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NGINX App Protect vs Wallarm NG WAF comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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)
16th
Ranking in API Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (22nd)
Wallarm NG WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
38th
Ranking in API Security
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of NGINX App Protect is 1.8%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wallarm NG WAF is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Tomaz Sobczak - PeerSpot reviewer
Signature-based detection, DOS protection, and bot protection
NGINX App Protect is easier to automate and configure, or manage from an API. This is good for securing applications. However, it's not suitable for more complex tasks. NGINX App Protect positively impacted performance changes. There's a cache or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications. It can also offload some functions from servers, which NGINX can handle faster.
it_user796242 - PeerSpot reviewer
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!

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a very good tool for load balancing."
"NGINX App Protect has complete control over the HTTP session."
"NGINX App Protect's best features are auto-learning, which creates a profile of applications that are deployed, bot protection, and force protection, which lets you configure your brute force policy and alert for and prevent brute force attacks."
"NGINX App Protect is stable."
"The most valuable feature is that I can establish different services from the firewall."
"The policies are flexible based on the technologies you use."
"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is the reverse proxy."
"WAF is useful to track mitigation, inclusion, prevention, and the parametric firewall."
"Helps us to monitor situation in regards to attacks to our sites and prevents a lot of them."
 

Cons

"The product's user interface is an area with shortcomings as it can be quite confusing for users, making it an area where improvements are required."
"It doesn't have more advanced features like no false-positive security, which you can configure in Advanced WAF."
"I encountered issues with NGINX App Protect while trying to upgrade custom rules."
"The configuration needs to be more flexible because it is difficult to do things that are outside of the ordinary."
"NGINX App Protect could improve security."
"They could provide a better user interface."
"The setup of NGINX App Protect is complex. The full process took one week to complete. Additionally, we had to change the network infrastructure platform which took one month."
"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 biggest problem for us was the stability and speed using the first version of Wallarm. Now, it is fine."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"NGINX App Protect is expensive."
"The product's price is high."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"There is a monthly or annual subscription to use NGINX App Protect. There are not any additional costs to the subscription."
"There is a license needed to use NGINX App Protect."
"The pricing is reasonable because NGINX operates on an instance basis."
"There are no additional fees."
"The licensing fees for this solution are pretty expensive for what it does, but there is no alternative."
"​Pricing must be cheaper than the competition and the licensing must be good.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Insurance Company
14%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX App Protect?
I don't know the pricing yet because in my other project, I was not part of the buying side and I was just starting to look at options.
What needs improvement with NGINX App Protect?
It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service, to avoid disruptions after impl...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall
Wallarm NG-WAF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Panasonic. Miro. Rappi. Wargaming. Gannett. Omio. Acronis. Workforce Software. Tipalti. SEMRush.
Find out what your peers are saying about NGINX App Protect vs. Wallarm NG WAF and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.