With cyber threats on the rise, organizations are increasingly concerned about their security posture. One area of prime concern is web applications and APIs that power key business processes. To protect mission-critical applications, efficient web application firewalls (WAFs) are required to block malicious traffic. A well-configured WAF acts as the first line of defense against external threats maintaining trust, achieving compliance, and ensuring uninterrupted operations.
Periodic testing of security solutions ensures they are behaving as expected and are resilient enough to withstand complex and ever-evolving cyber threats. Often, resource-constrained security teams do not have the time to proactively test their network and application security capabilities. Check Point understands the challenge, and recently published results from its WAF Comparison Project 2025, which evaluates the efficacy of leading WAF solutions under real-world conditions.
What Sets the Best WAFs Apart?
- High Detection Rate – Refers to the WAF’s ability to secure the application by accurately identify and block harmful or malicious traffic.
- Low False Positive Rate – Critical for business continuity, this measures how effectively the WAF ensures legitimate traffic is not mistakenly blocked due to incorrect analysis.
- Balanced Accuracy – Highlights the ideal balance where the WAF effectively blocks malicious traffic while minimally impacting/blocking legitimate traffic.
Insights from the 2025 WAF Comparison Project
The WAF Comparison Project 2025 evaluated leading WAF solutions on their ability to handle real-world scenarios, measuring both malicious and legitimate web traffic. Key components of the testing included detection rate, false positive rate, and balanced accuracy. Solutions tested include Microsoft Azure WAF, Cloudflare WAF, AWS WAF, and Check loudGuard WAF.
Key findings included:
- Check Point CloudGuard WAF emerged as the top performer, achieving the Highest Detection Rate of 99.3% and the Lowest False Positive Rate of 0.81% showcasing unparalleled security and detection capabilities.
- Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) WAF solutions struggle to achieve a balance between accuracy and usability. For instance, Azure WAF achieved a high detection rate of 97.5%, but with a significant false positive rate of 54.2%, potentially causing major disruptions to legitimate traffic and business operations. Similarly, GCP has strong threat detection but with a high false positive rate of 50.2%. In contrast, AWS has a lower false positive rate of 5.8%, but at the cost of a comparatively low detection rate.
- Solutions like Imperva and Cloudflare achieved near-perfect false positive rate but lacked adequate protection against threats, with a detection rate of only 97% and 69.3% respectively.
Why the Right WAF Matters
Selecting the right WAF is not just about blocking attacks, it is about balancing security with usability. An ideal WAF enables:
- Seamless legitimate traffic flow to prevent user frustration.
- Strong protection against zero-day attacks.
- Reduced administrative overhead through machine learning and adaptive threat detection.
The results of the WAF Comparison Project 2025 emphasize the importance of rigorous testing. This real-world evaluation of leading WAF solutions revealed key differences in how they handle legitimate and malicious traffic. Testing ensures organizations select solutions that are not only effective at threat detection but also minimize false positives, maintaining smooth operations. A well-designed WAF protects critical assets without compromising business workflows, ensuring security measures enhance rather than hinder operational efficiency. With cyber threats growing more complex, security testing paired with the right WAF solution can be the difference between resilience and vulnerability
The Path Forward
Incorporating WAF testing into your security strategy is essential. Use the WAF Comparison Project 2025 Report as a resource to understand which solutions best align with your organization’s goals.