NGINX App Protect vs. Cloudflare WAF vs. open-appsec, Which Solution Provides the Best Security?
Choosing the best web application firewall can be an uphill task if you want something that is easy to integrate and protects against attacks while automatically detecting threats using machine learning.
There are lots of web application firewalls that you can use to secure your website or API and gain your customers' trust while staying in compliance with security regulations.
NGINX App Protect and Cloudflare WAF are two common web application firewalls you can use. But choosing the best between them can't be done without comparing their features like pricing, deployment, and security protection.
This article compares NGINX App Protect and Cloudflare WAF features and introduces a new security solution called open-appsec.
NGINX App Protect vs. Cloudflare WAF vs. open-appsec
The table below compares some of the features of Cloudflare WAF, NGINX App Protect, and open-appsec.
Choosing the best security solution can be an uphill task if you want something that is easy to integrate and protects against common attacks while automatically detecting threats using machine learning.
There are lots of web application firewalls that you can use to secure your website or app and gain your customers' trust while staying in compliance with security regulations.
NGINX App Protect and Cloudflare WAF are two common web application firewalls that safeguard web resources. But choosing the best between them can't be done without comparing their features like pricing, deployment, security protection, etc.
This article compares NGINX App Protect and Cloudflare WAF features and introduces a new security solution called open-appsec.
NGINX App Protect vs. Cloudflare WAF vs. open-appsec
The table below compares some of the features of Cloudflare WAF, NGINX App Protect, and open-appsec.
Property | Cloudflare WAF | NGINX App Protect | open-appsec |
Security | | | |
ML-based. No signature needed | No | No | Yes |
Zero-day protection (Text4Shell, Log4Shell, Spring4Shell, etc.) | No | No | Yes |
API protection | Yes | Yes | Yes |
OWASP TOP 10 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Anti-bot | Yes | Yes | Yes (premium feature) |
Integration | | | |
NGINX, NGINX Ingress, Envoy Add-On | No | Yes | Yes |
Kubernetes Ingress | No | Yes | Yes |
Gateway VM for AWS, Azure, and VMWare | No | Yes | Enterprise version |
Management | | | |
Declarative configuration and deployment | No | Yes | Yes |
SaaS Web-based Event Management & Dashboards | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Terraform | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Code and Price | | | |
Free | No | Yes (30 days free trial) | Yes |
Open-source | No | Yes | Yes |
From the comparison table above, it is clear that NGINX App Protect, Cloudflare WAF, and open-appsec are great security tools to protect your website or app.
Regarding security, they all tick yes to all the options because they offer machine learning-based threat detection, API protection, anti-bot, and prevent OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities.
Both NGINX App Protect and open-appsec offer more integration options than Cloudflare WAF. In terms of price, NGINX App Protect offers a free 30 days trial, while Cloudflare doesn't. open-appsec is free and open-source, with a premium version available for additional protection.
NGINX App Protect Pros and Cons
These pros and cons are from reviews of people who have used NGINX App Protect.
Pros | Cons |
It protects APIs and web applications against common and advanced attacks. | NGINX App Protect policies have to be handled manually, and users have to create them from scratch, which is time-consuming. |
It protects your applications and APIs on-premise, on the Kubernetes environment, and integrates with the NGINX platform. | No zero-day pre-emptive protection as the solution is based on signatures. |
NGINX App Protect reduces false positives with automated behavior analysis. | The dashboard doesn't provide a comprehensive view of the connection status. |
It can be integrated with the CI/CD pipelines. |
NGINX App Protect, also known as F5 NGINX App Protect, is a modern application-security solution that integrates seamlessly with the DevOps environment to secure your code and customers.
This security tool utilizes the power of F5 security to safeguard APIs and apps from the most advanced threats and attacks. With this security tool, businesses can avoid regulatory non-compliance and reduce loss of revenue and reputation with scalable and high-performance security.
NGINX App Protect is flexible, seamlessly integrated with the NGINX platform, and can integrate into the DevOps process.
