NGINX App Protect vs StackPath WAF comparison

F5 and StackPath are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.4, while StackPath is ranked #46. Additionally, 95% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StackPath users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NGINX App Protect and StackPath WAF based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, F5, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF).

To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: November 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

November 2025

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Helped 879,259 peers since 2012

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

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

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Jean-Marc Porchet

Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Blocking IPs and detecting bots enhances security for medical websites

I was researching products like NGINX App Protect and F5 Advanced WAF for long-term options. I have some use for such a solution, but probably not before next year Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications. We were able to block groups of IP addresses that…

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Francesco MariaCompagnucci

RTD at Fidoka srl

Stable product with an easy setup process

We use StackPath WAF to protect small websites for our customers The product’s most valuable is WAF. The authentication feature helps us protect WordPress sites. The product’s performance for caching feature needs improvement. It could provide high security to handle large traffic volumes for…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."

"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 is very good at mitigating threats."

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"The tool is user-friendly."

"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."

"It's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."

"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."

More Cloudflare pros

"It is a very good tool for load balancing."

"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is its open source."

"The tool is not complex and is very user-friendly."

"WAF is useful to track mitigation, inclusion, prevention, and the parametric firewall."

"It has the best documentation features."

"It's very easy to deploy."

"There's a cache, or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications."

"The tool's most valuable feature is the OWASP certification. Additionally, the tool's ability to enforce strong passwords and OTP within minutes is impressive. With its analytics and recommendations, it is a very good solution."

More NGINX App Protect pros

"The product’s most valuable is WAF. The authentication feature helps us protect WordPress sites."

Cons

"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."

"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."

"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."

"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."

"Latencies are always a problem."

"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."

"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

More Cloudflare cons

"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 doesn't have more advanced features like no false-positive security, which you can configure in Advanced WAF."

"The product's user interface is an area with shortcomings as it can be quite confusing for users, making it an area where improvements are required."

"They could provide a better user interface."

"Areas for improvement would be if NGINX could scan for vulnerabilities and learn and update the signatures of DoS attacks."

"NGINX App Protect would be improved with integration with Shape and F5 WAF, which would make it easy for users to manage all their web application security with a single solution."

"The dashboard could provide a more comprehensive view of the status of the connections."

"The price of NGINX App Protect could improve."

More NGINX App Protect cons

"The product’s performance for caching feature needs improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

"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."

"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."

"The price is reasonable."

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"There are no additional fees."

"The pricing is reasonable because NGINX operates on an instance basis."

"NGINX is not expensive."

"The product's price is high."

"The price of NGINX App Protect is approximately $3,000 annually. All of our licenses are observed by a managed service partner."

"There is a monthly or annual subscription to use NGINX App Protect. There are not any additional costs to the subscription."

"There is a license needed to use NGINX App Protect."

"Our licensing costs are about $40,000 a year."

More NGINX App Protect pricing and cost advice

"The product is affordable."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	11

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...

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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...

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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.

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What do you like most about NGINX App Protect?

It's very easy to deploy.

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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...

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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...

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Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 52% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 13% of the time

Azure Front Door vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 10% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 7% of the time

Haltdos Enterprise WAF vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 5% of the time

More NGINX App Protect Competitors

open-appsec vs StackPath WAF

Compared 29% of the time

Human Defense Platform vs StackPath WAF

Compared 25% of the time

More StackPath WAF Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

December 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX App Protect

December 2025

Download NGINX App Protect product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

November 2025

Download StackPath WAF product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall

StackPath Web Application Firewall

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

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:

Integrating security controls directly into the development automation pipeline
Applying and managing security for modern and distributed application environments such as containers and microservices
Providing the right level of security controls without impacting release and go-to-market velocity
Complying with security and regulatory requirements

NGINX App Protect offers:

Expanded security beyond basic signatures to ensure adequate controls
F5 app‑security technology for efficacy superior to ModSecurity and other WAFs
Confidently run in “blocking” mode in production with proven F5 expertise
High‑confidence signatures for extremely low false positives
Increases visibility, integrating with third‑party analytics solutions
Integrates security and WAF natively into the CI/CD pipeline
Deploys as a lightweight software package that is agnostic of underlying infrastructure
Facilitates declarative policies for “security as code” and integration with DevOps tools
Decreases developer burden and provides feedback loop for quick security remediation
Accelerates time to market and reduces costs with DevSecOps‑automated security

StackPath WAF integrates multiple technologies, including Advanced Browser Validation and IP Reputation and Custom Rules engines, into an intelligent firewall that can be customized to meet your specific protection profile.

StackPath

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Information Not Available

Robotics Cats, Jewlr

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

November 2025

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Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, F5, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: November 2025.

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