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NGINX App Protect vs StackPath WAF 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

Cloudflare Web Application ...
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Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NGINX App Protect
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (28th), API Security (8th)
StackPath WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
51st
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 May 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.7%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX App Protect is 2.2%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StackPath WAF is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall4.7%
NGINX App Protect2.2%
StackPath WAF0.5%
Other92.6%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

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.
Valerio Guaglianone - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
FC
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."
"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."
"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."
"Very glad the WAF rulesets works out of box, and requires very little tuning or maintenance."
"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 integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."
"It is a SaaS solution unlike much of the competition."
"This solution does a good job of preventing web application attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting attacks."
"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is the reverse proxy."
"It is a stable solution."
"We have seen a return on investment using NGINX App Protect."
"We were looking for a product that is capable of complete automation and a container based solution, and it's working."
"The tool is not complex and is very user-friendly."
"The policies are flexible based on the technologies you use."
"The stability of the product is very impressive since it handles 60,000 to 70,000 requests or transactions per second."
"It is a very good tool for load balancing."
"The product’s most valuable is WAF. The authentication feature helps us protect WordPress sites."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."
"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."
"The learning curve was steep initially."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."
"If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."
"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"The reporting could be more granular."
"The dashboard could provide a more comprehensive view of the status of the connections."
"The product's price is high, making it an area of concern where improvements are required. The tool's licensing model is also not good."
"The solution needs to be improved in the e-commerce portal."
"The configuration needs to be more flexible because it is difficult to do things that are outside of the ordinary."
"Right now, the tool doesn't provide an option revolving around update feeds, specifically the signature update option in the UI."
"The contributions I think sometimes take a toll on you like you're going to spend a lot of time on the right contributions."
"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."
"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 product’s performance for caching feature needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"The solution is expensive."
"It is not too pricey."
"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."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."
"Our licensing costs are about $40,000 a year."
"Really understand the licensing model, because we underestimated that."
"The price of NGINX App Protect is not much different from the products that fall under the leader category of Gartner Magic Quadrant."
"NGINX App Protect is expensive."
"NGINX is not expensive."
"The licensing fees for this solution are pretty expensive for what it does, but there is no alternative."
"There are no additional fees."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"The product is affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare 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 Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise12
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...
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 so...
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 th...
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 ...
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Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall
StackPath Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Information Not Available
Robotics Cats, Jewlr
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Fortinet, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.