In the latest 2025 KuppingerCole Leadership Compass for Web Application and API Protection (WAAP), Imperva has once again secured a Leadership position; a testament to our unwavering commitment to protecting the modern digital experience.
Why This Report Matters
The WAAP market represents the evolution of traditional Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) into a comprehensive security layer that protects not only against common web traffic threats, but also sophisticated bot-driven abuse, business logic exploitation, API misuse, and Layer 7 DDoS attacks. As organizations embrace cloud-native architectures, APIs, and microservices, security solutions must extend beyond simple packet inspection to offer unified, scalable, and automated protection across diverse environments.
KuppingerCole’s recognition places Imperva among the industry’s top performers (alongside only a handful of providers) trusted to deliver the breadth and depth of protection modern organizations require.
Analyst-Recognized Strengths of Imperva
The report highlights several Imperva advantages that differentiate our WAAP offering in today’s competitive market:
- Comprehensive, Unified Security Platform – Imperva delivers a unified Application Security platform covering Cloud WAF, WAF Gateway, Elastic WAF for containerized applications, advanced bot protection, API security, client-side protection, attack analytics, and edge services like DDoS, DNS protection, and CDN — all centrally managed.
- Flexible “Deploy Anywhere” Architecture – From on-premises appliances to SaaS, and the Kubernetes-native Elastic WAF, Imperva supports protection in any environment, working seamlessly with any CDN or cloud provider.
- Advanced AI & ML-Driven Threat Detection – Combining positive and negative security models with both supervised and unsupervised machine learning, Imperva continuously refines detection rules using its Threat Research feed, ensuring rapid adaptation to emerging threats.
- Best-in-Class Bot and API Protection – High-definition fingerprinting, biometric-style behavioral analysis, and adaptive identity challenges stop sophisticated automation, protect APIs, and prevent credential-stuffing at scale.
- Data Protection Built In – An integrated classification engine identifies and safeguards sensitive data types in both inbound and outbound traffic, supporting compliance objectives for industries like finance, healthcare, and e-commerce.
Why Organizations Should Consider Imperva WAAP Now
The growing exposure of APIs, rise in bot-driven abuse, and evolving compliance requirements demand a solution that offers more than point protection. Imperva WAAP delivers:
- Complete visibility and control over both web and API traffic.
- Automated, adaptive security that scales across public cloud, private cloud, hybrid, and edge environments.
- Centralized policy management to reduce operational overhead.
- Proven protection trusted by global enterprises in high-stakes industries.
As KuppingerCole notes, WAAP adoption spans from SMBs to large enterprises across finance, healthcare, government, and retail; where security, compliance, and trust are non-negotiable.
Imperva’s leadership position in this report confirms what our customers already know: we provide the protection, performance, and flexibility organizations need to defend their most critical applications and APIs in today’s threat landscape.
What can you do today?
Download the report and see why Imperva is a WAAP Leader trusted by industry innovators.
Contact us here or speak with your account manager to understand how we can better serve you today.
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