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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

Cloudflare Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
147
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), 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 August 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 3.8%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 7.6%, up from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Web Application Firewall is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform7.6%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall3.8%
Symantec Web Application Firewall0.8%
Other87.8%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
CTO at PlayNirvana
Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.
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

"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."
"Very glad the WAF rulesets works out of box, and requires very little tuning or maintenance."
"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."
"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."
"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."
"The product has a valuable security control functionality."
"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."
"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."
"The dynamic profiling of websites is the solution's most valuable feature. The security is also good."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is used for customers who are looking to secure their multiple applications and want to block threats such as DDoS and ransomware attacks, delivering data security, data availability, and access control."
"The solution is really stable; it's a product that I can stand by and recommend because I know it's going to work for the customer."
"Incapsula delivers a massive improvement to website performance and security in less than 20 minutes, regardless of the CMS."
"It is the best tool for detection and mitigation of current web-related attacks."
"Incapsula has provided heightened visibility and awareness at management level on the actual threat landscape; it paves the way for easier approval for security-related implementations and projects."
"On the activity log, I can see the exact details, the visit, and the threat."
"Imperva is easy to use and deploy, and the UI is excellent."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"This product is doing what it should and what we are expecting from it."
"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 setup was straightforward."
"The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats."
"It provides us with a sense of security."
 

Cons

"A key challenge arises when dealing with numerous integrations with HVAC systems. Depending on the specifics, there might be some configuration mismatches, which necessitate specific support."
"Its stability could be better."
"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."
"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."
"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well. They have documentation for everything you're looking for, but they lack a single piece of documentation to tie everything together. As a new user or beginner, it took us a little bit of time to figure out how to put all these things in place."
"Delivery services and information security."
"In the past, I have had bugs on the WAF."
"Incapsula services also provides load balancing services for their service IP address environment. So far, with monitoring their services, the IP address was only changed once."
"Clients also often complain about the cost of the solution."
"I would like to see automated reporting to improve visibility."
"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."
"The hardware being more expensive compared to other vendors poses a challenge, along with a need for improvement in the cloud WAF offerings."
"I guess the GUI could be improved a little, as it’s not always simple to get."
"It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."
"One of our issues is that sometimes scanning slows down the endpoints."
"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."
"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 annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"It is not too pricey."
"The solution is expensive."
"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."
"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."
"It is not expensive compared to the other similar solutions in this category."
"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"There is a license or subscription renewal that our customers pay."
"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise70
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...
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 mana...
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 provi...
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 o...
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 curr...
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 s...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva Application Security Platform vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.