Some key benefits of NGINX App Protect are app-centric protection, alignment with modern application architecture, CI/CD integration, and centralized control and visibility.
Below are some of NGINX App Protect features.
Protect apps and APIs. It protects applications and APIs against common and advanced threats. Also, you can keep your app secure and high-performance with security controls compiled into bytecode and leverage controls directly from F5 WAF. NGINX App Protect can be deployed in blocking mode with trusted signature detection and few false positives.
Secure your app wherever they are deployed. NGINX App Protect supports modern application deployment topologies. Also, it reduces complexity and tool sprawl because it offers seamless integration with the NGINX platform. You can build consistent application security controls for web apps, microservices, containers, and APIs and confidently run open-source software.
Rapid security deployment. You can deploy security rapidly when you use NGINX App Protect and use declarative policies that facilitate security as a code. Also, DevOpsSec can easily automate security with NGINX App Protect open API endpoints and CI/CD tools. It leverages a non-touch configuration method to simplify DoS security for modern applications.
Centralized control. Users can deploy NGINX App Protect WAF in an app-centric and self-service manner. It offers holistic visibility into WAF deployment and leverages existing policies from F5 Advanced WAF. Also, it seamlessly integrates security controls with NGINX Ingress Controller and NGINX Plus.
Reduce false positives. NGINX App Protect reduces false positives with automated behavior analysis and high-confidence signatures.
Layer 7 DoS security. It safeguards against difficult-to-detect layer 7 DoS attacks like Slow POST, Slowloris, Challenger Collapsar, HTTPS, etc. Also, NGINX App Protect uses automated user behavior analysis to protect applications and improve policies.
Cloudflare WAF Pros and Cons
These pros and cons are from reviews of people who have used Cloudflare WAF to protect their web applications.
Pros | Cons |
Cloudware WAF prevents SQL Injection and cross-site scripting and removes malware from your application. | Cloudflare WAF accuracy can be improved by limiting the number of false-negative alerts. |
Cloudflare WAF protects websites built on various CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla without an extra fee. | No zero-day pre-emptive protection as the solution is based on signatures. |
Cloudflare protects against DDoS, OWASP Top 10, and malicious bot attacks. | Requires on-going manual tuning of signatures |
It prevents account takeover and credentials theft. | Customizing the rules can be difficult for beginners. |
Cloudflare WAF is a web application firewall that protects your site from cross-site scripting, SQL injection, zero-day attacks, OWASP vulnerabilities, and threats that target the application layer.
It is used by large enterprises, e-commerce companies, and financial institutions to identify and block threats that can harm their systems.
Cloudflare WAF offers full DDoS protection that blocks millions of attacks daily and automatically learns from each new threat. It has a robust rules engine that makes it easy to customize your rules and can handle your existing and custom rules.
With its ModSecurity rule sets, Cloudflare WAF protects your web application against OWASP security flaws while offering a cloud-based service that requires no hardware or software to install and maintain.
You get additional functionalities for free with Cloudflare WAF because of its integration with the general services. This makes it possible to safeguard your web application against DDoS attacks and enjoy global CDN to make it run faster.
You can find Cloudflare WAF features below.
SSL security. You can add your WAF policy to SSL encrypted traffic and not upload certificates or buy costly hardware. Also, it terminates SSL connections without additional latency.
Integrate DDoS mitigation. Cloudflare WAF allows complete protection against DDoS attacks with no additional implementation required.
Integrate with CDN service. It offers full integration with CDN service, making it easy to distribute your content globally with reduced latency.
OWASP vulnerability protection. Cloudflare ModSecurity rule sets safeguard your web app from threats as identified by The Open Web Application Security Project by default.
Platform-specific rule sets. With Cloudflare WAF, your CMS platforms, like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, will receive detailed protection without extra fees.
Robust WAF settings. Cloudflare WAF has robust settings that block attacks before they threaten your website. Also, users can set the WAF to Simulate mode to record the response to test for false positives. Or, initiate a challenge page to ask visitors to submit a CAPTCHA before continuing to the website.