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Imperva Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

Imperva and Microsoft are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Imperva is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8, while Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.4. Imperva holds a 5.8% mindshare in WAF, compared to Microsoft’s 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Imperva users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 79% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.
Imperva Web Application Fir...
Read 52 Imperva Web Application Firewall reviews
  • 4,789 Views
  • 2,294 Comparison Views
97% willing to recommend
Microsoft Azure Application...
Read 48 Microsoft Azure Application Gateway reviews
  • 7,699 Views
  • 4,669 Comparison Views
79% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Imperva Web Application Firewall and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway compete in the web application security market. Imperva seems to have the upper hand in providing robust security features, while Azure Application Gateway stands out for its ease of integration and scalability within Azure's cloud platform.

Features: Imperva Web Application Firewall provides strong security features such as correlated attack validation, threat radar, profiling policies, and DDoS protection. These tools ensure comprehensive security with effective customization. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway focuses on ease of use, comprehensive cloud integration, and traffic management features. It allows organizations to manage their traffic efficiently while offering scalability through Azure's cloud services.

Room for Improvement: Imperva needs enhancements in GUI, policy management, and cloud component integration to improve user experience. Users find policy management complex and request better traffic visibility. Azure Application Gateway could improve its interface, flexibility in configuring rules, and provide more detailed documentation for configuration and updates. Performance during updates and limitations on request size and protocol support also need improvement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Imperva Web Application Firewall supports on-premises, private, public, and hybrid cloud deployments but needs improved support response times and localization. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is primarily cloud-based, integrating seamlessly with Azure services, contributing to ease of deployment although the initial setup may appear complex. Enhanced support could benefit users.

Pricing and ROI: Imperva's pricing is considered high but offers strong ROI, particularly in banking. Its licensing model is complex. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway offers a pay-as-you-go model which adjusts based on usage, although some users find it expensive. Both provide meaningful ROI, but their pricing approaches differ significantly.

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To learn more, read our detailed Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Report (Updated: June 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
June 2025
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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 Web Application Fir...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Application...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
3rd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Imperva Web Application Firewall is 5.8%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is 8.2%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Mitesh D Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Effectively defends against threats like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and others
It does bring value. For example, consider a BFSI customer. Their application is critical and represents their brand. Without a WAF, an attack could take their application down, harming their reputation. It leads to hampering the customer's workflow. With an Imperva WAF, they protect against attacks like DDoS or SQL injection, ensuring their application remains available and customers are happy. That's the main benefit for both the customer and the organization. The impact depends on the customer's use case. If their business primarily operates online, a CDN is beneficial for traffic optimization. Moreover, the integration options depend on the specific use case of our customers. Generally, integration capabilities are good with SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) parts.
Read full review
Bonieber Orofeo - PeerSpot reviewer
Application gateway optimizes performance and simplifies cloud transitions
There are a lot of things I appreciate about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is beneficial for us as it helps in publishing our website, providing us comfort when it comes to the availability of our applications. The autoscaling feature in Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is very obvious, and I have no issues with it; it is well planned and organized. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway impacts our cost savings while maintaining higher performance. The Web Application Firewall (WAF) in Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has been very effective in protecting applications from security threats. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway helps us manage our AI-driven applications by enabling faster transactions, improving our work.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Compared to other web application firewalls in the market, Imperva does things in the most accurate way."
"Its inline transferring mode is the most valuable because it is 100% transparent. When you change the IP, there is no change on the network side. If you can't and want to try to reach an IP, you can reach the server IP. There are many other advanced security features in it. The smallest appliances of Imperva can handle the highest traffic at a customer site. For example, a smaller appliance from Imperva can provide you the same security as an F5 product."
"The most valuable features of Imperva Web Application Firewall are the monitoring of databases and the dashboards are easy to understand."
"Configuration for different application sources is most valuable. We can segregate the traffic that an application is carrying and identify the sizing in Imperva."
"The valuable features of Imperva WAF include its effective security breach prevention through automatically updating rules."
"One good thing about Imperva Web Application Firewall is it can be on the cloud and also it can be on-premise."
"The most valuable features of the Imperva Web Application Firewall are performance and flexibility. We can extend or customize the box itself."
More Imperva Web Application Firewall pros
"The solution was very easy to configure. It wasn't hard at all to adjust it to our needs."
"Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well."
"The most valuable feature is WAF."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway gives us a lot of benefits, including domain mapping."
"The solution's integration is very good."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the web application firewall (WAF)."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway are the policies, the data store they are using, and the cloud platform it operates on."
"Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it."
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pros
 

