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Imperva DDoS vs Symantec Web Application Firewall comparison

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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:
 

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)
Imperva DDoS
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
CDN (5th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (18th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (5th)
Symantec Web Application Fi...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (27th)
 

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.
DerrickAkankwasa - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide DDoS protection and better security at effective rate
It is expanding its number of data centers for scrubbing traffic. Currently, there is only one POP for cleaning in South Africa. They might add another POP in North Africa, possibly in Nigeria or Egypt. Latency concerns customers, especially in regions like East and West Africa, where traffic has to travel to South Africa before returning. Increasing the number of POPs across the continent would help address these latency issues and improve overall service. While the platform is already quite strong, there’s always room for improvement, especially in keeping up with emerging trends and new types of attacks. Enhancing security capabilities could be beneficial. Integrating more advanced AI features could significantly improve its effectiveness and help customers leverage these tools more effectively. It would be great to see more focus on AI integration to handle and analyze data more efficiently.
Vatsal Mehta - PeerSpot reviewer
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 tool is user-friendly."
"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."
"The technical support is good."
"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."
"It's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."
"Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick."
"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."
"The solution's most valuable aspect is that it is easy to configure."
"It is a stable solution."
"It fits our requirements, as well as our budget."
"It's very pretty easy to onboard the URL."
"On the real time, you can see live traffic, which is flowing into our website."
"The dashboard is good and user-friendly."
"The most valuable features for us are the DDoS and Bot."
"The setup of Imperva DDoS was easy."
"The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"The setup was straightforward."
"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 best feature of Symantec Web Application Firewall is that it is very easy to use, and the deployment and implementation processes are really easy."
 

Cons

"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"DNS Management."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"Technical support is lacking."
"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."
"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"The cost could be lower; our end clients need to have a high budget to purchase this solution."
"The salespeople tend to exaggerate its capabilities, which can cost you money if you don't verify the information."
"It would be beneficial to include vulnerability management in the solution, similar to what they have for their on-premise solution."
"It needs to be improved every time there are new attacks."
"Its price could be improved. It is quite expensive. It will be good if we could export the configuration. Currently, to control the configuration, we need to go to each website, which is not very convenient."
"I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise."
"We would like them to hire people in Sweden because it's quite hard when people are sitting in the UK or Belgium because some of the customers really want them to be local."
"There’s nothing that’s missing in terms of features."
"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."
"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."
"I'm not convinced that it's necessary the best solution going forward in the future."
"It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."
"Sometimes scanning slows down the endpoints."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The price is reasonable."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"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 somewhere around $10,000 a site. For every site, you pay individually. For every DNS entry, you have you pay."
"​Although the pricing can be a little high, it is worth the protection and security that it offers.​"
"Pricing could be more competitive."
"The solution's price is high for small companies."
"It is expensive."
"We have an issue with Imperva Incapsula in the Iraqi market because of the high price."
"Varies depending on the needs of the customer."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 Imperva Incapsula?
We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.
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 ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Imperva Incapsula
Symantec WAF, Blue Coat Protecting Web Applications
 

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.
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva DDoS vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,484 professionals have used our research since 2012.