


Imperva and NGINX App Protect compete in the application security market. Imperva appears to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive feature set, while NGINX is favored for its flexibility and cost-effectiveness.
Features: Imperva's platform provides DDoS protection, strong application profiling, and compliance and auditing capabilities. Its inline security can segregate LAN traffic effectively. NGINX App Protect offers robust API security, bot protection, and traffic management. It grants flexibility in HTTP session controls, although its features might not match Imperva's breadth.
Room for Improvement: Imperva needs to refine its UI, improve analytics, and enhance in-depth traffic visibility. Users also note high costs and complex configurations. NGINX could improve ease of use, integrate security features better, and simplify its licensing model. Users also highlight a need for an improved UI and automated scaling.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Imperva supports deployment in public clouds, private clouds, and hybrid setups, often easier to deploy on clouds than on-premises. Its customer service varies, with mixed responsiveness, particularly at first support levels. NGINX is known for adaptability in on-premises and hybrid environments, although setup can be complex. Its technical support is generally positive, but could benefit from more consistency.
Pricing and ROI: Imperva's pricing is considered high, prompting protection of only critical assets, but ROI is substantial for frequently targeted organizations. NGINX is slightly more affordable but can incur significant costs in complex environments. It provides reasonable value, although aligning its cost with features can be challenging, potentially limiting its ROI when compared to Imperva.
My experience with the pricing or licensing of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is that many features can be accessed for free, so the pricing is definitely reasonable.
They know how much money they are losing while the system is down, so by increasing the possibility of not having a down website or web application, return on investment can be calculated easily.
I was able to save over seven million dollars last year as return on investment in the company.
I have seen a return on investment with Imperva Application Security Platform, as it is generally associated with time savings, because the review of alerts and the visibility it gives saves us significant operational time.
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.
The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.
I would rate the technical support of Imperva DDoS as ten.
They need to work faster on the response time because of issues of urgent replies.
Responsive support addressing urgent needs.
They were quick and efficient when we had issues.
I would rate the customer support a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10.
The scalability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between 8 to 9, as it depends upon the use cases and what exactly the client needs.
99% of customers are using the cloud version of Imperva DDoS protection, so they just purchase the new license and scale as needed.
I have not even needed support after deployment, since it has remained stable.
It is easy to always scale to add more users.
The scalability of NGINX App Protect is good and open source at its best.
The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.
It is also a stable product without much glitch or downtime.
One notable drawback is that, unlike Fortinet, which offers fast track labs and continuous enablement, Imperva Application Security Platform lacks lab access and fast track labs for enablement and product advertising.
The stability of Imperva DDoS is very good, as it seems they have a lot of servers around the world.
It is a quality solution, and I would rate its stability as eight out of ten.
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.
I think they're doing a good job with DNS and as support for any domains that I create or that my clients create, it's mandatory for me to ensure they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider.
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.
To convince my clients, a purely on-prem solution would be ideal since they are financial institutions.
Maybe Imperva DDoS could use endpoints to get information about the attacks before they commence from the endpoint level or establish cooperation with endpoint vendors to share this information.
Regarding return on investment, ROI, I can say it is noticeable with Imperva Application Security Platform.
There was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service.
For now, I think NGINX App Protect is good, but maybe I would like to see the logging feature added.
The GUI and web GUI configuration could be improved to be easier to manage and use.
I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap and ten is very expensive.
We have noticed faster response times and fewer security alerts because after doing some custom policy tuning, everything seemed to be aligned and we have fewer attacks to monitor and fewer alerts to monitor.
The pricing is not transparent to me; it's what the vendors give, or whatever the channel partner offers that you can negotiate on.
The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.
The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools add a layer that we're able to visualize and see before it actually hits the local firewall.
The API security feature is particularly valuable because most attackers do not try to come in from where it is expected.
If someone attempts to access the server, the WAF blocks that SSRF alert, or RCE, Remote Code Execution alert, blocking immediately based on the signature, not only by the payload or the IP address.
It reduces the DDoS attacks and reduces the attacks from threat actors, including SQL Injection and zero-day attacks, by using dynamic application profiling from Imperva.
The most valuable feature is the ability to operate in a DevOps environment and to be configured through API and pipeline by the developers themselves.
Some threats like injection and running scripts, SQL injections, these all get stopped and rejected by the server.
Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Imperva Application Security Platform | 7.6% |
| Cloudflare Web Application Firewall | 4.7% |
| NGINX App Protect | 2.1% |
| Other | 85.6% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 16 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 6 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 87 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 25 |
| Large Enterprise | 66 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 9 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 12 |
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.
Imperva Application Security Platform delivers comprehensive and continuous web threat protection. Renowned for its ease of use, it shields web applications and databases from various cyber threats while integrating seamlessly with cloud and on-premises environments.
Imperva Application Security Platform protects web environments by offering advanced security measures against threats like DDoS attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting. As a robust web application firewall, it provides extensive monitoring and bot management capabilities. The platform integrates content delivery networks for enhanced performance and scalability, while real-time traffic analysis ensures consistent protection. Despite its strengths, improvements can be made in policy management and customization options. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and more competitive pricing models. The inclusion of AI for enhanced analytics is also anticipated.
What are the key features of Imperva Application Security Platform?Imperva Application Security Platform is implemented in industries needing strong database and application protection. Companies use it to enforce geolocation restrictions and manage bots, benefiting sectors like finance and e-commerce where data security and threat monitoring are critical. Its ability to protect and ensure data accessibility makes it integral to business operations prioritizing cyber resilience.
NGINX App Protect application security solution combines the efficacy of advanced F5 web application firewall (WAF) technology with the agility and performance of NGINX Plus. The solution runs natively on NGINX Plus and addresses some of the most difficult challenges facing modern DevOps environments:
NGINX App Protect offers:
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