NGINX App Protect vs Wallarm NG WAF comparison

Why PeerSpot?

F5 and Wallarm are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.4, while Wallarm is ranked #39. F5 holds a 2.1% mindshare in WAF, compared to Wallarm’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Wallarm users who would recommend it.

NGINX App Protect

Read 27 NGINX App Protect reviews

5,687 Views
3,867 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Wallarm NG WAF

Read 5 Wallarm NG WAF reviews

2,492 Views
1,744 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NGINX App Protect

Wallarm NG WAF

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Wallarm NG WAF and NGINX App Protect are key players in the web application security market. While Wallarm NG WAF excels in adaptive security features and automation, NGINX App Protect offers superior integration with NGINX environments, providing a strong security foundation.

Features: Wallarm NG WAF's valuable features include adaptive threat detection, machine learning for real-time adaptation, and the ability to operate in blocking mode effectively. NGINX App Protect offers comprehensive traffic management, security management features, and a command-line interface for simplicity.

Room for Improvement: Wallarm NG WAF could improve its interface and expand integration capabilities for diverse infrastructures. Enhancing support for complex environments and adding more detailed analytics would be beneficial. NGINX App Protect could streamline deployment for non-NGINX infrastructures. More intuitive configuration options and enhanced reporting features could also be areas for improvement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Wallarm NG WAF offers an easy deployment process with strong cloud-native support and responsive customer service. NGINX App Protect benefits from seamless integration with NGINX setups and a global support network, though it may be complex for users unfamiliar with NGINX.

Pricing and ROI: Wallarm NG WAF delivers a competitive pricing model demonstrating significant ROI through reduced threat mitigation expenses. NGINX App Protect, with potentially higher initial costs, offers extensive features justifying its pricing, providing a good ROI for securing extensive NGINX deployments.

To learn more, read our detailed NGINX App Protect vs. Wallarm NG WAF Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

NGINX App Protect vs. Wallarm NG WAF

October 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 921,523 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

NGINX App Protect

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

17th

Ranking in API Security

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Container Security (29th)

Wallarm NG WAF

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

39th

Ranking in API Security

16th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of NGINX App Protect is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wallarm NG WAF is 1.2%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
NGINX App Protect	2.1%
Wallarm NG WAF	1.2%
Other	96.7%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Valerio Guaglianone

Dev Ops Engineer at adesso AG

Long-term web protection has supported reliable traffic management but needs a simpler interface

NGINX App Protect is a good product. I have used both versions from F5 -also the free version- (I mean the NGINX/NGINX One/App Protect free trial period), and I think it is a good product. It's stable, affordable, and easy to manage. NGINX App Protect is a comprehensive security solution that combines advanced WAF, DoS protection, API security, and DevSecOps automation in a lightweight, scalable package ideal for modern cloud-native architectures. The adaptive machine learning capabilities are truly commendable, as the solution can establish traffic baselines and detect anomalies in real time. It automatically adjusts security policies, minimizing the need for manual intervention and reducing false positives. Additionally, it supports scalable deployment across diverse environments, including on-premises, cloud, Kubernetes, and containers, offering both flexibility and scalability I have experience with the web server, F5 load balancer, and similar products provided by Ergon, for eg. the web application firewall and the Microgateway for K8S. I'm also familiar with F5 BIG-IP products.

Read full review

it_user796242

Information Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Helps us to monitor attacks to our sites and prevents a lot of them

Set up Wallarm as a reverse proxy. Do not replace your web server. Use Wallarm first in monitoring mode, then learn from Wallarm which type of request is false positive and which type of request is not. This process takes a couple of weeks for very highly-loaded web applications (few millions of unique visitors in one month). Then you can turn Wallarm into blocking mode and everything will be fine. Do not forget to build a monitoring system, the wave, and API for it. Before we started using Wallarm, I already knew Ivan (CEO) and Stepan (COO) from a couple of years before. Ivan had his own security company and Stepan was working on a Russian security magazine called Xakep. They told us that they wanted to create a new WAF and already had a working version of it. They asked me to test it. We did tests, and it was really good. After few month after testing, we signed an agreement. Our choice was made not because we knew these guys for a long time, but because the product was really cool and we were glad to start using it as one of the first on the market!

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

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

"Overall, I rate NGINX App Protect between eight and nine."

"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is the reverse proxy."

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

"I would say that 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."

"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."

"The solution has helped us greatly during this Covid period."

More NGINX App Protect pros

"With active threat detection, we are no longer over-swamped with tons of useless events."

"Helps us to monitor situation in regards to attacks to our sites and prevents a lot of them."

"The most powerful feature is the ability to first learn what type of query to make to your web application when it is attacked and what type of query creates a false positive to your app."

"Perimeter control and active vulnerability scanner are the most valuable features."

"Vulnerability scanner and WAF are valuable features."

"They are the only solution that fits our success criteria and business objectives: WAF must have a low (<5%) false negative rate and be ready to protect from all well-known web attacks."

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."

"The solution needs to be improved in the e-commerce portal."

"This solution is not really scalable. Both the virtual appliance and the physical appliance are limited in terms of how much traffic they can handle."

"It's challenging if you need to go for a high throughput."

"Currently, the policies have to be handled manually, and you have to create from scratch, which can be a bit time-consuming, in a large environment."

"They could provide a better user interface."

"NGINX App Protect could improve security."

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

More NGINX App Protect cons

"The biggest problem for us was the stability and speed using the first version of Wallarm. Now, it is fine."

"It needs more customization in PDF reports."

"There were several stability issues during the first pilot."

"Technical support is 6 or 7 out of 10. Sometimes we have had trouble with communication and understanding."

