Cloudflare vs Symantec Web Application Firewall comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cloudflare and Symantec Web Application Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Cloudflare vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall Report (Updated: May 2020).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules.""The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution.""The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution.""There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS.""The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.""Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host.""When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers.""I rate its stability a ten out of ten."

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"The setup was straightforward.""The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats.""The interface is user-friendly."

More Symantec Web Application Firewall Pros →

Cons
"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it.""One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country.""Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva.""It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues.""Latencies are always a problem.""Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud.""The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client.""I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."

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"I'm not convinced that it's necessary the best solution going forward in the future.""Sometimes scanning slows down the endpoints.""It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."

More Symantec Web Application Firewall Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
  • "I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
  • "There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
  • "The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
  • "We don't have any issues with the price."
  • "The price is reasonable."
  • "The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
  • "It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
  • More Cloudflare Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds by… more »
    Top Answer:Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance.
    Top Answer:Cloudflare's biggest plan for initial businesses is $200 per month, and if you're an enterprise, you'll likely exceed that on either AWS or Cloudflare itself. For comparison, Akamai's minimum billing… more »
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    Also Known As
    Symantec WAF, Blue Coat Protecting Web Applications
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    Overview

    Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distribution Denial of Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can use the solution and experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

    Currently, there are millions of internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

    Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the information requests are always only seconds away.

    Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to access Cloudflare highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project Athenian, also at no additional cost.

    Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end-users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD ( bring your own device) access ensure end-users and employees always have the best resources and technology available to them at all times.



    Cloudflare Benefits

    Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

    • Faster load times
    • Robust DNS security
    • Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    • Free universal SSL
    • Image Enhancement
    • Automatic Browser Caching
    • Next-generation cloud load balancer
    • Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
    • Rate Limiting
    • Minification
    • Zero-trust capabilities 
    • Cost-effective
    • Reduced carbon footprint

    Reviews from Real Users

    “Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a certificate.”  Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

    “What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network engineer at Ufinet

    The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” A PeerSpot user who is a Competence Center Manager at a tech services company. 

    The Symantec Web Application Firewall (WAF) enables you to secure and accelerate your web applications.

    Sample Customers
    Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
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    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm23%
    Comms Service Provider23%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    Marketing Services Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization37%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    No Data Available
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise23%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise45%
    Large Enterprise36%
    No Data Available
    Buyer's Guide
    Cloudflare vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall
    May 2020
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: May 2020.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cloudflare is ranked 1st in Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection with 55 reviews while Symantec Web Application Firewall is ranked 35th in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Cloudflare is rated 8.4, while Symantec Web Application Firewall is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cloudflare writes "It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Symantec Web Application Firewall writes "An excellent up-to-date data repository handling external threats successfully". Cloudflare is most compared with Akamai, Azure Front Door, Imperva DDoS, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and AWS Shield, whereas Symantec Web Application Firewall is most compared with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), Imperva DDoS and WAPPLES. See our Cloudflare vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall report.

    We monitor all Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.