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

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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 ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure Web Application Firewall
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (20th)
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
24th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.7%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Web Application Firewall is 2.4%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall4.7%
Azure Web Application Firewall2.4%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service1.0%
Other91.9%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
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.
RJ
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.
Tarandeep Kaur - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It protects web applications efficiently."
"For us, the key feature of Cloudflare is DDoS protection and IP hiding, especially since we are a crypto company."
"The product has improved our security posture by blocking bad actors."
"The initial setup process is simple."
"The most valuable part of the solution for us overall is exactly that it is a Software-as-a-Service product."
"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."
"Very glad the WAF rulesets works out of box, and requires very little tuning or maintenance."
"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."
"It is almost impossible to access these assets from outside, requiring a very skilled attacker to obtain asset tokens of a customer using Azure."
"Azure WAF is extremely stable."
"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."
"The initial setup is easy and straightforward...Azure Web Application Firewall is a scalable product."
"The solution is scalable, and we have many clients using this solution."
"I can only strongly recommend using the Azure Web Application Firewall."
"The best features of Azure Web Application Firewall are that it provides security and protection from poorly designed web applications."
"We have found the most valuable features to be the web application, minimal skills required for management, control through policies, and automation."
"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."
"The solution covers a lot of major protection or threat management functions in the feature itself."
"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."
"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service's real-time attack detection feature has improved our customers' threat response strategies significantly."
"It provides an ease of policy management."
"The product's bot protection feature is valuable for our company."
"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."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."
"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"
"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well."
"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."
"We don't even use Cloudflare Bot Management because it's too expensive; you need to pay per request, and it's much cheaper to get one or two additional machines."
"A key challenge arises when dealing with numerous integrations with HVAC systems. Depending on the specifics, there might be some configuration mismatches, which necessitate specific support."
"Its stability could be better."
"The management can be improved."
"The management can be improved."
"From a reporting perspective, they could do more there."
"Azure WAF should not be deployed in the middle of the traffic."
"We would like to see additional site services using AI to provide information about blocking requests and offer analytics on the origin of calls."
"From a reporting perspective, they could do more there."
"The knowledge base could be improved."
"I would say that Azure's customer service is not that good...I am not very happy with the support offered."
"The price of their licensing model is a bit steep, and the pricing and SIEM integration sometimes create challenges, and we need to get professional help with those areas."
"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."
"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."
"It's a very specific solution that is only requested for a customer's web code or their global IT policy."
"We found it a bit slow when accessing it through the web browser."
"One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strategy."
"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"The solution is expensive."
"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"It is not too pricey."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"The price is for this solution is fair and there is a license needed."
"The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month."
"We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft and the pricing is good."
"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."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
11%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

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 assess the impact of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service on compliance efforts regarding security events as good in terms of...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?
I deal with Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and usually recommend it for private and government companies.
What advice do you have for others considering Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?
The price of their licensing model is a bit steep, but for other features such as web application threat detection an...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
No data available
Barracuda WAF as a Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Information Not Available
Salvation Army
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.