"Wallarm uses a learning mechanism to detect attacks and to avoid false positives. If Wallarm blocks some illegitimate request, then you can go to the management console and mark this request as false positive, but sometimes this does not work properly."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"NGINX is not expensive."

"There are not any additional costs we had to pay to use NGINX App Protect."

"The price of NGINX App Protect is not much different from the products that fall under the leader category of Gartner Magic Quadrant."

"There are no additional fees."

"The licensing fees for this solution are pretty expensive for what it does, but there is no alternative."

More NGINX App Protect pricing and cost advice

"Pricing must be cheaper than the competition and the licensing must be good."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

21%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	14

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX App Protect?

I will not be able to answer about my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for NGINX App Protect, as something different handles that in my team.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NGINX App Protect?

I did not face any issues with NGINX App Protect. The only issue that we had is that someone was trying to install the POC for the customer, and he by mistake installed the Instance Manager on the ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NGINX App Protect?

I have been dealing with NGINX App Protect and the WAF policy. I usually recommend NGINX App Protect for banking and telecom, and for anyone that has their own database or servers that they host we...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

AWS WAF vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 6% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 5% of the time

Haltdos Enterprise WAF vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 5% of the time

Airlock vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 5% of the time

Mirantis Container Cloud vs NGINX App Protect

Compared 4% of the time

More NGINX App Protect Competitors

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Wallarm NG WAF

Compared 13% of the time

Salt Security vs Wallarm NG WAF

Compared 11% of the time

Venusense Web Application Firewall vs Wallarm NG WAF

Compared 9% of the time

Cloudflare vs Wallarm NG WAF

Compared 6% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Wallarm NG WAF

Compared 2% of the time

More Wallarm NG WAF Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NGINX App Protect

October 2026

Download NGINX App Protect product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

November 2026

Download Wallarm NG WAF product report

Also Known As

NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall

Wallarm NG-WAF

Overview

NGINX App Protect offers comprehensive security features like auto-learning and bot protection. Its real-time threat detection and ease of integration make it suitable for web and mobile application security across on-premises, cloud, and container environments.

NGINX App Protect stands out with its adaptive machine learning, scalable deployment options, and robust API connectivity, offering Layer 7 DDoS protection and an OWASP-certified WAF. While it supports comprehensive traffic and security management, enhancements in platform integration, automation, and technical support could improve usability. The pricing model and policy management options could also see refinement. Commonly employed in securing web and mobile applications, it addresses threats including OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities and DDoS attacks, while providing seamless integration with Kubernetes and CI/CD pipelines.

What are the key features of NGINX App Protect?

Auto-learning: Adapts to evolving threat landscapes.
Bot and Force Protection: Prevents unauthorized access efficiently.
Integration with DevOps: Streamlines security within CI/CD pipelines.
Adaptive Machine Learning: Continuously enhances threat recognition.
Scalable Deployment: Easily manages growing demand across environments.
Traffic and Security Management: Ensures secure data flow.
Command-line Interface: Offers efficient control and management.
OWASP Certification: Meets top industry security standards.
API Connectivity: Facilitates communication between components.
Layer 7 DDoS Protection: Safeguards against complex attacks.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Enhanced Security: Reliable protection against major vulnerabilities.
Effective Traffic Management: Balances load efficiently.
Ease of Implementation: Simple integration saves time and effort.
Operational Scalability: Supports growth across all environments.
Comprehensive Threat Detection: Real-time monitoring minimizes risks.
Flexible Policy Options: Tailors security measures to specific needs.

NGINX App Protect finds broader use in sectors like banking and telecommunications, where it secures high-performance digital infrastructures. Its application spans perimeter security, load balancing, and acts as a reverse proxy in environments necessitating stringent security, high throughput, and robust management. The tool's adaptability facilitates its deployment alongside containers, ensuring compatibility with contemporary development practices.

Wallarm NG WAF offers robust web application security by integrating machine learning to tackle complex cybersecurity challenges. Its advanced threat detection makes it a top choice in safeguarding data.

Wallarm NG WAF focuses on an adaptive approach to securing web applications utilizing AI-driven insights to identify, detect, and mitigate threats in real-time. Tailored for developers and security teams, it simplifies management while enhancing application resilience against attacks. As cyber threats evolve, Wallarm NG WAF ensures protection by learning from each encounter, optimizing security protocols.

What are Wallarm NG WAF's key features?

Real-time Threat Detection: Uses AI to recognize and respond to potential threats instantly.
API Security: Specializes in protecting APIs against common vulnerabilities.
Scalable Architecture: Supports growth and adapts to increased traffic without compromising security.
Integration Flexibility: Compatible with modern DevOps processes and tools for seamless implementation.

Which benefits should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security Posture: Provides comprehensive security measures against evolving threats.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces the cost of managing a dedicated security infrastructure.
Reduced False Positives: Smart algorithms decrease the chances of false alerts.
Operational Efficiency: Automation minimizes manual oversight efforts.

Wallarm NG WAF is employed in industries like finance, healthcare, and e-commerce where data protection is crucial. It is integrated to protect customer data and ensure compliance with specific industry regulations, providing a reliable web application security layer.

Wallarm

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Panasonic. Miro. Rappi. Wargaming. Gannett. Omio. Acronis. Workforce Software. Tipalti. SEMRush.

Buyer's Guide

NGINX App Protect vs. Wallarm NG WAF

October 2026

Free Report: NGINX App Protect vs. Wallarm NG WAF

Find out what your peers are saying about NGINX App Protect vs. Wallarm NG WAF and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our NGINX App Protect vs. Wallarm NG WAF report.

See our list of best Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendors and best API Security vendors.

We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.