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

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

Download the complete report

Helped 884,976 peers since 2012

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

Cloudflare Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.4%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Web Application Firewall is 2.8%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	5.4%
Azure Web Application Firewall	2.8%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service	0.9%
Other	90.9%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

Read full review

Kevin Rua Jefwa

Global IT Solutions Specialist at RELIEF INTERNATIONAL INC

Offers robust analytics and seamless cloud integration with minor room for user interface improvement

The Microsoft support and the analytics are what I appreciate about Azure Web Application Firewall. It integrates effectively with things such as Sentinel and Defender for Cloud, so mostly it's the analytics and now the AI capabilities that have been introduced with Co-pilot. It helps when looking for threats. It reduces issues significantly because the filtering capabilities are high. Given that it's a cloud solution, we have very minimal downtime, especially because we have Microsoft support. On a scale of one to 10, I would give it an eight.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has improved our security posture by blocking bad actors."

"It is configurable via API."

"There is a huge signature repository"

"We like that there's load balancing, firewall capabilities, DDoS protection, et cetera, all covered by Cloudflare."

"The setup process is very simple for me."

"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."

"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."

"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"The best features of Azure Web Application Firewall are that it provides security and protection from poorly designed web applications."

"The functions of Azure Web Application Firewall that I found most valuable include its cost-effectiveness, and unlike other WAF products I have worked with such as Barracuda, we have flexibility to create rules."

"It's a good option if you want a solution that's ready to go and easy for your team to learn. It's cloud-based, so you don't need to buy or maintain any hardware infrastructure."

"We're Microsoft partners and I'd recommend the solution as it is easy to understand and easy to integrate, it is very stable and we trust it as a recognized Microsoft product."

"We have found the most valuable features to be the web application, minimal skills required for management, control through policies, and automation."

"The solution has good dashboards."

"The Microsoft support and the analytics are what I appreciate about Azure Web Application Firewall; it integrates effectively with things such as Sentinel and Defender for Cloud, so mostly it's the analytics and now the AI capabilities that have been introduced with Co-pilot."

"Configuration is much easier than using different platforms."

More Azure Web Application Firewall pros

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

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

"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service's real-time attack detection feature has improved our customers' threat response strategies significantly."

"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."

"I like its ability to identify known attacks, including DDOS attacks, because application attacks are evolving all the time and, when it comes to software-as-a-service, we need to have software that knows about all the latest attacks and also protects 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."

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

"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."

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service pros

Cons

"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."

"The reporting could be improved if it were more granular."

"Its stability could be better."

"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"The knowledge base could be improved."

"I encountered difficulties with certificates for a Linux server when implementing protection. I had to create the entire chain, as I couldn't simply upload the certificate and the chain."

"The management can be improved."

"There is a need to be able to configure the solution more."

"The support for proxy forwarding could improve."

"From a reporting perspective, they could do more there."

"Upgrading the platform regularly is necessary for security, however, frequent updates every six months or year from Azure can be a maintenance overhead."

"The pricing needs improvement, and I think for beginners it will be a little bit complicated, so the ease of use could be enhanced."

More Azure Web Application Firewall cons

"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."

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

"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."

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

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"It is not too pricey."

"The solution is expensive."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The price of the solution depends on your architecture and how you manage it. You can control the cost in Azure quite well. The costs do not directly correlate to expenses in the features we are using."

"Azure WAF has price advantages over other WAF solutions. The pricing model is flexible because you pay on a scale based on the level of protection you need."

"The price is for this solution is fair and there is a license needed."

"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."

"We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft and the pricing is good."

"The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month."

"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."

"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."

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

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Government

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Large Enterprise	2

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...

What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Web Application Firewall?

I would place Azure Web Application Firewall at an eight on a scale from one to 10, with one being cheap and 10 being...

What needs improvement with Azure Web Application Firewall?

The pricing needs improvement, and I think for beginners it will be a little bit complicated, so the ease of use coul...

What is your primary use case for Azure Web Application Firewall?

Because we mostly operate in the cloud and because we're a Microsoft environment, it was the best option in the scena...

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 an...

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, ransomwar...

What advice do you have for others considering Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

I rate Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service a five out of five overall. The reason I choose five out of five is that all the th...

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Comparisons

Compared 8% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

Alibaba Cloud WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 3% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

AWS WAF vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Azure Web Application Firewall Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 13% of the time

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

Compared 12% of the time

AWS WAF vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 10% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 8% of the time

Sucuri vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 5% of the time

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Competitors

Product Reports

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Azure Web Application Firewall

Download Azure Web Application Firewall product report

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Download Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

Barracuda WAF as a Service

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides centralized protection of your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities. Web applications are increasingly targeted by malicious attacks that exploit commonly known vulnerabilities. SQL injection and cross-site scripting are among the most common attacks.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

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

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Information Not Available

Salvation Army

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