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F5 Shape Security vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

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

F5 Shape Security
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Fraud Detection and Prevention (19th)
Imperva Application Securit...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
148
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (3rd), Bot Management (1st), API Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. F5 Shape Security is designed for Fraud Detection and Prevention and holds a mindshare of 1.7%, down 1.8% compared to last year.
Imperva Application Security Platform, on the other hand, focuses on Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection, holds 7.4% mindshare, up 7.3% since last year.
Fraud Detection and Prevention Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Shape Security1.7%
ThreatMetrix4.4%
Riskified3.0%
Other90.9%
Fraud Detection and Prevention
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform7.4%
Cloudflare11.2%
Radware Cloud DDoS Protection Service6.7%
Other74.7%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Nikolay Dimitrov - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Engineer at Paysafe / IBM
Easy to configure and blocks bot attacks for web users
The solution is deployed on the F5 cloud. The solution's real-time analytics help you see what has been blocked. It helps to see whether the attack category was an automation attack or a fake browser. F5 Shape Security has a normal dashboard. We are doing F5 Shape Security migrations for 30 customers. F5 Shape Security uses Javascript. For a lot of competitors, the Javascript can be reverse-engineered by attackers to bypass the protection. F5 Shape Security has machine learning authentication of the Java script. If you had hacked it, the encryption would have been changed. It's really hard for attackers to reverse engineer the F5 Shape Security JavaScript. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
reviewer2818155 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Application protection has improved and reporting and dashboards still need refinement
I believe Imperva Application Security Platform should have a more interactive wizard. While the dashboard is good, it could be more eye-catching. Based on my perspective, I recommend modifying the dashboards, especially the main dashboard where I can see the traffic hit count, alerts, and other latest information. In terms of reporting, I find it challenging to create reports; in my earlier days, it was difficult. Over time, I have learned how to create reports, but it should be easier to do so. I have used other tools such as firewalls or SolarWinds, where creating a report is straightforward and does not take much time, unlike in Imperva, where I have to add many elements. Modifications in the integration aspects would also be beneficial.

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 of the solution is the ease of configuration."
"F5 Shape Security's most valuable feature is performance."
"We can prevent attacks or issues even before they happen."
"Imperva Application Security Platform has helped reduce incidents, save time, and improve my organization's security posture with specific measurable outcomes and metrics."
"If you are using the appliance as opposed to the virtual deployment, it can stand as the network layer-two and provide real transparency."
"This implementation helped our organization a lot in handling web attacks by hackers and other malicious intruders."
"Incapsula can help to hide the real origin and provide access control over different pages, and it can protect the website from being attacked."
"On the real time, you can see live traffic, which is flowing into our website."
"The Web Application firewall is a valuable feature as the security features are mostly what we're interested in."
"The product is very good, it's so easy to do the deployment, the installation is very straightforward, you can't even compare it to others on the market, and the pricing is very good."
 

Cons

"The tool's price is high."
"I want the solution's custom exclusion rules to be more granular."
"However, I'd like to be able to drill down more into the analytics that Incapsula collects."
"There could be some limitations that from the converged infrastructure perspective: when you want to converge with everything and you want Imperva to get there easily because it's not a cloud component. For example, when you want to build servers and you're using OneView to manage your software-defined networks, implementing Imperva right away is not that simple. But if you're doing just a simple cloud infrastructure with servers in there, you're good to go. Also, we are not able, with Imperva, to block by signatures. Imperva by itself needs to be complemented with another service to do URL filtering."
"Management of policies and rules can be complicated and the physical setup of the product has implications on HA."
"They guarantee to fix your problem within 15 minutes, but they don’t always keep their word."
"Its price could be improved. It is quite expensive."
"One improvement I would like to see in Imperva Application Security Platform is the ability to fail over to different sites for my same application."
"I loved the approach of the cloud. The cloud has a lot of new features, like advanced web protection and DDoS protection. If those could also be on-boarded onto the on-prem versions, that would be ideal. They need to pay attention to both deployment options and not just favor one."
"The rules surrounding the making of web applications could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is moderately priced."
"Pricing could be more competitive."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"There are a couple of different licensing models."
"​Although the pricing can be a little high, it is worth the protection and security that it offers.​"
"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."
"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."
"The license is on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Healthcare Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise71
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise. For example, the initiation of an attack on the endpoint level cou...
 

Also Known As

Shape Security
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wells Fargo, Loblaw, JetBlue, Zoosk
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about ThreatMetrix, BioCatch, NICE and others in Fraud Detection and Prevention. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.