Imperva vs AWS WAF
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Imperva and AWS WAF.
Quick Verdict
3.2/5
Imperva
0 reviews
4.0/5
AWS WAF
0 reviews
AWS WAF is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.2). Imperva provides enterprise WAF, DDoS protection, bot management, and API security, now part of Thales. 13 Tbps DDoS scrubbing capacity across 61 data centers. Quote-based pricing. AWS WAF is Amazon's web application firewall that can be attached to CloudFront, ALB, or API Gateway. Pay per rule ($1/rule/month) and per million requests ($0.60). Integrates with AWS Shield.
Imperva Enterprise WAF and DDoS protection |  AWS WAF Amazon WAF integrated with CloudFront and ALB | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.2 (0 reviews) | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | usage-based |
| Starting price | Free tier available | From $5/mo |
| Best for | Enterprises in financial services, large e-commerce, and regulated industries needing proven WAF, bot management, and volumetric DDoS protection with contractual SLAs | AWS-invested applications that need a managed, OWASP-focused WAF tightly integrated with CloudFront or ALB, with rules deployed as code |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ||
| Tags | ||
| Tags | ddos protectionteam featuressso | api accessus datacentereu datacenterapac datacenter |
| Visit Imperva → | Visit AWS WAF → | |
Imperva
Pros
- + 13 Tbps scrubbing capacity across 61 DDoS-resilient data centers with full security stack at every PoP
- + Contractual 3-second mitigation SLA for Layer 3 and 4 DDoS attacks
- + Deep portfolio: WAF, bot management, API security, client-side protection, and data-security analytics
- + Thales ownership and a 20+ year track record suit regulated industries and long procurement cycles
- + 260+ built-in integrations with SIEM, Splunk, CMDB, and SOAR tooling
Cons
- - Quote-only pricing with no free tier or public price list
- - Configuration complexity requires real security-engineering effort to tune
- - Console sprawl and legacy/current branding overlap after years of product accretion
- - Module-by-module packaging makes full-platform cost hard to predict
- - Overkill for small deployments that a CDN-tier WAF would cover
AWS WAF
Pros
- + Edge-level blocking on CloudFront stops bad traffic before it reaches the origin
- + Transparent metered pricing with AWS's own worked cost examples published
- + AWS managed rule groups (OWASP CRS, SQLi, IP reputation) cost $1 each per month
- + Written SLA: 99.95% monthly uptime per region with defined service credits
- + Full API/CloudFormation coverage and deep CloudWatch and logging integration
Cons
- - Useless outside AWS — only protects CloudFront, ALB, API Gateway and AppSync resources
- - Web ACL Capacity Unit overages and Bot Control per-request fees can multiply the bill
- - Rule authoring is verbose JSON; serious use needs AWS and infrastructure-as-code skills
- - No free tier and no bundled DDoS cost protection without the separate Shield Advanced subscription
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