Cons

"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."
"An improvement for Imperva WAF would be to reduce the number of false positives and create more strong use cases based on AI/ML or behavioral analytics."
"The reporting is missing some features, such as: only two export formats, and the time period does not include the last day, week, year."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall can improve by providing better features, such as improved prevention of zero-day attacks. Additionally, it should include a VR meta-analysis."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is very expensive."
"The product's customization capabilities are a bit problematic, requiring support cases for backend modifications."
"It should be more user-friendly. Like other web solutions, it would be helpful to be able to easily do policy configuration and identification inside the application. Understanding the in-depth configuration of a policy is somewhat difficult for an engineer, and they can improve that."
"I think that better bot protection is needed in this solution."
More Imperva Web Application Firewall cons
"I believe that there is room for improvement in terms of additional functionality. It is an advantage to have features readily available for configuration without needing customer-defined rules."
"The increased security that we are considering is because of some of the things that the security team has brought to our attention. They have pointed out that we would most likely require a better web application firewall than Azure Application Gateway."
"The monitoring on the solution could be better."
"Needs easier integration with the existing SIAM."
"The user interface could be better."
"The solution could improve by increasing the performance when doing updates. For example, if I change the certificate it can take 30 minutes. Other vendors do not have this type of problem."
"The solution has many limitations. You cannot upgrade the VPN to the application gateway. So I started with version one, which has limited capabilities, and they provided version two. And unfortunately, I cannot upgrade from v one to v two like other services. So I have to decommission the version one and create a new one with version two. Also the version one was complex with the certificates uploading the SQL certificates."
"Application Gateway’s limitation is that the private and the public endpoint cannot use the same port."
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a very affordable solution."
"The solution's pricing is an issue."
"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."
"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."
"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."
"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."
"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."
"There is a license for this solution and we purchase the license annually with no additional fees."
More Imperva Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a pretty affordable product. My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs of the solution. The additional costs apart from the licensing costs of the solution vary."
"We use the tool's basic subscription. Its licensing costs are monthly."
"The solution is reasonably priced compared to other solutions."
"Between v1 and v2, there is a lot of change in the pricing. It is very costly compared to AWS."
"It is an expensive solution. We have an enterprise agreement, it is monthly."
"The cost is not an issue."
"The price of the solution can be reduced a bit."
"Regarding pricing for Azure Application Gateway, I would rate it at seven."
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
My recommendation is Imperva.
See all answers
Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?
For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.
See all answers
DDoS solutions: Any other solutions to consider aside from Radware DDoS Protection Service and F5 Silverline DDoS Protection?
You can have a look to Imperva Cloud WAF, the anti-DDoS mitigation is under 1s and works very well. I observed a lot of DDoS attacks that were well managed (even not seen by the customer) by Imperv...
See all answers
What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?
We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...
See all answers
How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft Azure Application Gateway web application firewall software was the better fit ...
See all answers
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall Logo
F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall
Compared 12% of the time
Azure Front Door vs Imperva Web Application Firewall Logo
Azure Front Door vs Imperva Web Application Firewall
Compared 10% of the time
AWS WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall Logo
AWS WAF vs Imperva Web Application Firewall
Compared 8% of the time
Fortinet FortiWeb vs Imperva Web Application Firewall Logo
Fortinet FortiWeb vs Imperva Web Application Firewall
Compared 7% of the time
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Imperva Web Application Firewall Logo
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Imperva Web Application Firewall
Compared 6% of the time
More Imperva Web Application Firewall Competitors
F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Logo
F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Compared 12% of the time
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Logo
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Compared 10% of the time
HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Logo
HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Compared 9% of the time
Cloudflare vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Logo
Cloudflare vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Compared 9% of the time
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Logo
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Compared 7% of the time
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Imperva Web Application Firewall
June 2025
Imperva Web Application Firewall reportDownload Imperva Web Application Firewall product report
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
June 2025
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway reportDownload Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
 

Overview

Imperva Web Application Firewall is a versatile solution that protects web applications and databases from various attacks, including DDoS, cross-site scripting, and SQL injection attacks. It offers data security, availability, and access control and can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud. 

The solution has good security against web attacks and offers advanced bot protection, API security, and mitigation features. Imperva WAF is easy to configure and deploy; it has good customer service and an excellent user interface.

Imperva

Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft
 

Sample Customers

BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens
Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
Buyer's Guide
Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
June 2025
Free Report: Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
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