No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Imperva Application Security Platform vs R&S Web Application Firewall (DenyAll) comparison

Sponsored
 

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

Cloudflare Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
147
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Bot Management (1st), API Security (1st)
R&S Web Application Firewal...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
46th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.5%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 7.4%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of R&S Web Application Firewall (DenyAll) is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform7.4%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall4.5%
R&S Web Application Firewall (DenyAll)0.5%
Other87.6%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Q&A Highlights

PM
Sales Director with 51-200 employees
Aug 31, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

DB
CTO at PlayNirvana
Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. 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. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.
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.
SS
General Manager at 3R Technologie
Geo-localization and IP reputation help to keep our clients secure and more available
The area that should be improved is licensing. When using an active/passive cluster, we have to pay 70% of the master appliance and license for the passive server that does not work. Since we know that only one server works at a time, we should pay only one license for the appliances and for the support as well. In my opinion, this has to be improved. If possible, the client software should be a web application instead of downloading software for the management. This can avoid login problems when they update or patch.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There is a huge signature repository"
"In general, it's a very good product: the solution is very stable, the performance is great, the product offers very good scalability, the pricing is very reasonable, the installation is very straightforward and quite simple, and technical support has a very fast response time and is helpful."
"The setup process is very simple for me."
"The product has a valuable security control functionality."
"Cloudflare has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple clients; I can easily go in and access their accounts, make changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."
"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."
"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."
"The most valuable part of the solution for us overall is exactly that it is a Software-as-a-Service product."
"IncapRules is one of the most valuable features, as you can create your own security and access control rules on top of your security policy. Using IncapRules we were able to easily block Layer 7 DDoS attacks several times."
"Imperva WAF's strongest features are the detection of web application threats and vulnerabilities in the source code."
"There is a quick switch between any of the the nodes if something goes wrong, where there's a there's an attack against a specific area. The security setup is reasonably easy. It's not a problem to do setups and rules and integrations. And, yeah, just the the back end team is also very willing to insist if there's questions that that we cannot answer or with these questions that we do have"
"It has fewer false positives"
"Imperva Application Security Platform has positively impacted my organization by providing strong protection for web applications, as many big companies in the UK use Imperva WAF as an essential protection layer, illustrating its effectiveness."
"Imperva is a Gartner leader, so its scalability, performance, and features are excellent."
"Incapsula takes care of the CDN infrastructure and bandwidth volume, providing several enterprise "load balancing" features."
"Imperva Incapsula has many valuable features. One, it protects the top 10 OWAS vulnerability, the open web application software platform, this is standard. Secondly, it protects against broken authentication. As well, it has remote execution of code."
"The three most valuable features that I noticed are the geo-localization of the user, the IP reputation, and the compartmental analysis."
"By publishing the application without fear, my customer has created new revenue by making the website available anytime and anywhere."
 

Cons

"Support can be challenging at times."
"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."
"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."
"A key challenge arises when dealing with numerous integrations with HVAC systems. Depending on the specifics, there might be some configuration mismatches, which necessitate specific support."
"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"
"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."
"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well. They have documentation for everything you're looking for, but they lack a single piece of documentation to tie everything together. As a new user or beginner, it took us a little bit of time to figure out how to put all these things in place."
"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."
"We've had some issues with them in terms of response times, but overall they are okay."
"I would suggest that Imperva Application Security Platform should include new features combined with AI."
"I think that better bot protection is needed in this solution."
"As such, I have not seen a return on investment."
"Sometimes, support tickets don't get addressed quickly."
"The cost could be lower; our end clients need to have a high budget to purchase this solution."
"This is a very limited tool if you're looking to customize."
"Reporting and the main Sites dashboard could use refinement."
"The area that should be improved is licensing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is not too pricey."
"Imperva charges us based on bandwidth, which is better than other vendors that charge us according to data transfer."
"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."
"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."
"There are some licenses that you have to buy to use some features. Its price could be better. Price is always important because, at the end of the day, customers have a budget. If you can meet the budget, you can sell, and if you don't, you cannot sell."
"We have an issue with Imperva Incapsula in the Iraqi market because of the high price."
"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."
"The price of Imperva Web Application Firewalls is expensive compared to others."
"The cost is somewhere around $10,000 a site. For every site, you pay individually. For every DNS entry, you have you pay."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

PM
Sales Director with 51-200 employees
Aug 31, 2021
Aug 31, 2021
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
2 out of 5 answers
RF
Resp. Area de Segurança at REN
May 19, 2020
We have had a very good experience with FortiWeb.
JD
Principal Analyst at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
May 20, 2020
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise70
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...
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 mana...
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 provi...
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 o...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
Rohde & Schwarz Web Application Firewall, R&S WAF, DenyAll Web Application Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Fortinet, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: May 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.