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AWS WAF vs Atomic ModSecurity Rules comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Atomic ModSecurity Rules
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
30th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
62
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 Atomic ModSecurity Rules is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS WAF is 4.0%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS WAF4.0%
Atomic ModSecurity Rules0.8%
Other95.2%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Vahid Babaey - PeerSpot reviewer
PhD Student at University of North Carolina at Charlott
Open rules have enabled me to secure web apps against obfuscated SQL injection and XSS attacks
The best feature Atomic ModSecurity Rules offers is the open source aspect. I believe that because it's open source, all of the developers, programmers, and security experts are able to update this WAF and provide more rules, creating a more secure WAF for all of the clients and customers around the world. By accessing Atomic ModSecurity Rules, it has helped me significantly. Because of this open source feature, I am able to generate new rules and update the WAF and use this WAF in my research and also give it to other clients and customers to use the updated WAF. All of this is done just because of the open-source feature, because it can be updated.
reviewer2849304 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cloud Security at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Centralized web firewalling has reduced our attack surface and protects multi‑cloud applications
AWS WAF can be improved by not being too sensitive for some data because with some XML, it is sometimes very sensitive. When we upload videos or photos, it is flagged as a malicious pattern, and sometimes it is not sensitive enough because some query patterns that have the capability to perform malicious actions still result in false positives from AWS. It would be better for AWS WAF if it not only had logs but also specific payloads or something that directly included the specific logs so we can have more detail in our analysis. I think it should be better if they improve their capabilities in reducing the attack surface and also have better visibility for OWASP top 10 web applications and the API. Regarding AWS WAF's AI capabilities, its governance and security are very good because our attack surface is mostly reduced. The new dashboard is a bit complicated; it is easier for non-technical users, but for technical professionals, it is sometimes confusing. While the security itself is good and the governance is good, I think it needs to improve the UI or the flow itself. The accuracy and reliability of AWS WAF's output is better than others. With the free version, it has a good filter with the attack surface and the reliability is good, but sometimes we need to adjust. With the free version, we also have to pay some amount of money if the number exceeds the default provided by AWS.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature Atomic ModSecurity Rules offers is the open source aspect, because all of the developers, programmers, and security experts are able to update this WAF and provide more rules, creating a more secure WAF for all of the clients and customers around the world."
"Their technical support has been quite good."
"I think AWS WAF is a great solution."
"This is not a product that you need to install. You just use it."
"AWS WAF is pay-as-you-go, I only pay for what I'm using; there is no subscription or any payment upfront, and I can terminate use at any time, which is an advantage."
"The biggest benefit of AWS WAF for us is to filter malicious requests, so we can protect our environment and application from malicious actors."
"The automation of blocking for security attacks is valuable, with AWS applying rate limiting."
"It has improved our organization a lot because before we were having problems with access management, things have gotten better using this product, it is protecting the files, it has been the best step for us, we are no longer having problems with unauthorized access, where somebody breaches the system or compromises documents, and nothing like that has happened over the past year that we have been using this product."
"If hackers try to insert bugs, the tool blocks it."
 

Cons

"Additionally, I know that ModSecurity can block only SQL injection and XSS attacks, no more types of attacks."
"Compatibility and integration functionalities, especially with services like Kafka for event-driven messaging, could be better."
"It would be good if the solution provided managed WAF services."
"An improvement area would be that it's more of a manual effort when you have to enable rules. That's one of the downsides. If that can be done in an automated way, it would be great. That's a lagging feature currently."
"The main difference with other similar products is the security efficiency against the type of attacks because normally Amazon works with certain types of attacks and is unable to deal with most of the more sophisticated new attacks that are now the market."
"I am not satisfied with AWS technical support."
"They should make the implementation process faster."
"I would like to see it more tightly integrated with other AWS services."
"The product could be improved by expanding the weightage units of rules we have when writing policy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The product is moderately priced."
"Its price is fair. There is a very fair amount that they charge. It has a pay-as-you-go model, so it pretty much depends on how much a user uses it. As per the cloud norms, the more you use, the more you pay. I would rate it a five out of ten in terms of pricing."
"AWS WAF has reasonable pricing."
"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price"
"The price is average."
"You need an additional AWS subscription for this product if you are buying a managed tool."
"AWS is not that costly by comparison. They are maybe close to $40 per month. I think it was between $29 or $39."
"It's cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
30%
Hospitality Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise28
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Atomic ModSecurity Rules?
Atomic ModSecurity Rules can be improved by first studying and reading the structure of new obfuscated attacks, then trying to generate more specific and better rules to block these attacks, and th...
What is your primary use case for Atomic ModSecurity Rules?
My main use case for Atomic ModSecurity Rules is in my research, which tries to make websites secure against web attacks like SQL injection and XSS attacks. On one side, I try to generate some obfu...
What advice do you have for others considering Atomic ModSecurity Rules?
I would rate Atomic ModSecurity Rules nine out of ten. I chose nine out of ten because I have not studied other WAFs. I know that ModSecurity is the only open source WAF, but I believe that the oth...
What are the limitations of AWS WAF vs alternative WAFs?
Hi Varun, I have had experienced with several WAF deployments and deep technical assessments of the following: 1. Imperva WAF 2. F5 WAF 3. Polarisec Cloud WAF Typical limitations on cloud WAF is t...
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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS WAF?
AWS WAF is affordable; it depends on the number of rules you apply. The licensing cost for AWS WAF is just pay-as-you-go; it is a service-based model.
 

Also Known As

No data available
AWS Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
eVitamins, 9Splay, Senao International
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Radware, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.