Azure Front Door vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service comparison

Microsoft and Barracuda Networks are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Microsoft is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.8, while Barracuda Networks is ranked #35. Microsoft holds a 3.9% mindshare in WAF, compared to Barracuda Networks’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Barracuda Networks users who would recommend it.

Azure Front Door

Read 16 Azure Front Door reviews

6,868 Views
2,335 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Read 6 Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service reviews

615 Views
615 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Azure Front Door

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and Azure Front Door compete in cloud-based security and application delivery. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service seems advantageous in pricing and ease of deployment, while Azure Front Door stands out with feature-rich integration and scalability.

Features: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service offers comprehensive threat protection, including DDoS and bot mitigation, and a reliable application firewall. Azure Front Door provides global load balancing, SSL offloading, and excellent scalability options through integration with other Azure services.

Room for Improvement: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service could enhance its integration capabilities and expand feature sets for advanced users. Azure Front Door might improve its ease of deployment and reduce the learning curve. Both services could benefit from more straightforward configuration processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is known for easy deployment and robust customer support, suited for fast setups. Azure Front Door provides extensive documentation and support, though it might require more time to get familiar due to its comprehensive features.

Pricing and ROI: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service offers competitive pricing, appealing to budget-conscious customers with good ROI. Azure Front Door might be more costly, justifying its price through integrated services and long-term performance and value.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Front Door vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

December 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Azure Front Door

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

13th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CDN (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (17th)

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

35th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Azure Front Door is 3.9%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Azure Front Door	3.9%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service	0.8%
Other	95.3%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2226693

Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

Optimizing global application performance with robust security measures and advanced traffic management

DDoS capabilities in Azure Front Door could certainly be improved. Although Microsoft states it comes with basic DDoS protections out of the box, I find it often ineffectual in mitigating thousands of requests from a single source in a short span of time. User then have to rely on the WAF module where users must configure rate-limiting rules, as it does not automatically sense malicious spikes in traffic. I believe Front Door should have an out-of-the-box premium DDoS protection that can automatically detect and block malicious traffic. I would appreciate improvements in the turnaround time for support, especially since issues with Azure Front Door are usually critical for businesses. If there is an issue, it often results in downtime for line of business applications. I have faced this situation multiple times as one of the largest financial institutions in India is hosted there, adhering to strict SLAs that require prompt responses.

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Tarandeep Kaur

DevOps Manager at Flash.co

Security management has reduced ransomware risk and now protects cloud workloads efficiently

The best features that Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service offers are an intuitive centralized dashboard, allowing us to manage policies, Internet protocol servers, antiviruses, anti-DDoS attacks, and traffic shaping across multiple sites. This feature enables seamless scaling of our environments, especially as we work within Amazon Web Services. Additionally, real-time threat intelligence helps us to detect threats in real-time. Another major feature I love is application control and VPN support, providing granular visibility and protection without needing separate appliances. The centralized dashboard is helping us streamline visibility across our admin panels and provides site-to-site visibility deployed directly to our AWS environment, securing VPC traffic and ensuring the firewall is in place. The real-time threat intelligence is an advanced feature helping us track real-time attacks, such as anti-DDoS attacks, ransomware, or viruses that can compromise system integrity. Through the intuitive centralized dashboard, we can manage policies and set rules, assisting us effectively.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Azure Front Door provides DDoS protection and features related to WAF."

"The solution is good."

"Has a great application firewall and we like the security."

"The most valuable feature is that you can implement resources globally. It does not depend on location and ability or something like that. This is to connect clients around the world."

"The tool is easy to use for beginners."

"Azure Front Door provides DDoS protection and features related to WAF."

"The price is one of the most important aspects of the product. It's quite affordable."

"It inspects the traffic at the network level before it comes into Azure. We can do SSL offloading, and it can detect abnormalities before the traffic comes into the application. It can be used globally and is easy to set up. It is also quite stable and scalable."

More Azure Front Door pros

"The solution can be used for threat prevention or as a cloud-to-cloud backup system"

"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has positively impacted our organization by reducing cyber threats like ransomware and phishing by ninety-five percent."

"It provides an ease of policy management."

"I like its ability to identify known attacks, including DDOS attacks. It's valuable because software must be able to stop known attacks. Application attacks are evolving all the time. When it comes to software-as-a-service, we need to have software that knows about all the latest attacks. It should also protect against major unknown attacks."

"The most valuable features of the solution are it is plug and play, has automated policies, a simple configuration, and is easy to create rules."

"The product's bot protection feature is valuable for our company."

Cons

"My suggestion for improvement would be to enhance the Data Export feature to include specific tables, particularly the Azure Diagnostics table."

"Although Microsoft states it comes with basic DDoS protections out of the box, I find it often ineffectual in mitigating thousands of requests from a single source in a short time."

"I dislike the URL set parameters."

