Azure Web Application Firewall vs Monarx

Azure Web Application Firewall

Model: Pay-per-use (gateway hours + data processed)

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Monarx

Model: Custom (contact sales)

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Azure Web Application Firewall

• OWASP Core Rule Set

  Pre-configured protection against OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities with regularly updated rule sets.

• Custom Rules

  Create custom rules based on geo-location, IP address, request attributes, and rate limiting.

• Bot Protection

  Managed bot protection ruleset to detect and mitigate malicious bot traffic (Premium tier).

• Per-Site Policies

  Apply different WAF policies to different sites behind the same gateway.

• Exclusion Lists

  Fine-tune rules by excluding specific request attributes to reduce false positives.

• Geo-Filtering

  Allow or block traffic based on country/region of origin.

Monarx

• Real-time Filesystem Monitoring

  Monitors file system operations at the server level in real-time. Inspects files as they are being written, catching malware regardless of the delivery vector (HTTP, FTP, SSH, plugin updates).

• Pre-write Malware Blocking

  Blocks malware before it is written to disk, not after. This prevents the malware from ever executing, eliminating the window of compromise that exists with scan-and-clean approaches.

• Vector-agnostic Detection

  Detects malware regardless of how it arrives, whether through web exploits, compromised FTP credentials, malicious plugin updates, or supply chain attacks. Traditional WAFs only see HTTP traffic and miss other vectors.

• Shared Hosting Protection

  Protects all websites on a shared hosting server with a single deployment. No per-site configuration required. Particularly valuable for shared hosting environments where hundreds of sites share the same server.

• Malware Analytics Dashboard

  Dashboard showing malware detection events, trends, and affected accounts. Hosting providers can identify compromised accounts and take targeted action.

• Automatic Signature Updates

  Malware signatures are updated automatically as new threats are identified. The Monarx team maintains and updates the signature database without requiring manual intervention from hosting providers.

• Low Performance Overhead

  Designed to run on production hosting servers without noticeable performance impact. Filesystem-level inspection is lightweight compared to full traffic inspection by traditional WAFs.

• API Integration

  API for integrating Monarx data into hosting provider management systems, ticketing workflows, and customer dashboards. Enables automated responses to malware detection events.