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 #35, while Imperva is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.4. Barracuda Networks holds a 0.8% mindshare in WAF, compared to Imperva’s 7.6% 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

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615 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Imperva Application Securit...

Read 133 Imperva Application Security Platform reviews

9,706 Views
5,532 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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

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

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

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

Imperva Application Securit...

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

133

Ranking in other categories

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

Mindshare comparison

As of January 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 7.6%, up from 7.1% 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	7.6%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service	0.8%
Other	91.6%

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

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

"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 has positively impacted our organization by reducing cyber threats like ransomware and phishing by ninety-five percent."

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

"It provides an ease of policy management."

"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 WAF itself has been very valuable to me because it has such a complete range of features. Another reason why I like it is because it also takes care of the total overview of the traffic over the network."

"There is no need to have an appliance in house for the services because it is on the cloud."

"There are a number of features that are valuable such as the account takeover and various antivirus features."

"There are some features that are configured by default, so even without doing much, it can still provide a level of protection."

"The solution is very good at intercepting traffic before it gets to our data centers."

"The most important feature I have found to be the ease in how to do the backup and restores."

"It blocks all types of attacks."

"We have peace of mind that nobody will use malware on us or try to hack our website."

More Imperva Application Security Platform pros

Cons

"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. 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."

"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."

"The product could use a broader scope in the area of policies."

"The rules surrounding the making of web applications could be improved."

"The salespeople tend to exaggerate its capabilities, which can cost you money if you don't verify the information."

"It is complicated to integrate the solution's on-cloud version with other platforms."

"It's quite expensive."

"We had an issue when securing the web applications for DDoS protection."

"The tool needs to include artificial intelligence and machine learning. It also needs to improve profiling."

"They can provide an option to create reports, automatically import the entire report, and create rules again. In a real-life crisis, it would be helpful to be able to import a report and generate security rules from that report. I should be able to create a simple query and import the reports automatically. It can maybe also tell us the format of the report."

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."

"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."

"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."

"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is expensive."

"The tool is expensive."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."

"The license is on a yearly basis."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."

"Imperva charges us based on bandwidth, which is better than other vendors that charge us according to data transfer."

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

No data available

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

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Compared 46% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 15% of the time

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

Compared 14% 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

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Compared 12% of the time

Akamai vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 6% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 4% of the time

More Imperva Application Security Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

January 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

December 2025

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