"The user interface needs improvement as it is difficult to create the mapping to link the problem with your private address sources."

"It lacks sufficient functionality."

"The tool should improve its cost."

"The product's features are limited compared to Cloudflare. The tool also doesn't work well in a hybrid environment. I would like to see a way to add personalized APIs in the system."

"There is room for improvement and they're working on it."

More Azure Front Door cons

"It's a very specific solution that is only requested for a customer's web code or their global IT policy."

"One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strategy."

"We found it a bit slow when accessing it through the web browser. The URL also exposed the user name and the hashed password. When I log into my Barracuda WAF user portal, I could see the username and the hashed password on the URL itself. So, it is not very secure, and it is important to take that off."

"The solution can improve by bundling Security Operation Center (SOC) with the WAF-as-a-Service, it would provide a lot more value to customers."

"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The transition to the premium tier has led to increased costs, making it more expensive than the classic tier."

"The pricing of the solution is good."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"The product is expensive."

"It is on a pay-as-you-go basis."

"Considering the standard licensing of the tool, even though we have not checked the billing as of now, it might not be very costly."

"It's very difficult for me to give an estimate of the cost. All I know is that we sell the box itself as a service."

"The product is expensive but it offers flexible pricing. It could be affordable."

"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high. There are no additional costs to be paid apart from the standard licensing fees attached to the solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	9

No data available

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?

We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Front Door?

I am not sure about the pricing but believe Azure Front Door might require a higher cost due to its entry point nature.

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What needs improvement with Azure Front Door?

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What do you like most about Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

It provides an ease of policy management.

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What needs improvement with Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

I see that cost can be a limitation for small businesses. Additionally, if they can provide more advanced features and customization for specific use cases, that would be beneficial. Apart from tha...

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What is your primary use case for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

We primarily use Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service for raising security incidents by proactively blocking malware, ransomware, and phishing attacks to reduce breach risk and response time. Apart from that...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon CloudFront vs Azure Front Door

Compared 14% of the time

Cloudflare vs Azure Front Door

Compared 13% of the time

Akamai vs Azure Front Door

Compared 10% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Azure Front Door

Compared 8% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Azure Front Door

Compared 5% of the time

More Azure Front Door Competitors

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 46% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 15% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 14% of the time

AWS WAF vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 11% of the time

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door

January 2026

Download Azure Front Door product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

January 2026

Download Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service product report

Also Known As

Azure Front-Door

Barracuda WAF as a Service

Overview

Azure Front Door enhances web application performance and security by leveraging traffic inspection, SSL offloading, and a web application firewall. It enables intelligent routing, load balancing, and global resource deployment while providing essential features for online application security.

Azure Front Door integrates GitOps for seamless deployment, offering significant capabilities in giant networks like CDN functionalities and DDoS protection. Its advanced configurations include traffic analytics and transit layer security. Despite its affordability and scalability, users see room for improvement in global load balancing and private IP address support, citing integration challenges with other cloud vendors. The interface may appear complex, and some users desire more transparent pricing, better DDoS defenses, and enhanced monitoring. This platform is especially beneficial for securing external traffic and optimizing content delivery, providing DNS integration and disaster recovery mechanisms.

What are the key features of Azure Front Door?

Traffic Inspection: Enhances security with comprehensive traffic analysis at the network level.
SSL Offloading: Streamlines SSL certificate management and encryption processes.
Web Application Firewall: Offers protection against web vulnerabilities and threats.
Global Resource Implementation: Facilitates deployment across multiple regions.
Intelligent Routing and Load Balancing: Optimizes traffic distribution for efficient performance.
Bot and DDoS Protection: Shields applications from malicious traffic and attacks.
CDN Capabilities: Accelerates content delivery with local caching and optimized routing.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Affordability: Provides robust features at competitive pricing.
Scalability: Adapts easily to growing traffic demands and business needs.
Security: Delivers comprehensive defenses against cyber threats.
Performance Optimization: Enhances application responsiveness and delivery speed.
Global Reach: Supports globally distributed applications with ease.

In industries focusing on online presence and global user engagement, Azure Front Door is invaluable for optimizing web application performance. E-commerce platforms deploy it to secure transactions and enhance load times. Media companies leverage its CDN and security features to ensure seamless content delivery. Enterprises with international operations find it crucial for reliable and secure data access across regions.

Microsoft

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is a comprehensive solution designed to provide application security, DDoS protection, SSL authentication, protocol support, and application delivery. It is a plug-and-play solution with automated policies, simple configuration, and easy rule creation.

The solution can be used for threat prevention or as a cloud-to-cloud backup system based on email protection with cloud security. It is also a web application firewall and covers major protection and threat management functions. With Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service, customers can ensure the security of their web code and comply with global IT policies.

Barracuda Networks

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Salvation Army

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

December 2025

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