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

Barracuda Networks and Imperva are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #19 with an average rating of 10.0, while Imperva is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.4. Barracuda Networks holds a 0.8% mindshare in WAF, compared to Imperva’s 7.8% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Imperva users who would recommend it.

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Read 6 Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service reviews

689 Views
689 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Imperva Application Securit...

Read 133 Imperva Application Security Platform reviews

10,598 Views
5,935 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Imperva Application Securit...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 21, 2025

Imperva Application Security Platform and Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service compete in the web application security category. Imperva tends to lead due to its extensive features and support quality, while Barracuda is advantageous for simplicity and integration strengths.

Features: Imperva Application Security Platform offers comprehensive security analytics, automated threat detection, and robust compliance features, ensuring in-depth protection. It additionally provides valuable features like DDoS protection and dynamic profiling of applications. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service stands out with its effective threat protection, ease of integration with cloud platforms, and straightforward web application firewall for securing websites.

Room for Improvement: Imperva could benefit from more streamlined initial configuration processes and reducing complexity in feature customization. Enhancing integration with third-party tools would provide added value. Barracuda could improve by offering more advanced analytics options and deepening the threat intelligence capabilities. Expanding its customization features would better serve enterprise-level customers.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Imperva facilitates flexible deployment models suitable for complex environments, backed by strong customer support. It remains adaptable to tailored security needs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is praised for its straightforward cloud deployment, making it ideal for cloud-native applications, supported by efficient and responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Imperva generally has higher initial setup costs reflective of its robust feature offerings, potentially delivering substantial ROI through customizable solutions. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service appeals with lower setup costs, emphasizing quicker ROI through efficient deployment, suitable for organizations focusing on initial affordability and speed in operational usability.

To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Imperva Application Security Platform Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

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

February 2026

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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

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

19th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Imperva Application Securit...

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

133

Ranking in other categories

CDN (2nd), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Bot Management (1st), API Security (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 7.8%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform	7.8%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service	0.8%
Other	91.4%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

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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reviewer1247523

Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Solution ensures website availability and proactive threat mitigation

Over the seven years, the most valuable features of Imperva DDoS that I have found are related to DDoS attacks, which are a group of attacks, and not all of them can be resolved on the endpoint level before the website. Using the web firewall before the website is a common use case to protect against malicious requests to the website. I have utilized Imperva's Intelligent Traffic Filtering feature. This feature helps me understand how the attack is progressing and what is happening inside the requests to our website. It allows me to granularly grant or deny access to certain parts of our website. This helps when we know our customers and the types of requests that can be sent from them, enabling us to block some malicious requests. Imperva DDoS has User Behavior Analytics and Threat Intelligence on its board, and this helps us to be protected proactively. Imperva DDoS connects to its database of threats, storing whole information about attacks all over the world in one simple engine. Everyone can use this feature, which can connect to this engine and get information about what is going on at the world level. That is the way to be protected at the company's level. The integration capabilities of Imperva DDoS are very easy and simple. We can run it in 2 hours.

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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

"It provides an ease of policy management."

"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."

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

"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."

"We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping."

"The solution integrates seamlessly with other tools and has a good alert mechanism."

"I am impressed with the product's automatic bot mechanism. It also gives us the control to create our own custom bot rules."

"Setup was straightforward, very simple. I only entered the domain and Incapsula returned the DNS data that I needed to change for the protection to be configured."

"The stability of the product is good since I haven't had any problems with the solution."

"They're quite easy to install and quite easy to set up. Clients really like that. Especially when you're dealing with the cloud, it's really easy."

"This product is a reliable defense from malicious attacks on a network environment."

"I am impressed with the product's scalability, availability, easy management, and security. We were able to integrate the product with Azure and Sentinel."

More Imperva Application Security Platform pros

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."

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

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

"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."

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

"If they can bring in generative AI features, that would be useful."

"The signature updates could be faster. Sometimes we have to upload signatures to the Imperva portal for checking and analysis before we can use them."

"Some maintenance must be performed by our IT team."

"The UI interface needs improvement."

"The initial setup could be simplified. Every time you have to install the solution you have to get in touch with support or somebody that can to do that for you."

"Sometimes, it takes a bit of time for the technical staff of the solution to get back to our company with a resolution for our problems."

"I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise."

"There’s nothing that’s missing in terms of features."

More Imperva Application Security Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"Everybody complains about the price of this solution."

"There are a couple of different licensing models."

"The solution's price is high for small companies."

"Varies depending on the needs of the customer."

"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."

"The pricing is somewhat expensive. It is actually a huge investment when compared to other countries."

"We have an issue with Imperva Incapsula in the Iraqi market because of the high price."

"The price of Imperva Web Application Firewalls is expensive compared to others."

More Imperva Application Security Platform pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user68487

Security Expert with 51-200 employees

Nov 6, 2013

CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall

CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	83
Midsize Enterprise	25
Large Enterprise	61

Questions from the Community

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

It provides an ease of policy management.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?

Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.

See all answers

What do you like most about Imperva Incapsula?

We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?

The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 36% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 16% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall 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

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Competitors

Cloudflare vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Akamai vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 5% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 4% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 4% of the time

More Imperva Application Security Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

February 2026

Download Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service product report

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Application Security Platform

January 2026

Imperva Application Security Platform report

Download Imperva Application Security Platform product report

Also Known As

Barracuda WAF as a Service

Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security

Overview

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

Imperva Application Security Platform delivers comprehensive and continuous web threat protection. Renowned for its ease of use, it shields web applications and databases from various cyber threats while integrating seamlessly with cloud and on-premises environments.

Imperva Application Security Platform protects web environments by offering advanced security measures against threats like DDoS attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting. As a robust web application firewall, it provides extensive monitoring and bot management capabilities. The platform integrates content delivery networks for enhanced performance and scalability, while real-time traffic analysis ensures consistent protection. Despite its strengths, improvements can be made in policy management and customization options. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and more competitive pricing models. The inclusion of AI for enhanced analytics is also anticipated.

What are the key features of Imperva Application Security Platform?

Correlated Attack Validation: Enhances threat assessment by linking related security events.
Threat Radar: Offers visibility into potential and ongoing threats.
Virtual Patching: Provides protection against vulnerabilities without immediate code changes.
IncapRules: Allows creation of custom security policies.
DDoS Protection: Defends against large-scale distributed denial-of-service attacks.
CDN Integration: Improves content delivery speed and reliability.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

User-Friendly Administration: Simplifies setup and ongoing management tasks.
Seamless Integration: Ensures smooth operation with existing infrastructure.
Comprehensive Threat Protection: Shields digital assets from a wide range of threats.
Hands-On Support: Provides timely and effective customer service assistance.

Imperva Application Security Platform is implemented in industries needing strong database and application protection. Companies use it to enforce geolocation restrictions and manage bots, benefiting sectors like finance and e-commerce where data security and threat monitoring are critical. Its ability to protect and ensure data accessibility makes it integral to business operations prioritizing cyber resilience.

Imperva

Sample Customers

Salvation Army

Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.

Buyer's Guide

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

February 2026

Free Report: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Imperva Application Security Platform

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