Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs NGINX App Protect comparison

Sponsored
 

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 Web Application Fir...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (7th)
NGINX App Protect
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (16th), Container Security (23rd), API Security (4th)
 

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.
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.
Saurav Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers protection to users from external threats
NGINX App Protect secures our company's application, and it has helped me a lot, considering that we have critical infrastructure in India where we see how lots of attacks come onto our organization's servers. The tool offers protection against multiple threats present in India's IT ecosystem. The tool helps our company to make our payments secure, meaning it has the ability to provide a secure payment environment in India. Speaking about the improvements in our company's application performance since implementing NGINX App Protect, the gRPC support for the solution is very low. My company is not getting any proper documentation on how to deploy gRPC over NGINX App Protect. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. People can use the product as their company's base server, WAF, or for its proxy manager, depending on the business requirements. My company follows PCI DSS compliance because we operate in a payment-related industry. Right now, my company follows all the standards, so we comply with all the requirements and policies. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"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 most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."
"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."
"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."
"The solution is scalable."
"The solution has been quite stable. I have not seen any bugs at all."
"It has threat intelligence and we are using Incapsula. With threat intelligence, we can separate HTTP and HTTPS traffic. We can use Incapsula to send all the threat intelligence to the WAF."
"It mitigates all of the availabilities of risks around web applications."
"The most important feature I have found to be the ease in how to do the backup and restores."
"Protection is the best solution since it has profile functionality."
"Very scalable and very stable firewall for web applications, with a good interface in its cloud version. Mitigation is its most valuable feature. The technical support for this product is also good."
"The solution can scale."
"We were looking for a product that is capable of complete automation and a container based solution. It's working."
"NGINX App Protect has complete control over the HTTP session."
"There's a cache, or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications."
"It's very easy to deploy."
"I tested specific features and evaluated the solution against the Web Application Firewall. I conducted research to test different detection percentages. I did not use it directly for protection but for evaluation purposes."
"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is its open source."
"The most valuable feature is that I can establish different services from the firewall."
"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is its flexibility."
 

Cons

"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 solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."
"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."
"Eventually, things go sideways and require fixes when it would have been easier to prevent the issue initially."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall can improve by adding more features to the dashboard. increasing the visibility of the real-time events, besides configuring the administration itself."
"It would be helpful to have a "recommended deployment", or even a list of basic features that should either be used or turned on by default."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is very expensive."
"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 would like the solution to improve its support response time."
"I don't really use it and therefore can't speak to areas of improvement."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the console by making it easier to use."
"If they can bring in generative AI features, that would be useful."
"The dashboard could provide a more comprehensive view of the status of the connections."
"NGINX App Protect could improve security."
"Its technical support could be better."
"Areas for improvement would be if NGINX could scan for vulnerabilities and learn and update the signatures of DoS attacks."
"Setting policies and parameters through the UI should be more automated because the process is manual, where we can only edit one rule at a time."
"It's challenging if you need to go for a high throughput."
"As far as scalability, it takes a long time for deployment."
"The price of NGINX App Protect could improve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't have any issues with the price."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"The price is reasonable."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"It is very costly, but the return on investment is very high. Its cost was around $70,000, and we got it back in just six months."
"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."
"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."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is expensive."
"There are some licenses that you have to buy to use some features. Its price could be better. Price is always important because, at the end of the day, customers have a budget. If you can meet the budget, you can sell, and if you don't, you cannot sell."
"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."
"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."
"NGINX App Protect is expensive."
"Really understand the licensing model, because we underestimated that."
"There are no additional fees."
"The product's price is high."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"The price of NGINX App Protect is approximately $3,000 annually. All of our licenses are observed by a managed service partner."
"There are not any additional costs we had to pay to use NGINX App Protect."
"NGINX is not expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise11
 

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.
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 hav...
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 ...
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 t...
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 requir...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall
 

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.
BlueCross BlueShield, eHarmony, EMF Broadcasting, GE Healthcare, Metro Bank, The Motley Fool, Siemens
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva Web Application Firewall vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.