature but can make improvements for better querying to get insights.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I was involved in the deployment and found that all the features in this product are fantastic, especially the correlated attack validation, threat radar (reputation, fraud), and virtual patching."
"Imperva has a complete picture of how the applications are utilizing it. It is handy. DDoS is good. It has an internally managed database. It is very easy to integrate. We have integrated it with SIEM services."
"Our ROI is about 45% since deployment on reduction of our cloud bill."
"The most valuable aspect of it is that it blocks all types of attacks."
"The valuable features of Imperva WAF include its effective security breach prevention through automatically updating rules."
"This solution has helped in securing our clients' assets, which is key."
"The solution integrates seamlessly with other tools and has a good alert mechanism."
"Imperva solutions are the best in terms of stability."
"This product is doing what it should and what we are expecting from it."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"The best feature of Symantec Web Application Firewall is that it is very easy to use, and the deployment and implementation processes are really easy."
"The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats."
"It provides us with a sense of security."
"The setup was straightforward."
 

Cons

"I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise."
"HTML minification could be improved. The actual HTML minification does not provide the maximum HTML minification nor provides the best result."
"Their customer service sometimes has different responses for similar requests. We sometimes need to explain the issue many times before they understand."
"The signature updates could be faster."
"Management of policies and rules can be complicated and the physical setup of the product has implications on HA."
"It would be nice to have more security control over mobile applications so I would suggest adding more mobile security features. It would also be beneficial to see improvements in regards to interface bandwidth performance, CPU time, and RAM size. Learning capability of the device is quite weak."
"Some of the features should be included in the next release is a file integrating monitoring tool. This feature should be improved."
"Improve reporting interface and filtering."
"On a scale from one to 10, I would give it a five. I'm not convinced that it's necessarily the best solution going forward in the future."
"One of our issues is that sometimes scanning slows down the endpoints."
"It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."
"There's room for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall by introducing AI into their dashboard so that we can query the dashboard and fetch data insights, similar to querying ChatGPT for answers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The data packages are higher than our needs so we end up paying for data that we don't use."
"Pricing could be more competitive."
"It is a very expensive solution. The price is very high. A lot of customers tell us that they would love to use Imperva more. I have some customers who have 50 websites, but they have only 10 websites on Imperva because of the price. They would love to have all their websites running through Imperva, but they can't. They have to choose the more critical websites to protect because the price is very high. It is a very good product, but it is too expensive. If you buy a plan for 20 megabytes and you don't consume all of your 20 megabytes, it is okay, but if you consume more, you are charged for the superior traffic."
"The cost is on par with other solutions such as Cloudflare and Akamai."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."
"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."
"Everybody complains about the price of this solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

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...
What needs improvement with Symantec Web Application Firewall?
Regarding areas for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall, I think they can enhance the features they currently focus on, as there are various types of web applications, and it would be ...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Web Application Firewall?
Our use case for Symantec Web Application Firewall is primarily for security purposes as we develop web application solutions for our customers. We have a business where we provide solutions for cr...
What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Web Application Firewall?
I would recommend Symantec Web Application Firewall to other users due to all the benefits I mentioned earlier, such as ease of use, ease of implementation, good technical support, and compared to ...
 

Also Known As

Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
Symantec WAF, Blue Coat Protecting Web Applications
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva Application Security Platform vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.