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Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

Barracuda Networks and Microsoft are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #19 with an average rating of 10.0, while Microsoft is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.5. Barracuda Networks holds a 0.9% mindshare in WAF, compared to Microsoft’s 4.9% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.
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Cloudflare Web Application ...
Read 26 Cloudflare Web Application Firewall reviews
  • 4,425 Views
  • 4,425 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Read 7 Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service reviews
  • 756 Views
  • 756 Comparison Views
83% willing to recommend
Microsoft Azure Application...
Read 50 Microsoft Azure Application Gateway reviews
  • 6,543 Views
  • 5,104 Comparison Views
80% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service compete in providing web application firewall solutions. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has an upper hand in cost-effectiveness and integration, while Barracuda excels in security and features despite a higher cost.

Features: Microsoft Azure Application Gateway offers robust load balancing, SSL termination, and seamless integration with Azure services for scalability. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service provides comprehensive security features, automated threat updates, and detailed reporting tools, offering a proactive security management approach.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Azure Application Gateway could improve by enhancing advanced threat protection, more customizable reporting, and better multi-cloud support. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service needs improvement in cost-effectiveness, streamlined integration with non-native cloud services, and more intuitive user management interfaces.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is straightforward for existing Azure users due to its integration and excellent documentation, facilitating a smooth setup process. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service provides a cloud-native deployment model with quick installation and responsive customer support for diverse infrastructures.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is seen as cost-effective, especially for Azure-dependent businesses, with scalable pricing based on usage. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service, while having higher initial costs, justifies the expense with substantial ROI due to its advanced security features and long-term application protection benefits.

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To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Report (Updated: March 2026).
Buyer's Guide
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
March 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

Cloudflare Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Application...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (6th)
 

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 Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is 4.9%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway4.9%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall5.4%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service0.9%
Other88.8%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
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
Tarandeep Kaur - PeerSpot reviewer
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
SS
reviewer5599486
Cloud Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Mutual TLS has secured our web services and now needs broader protocol support
The most valuable feature we have found in Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is mutual TLS. We find mutual TLS valuable because we can verify the client securely by setting up the trust certificate of the client, and also if we do it at the client side as well. This successfully develops mutual trust, ensuring that we know the client who is calling our service is a legitimate client. That is a very nice feature.Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has helped manage our traffic efficiently because we have many web services that we can put behind the same URL, and we can have different URLs with the same Application Gateway with a limited number of listeners. We can do host-based routing as well as URL-based routing or path-based routing. It supports both, so we can have even a single URL supporting many applications, or we can have different URLs for different applications respectively. We have both use cases.
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

"It's pretty convenient and pretty easy to set up and run. And then kind of for static content, it also offers caching."
"The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10."
"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."
"Technical support has a very fast response time and they are helpful."
"This solution does a good job of preventing web application attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting attacks."
"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."
"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."
"This is a good product; it's reliable and scales well."
More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros
"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 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 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."
"It provides an ease of policy management."
More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service pros
"It has a filter available, although we are not currently using it because it is not part of our requirements. But it is a good option and when it becomes part of our requirements we will definitely use it."
"The pricing is quite good."
"I find Application Gateway’s WAF module valuable because it helps prevent layer 7 attacks."
"The solution has built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure."
"The security feature in all the layers of the application is the most valuable."
"The Azure Application Gateway allows us to hide all of our backend components from our clients."
"The production is a valuable feature."
"It has a filter available, although we are not currently using it because it is not part of our requirements, but it is a good option and when it becomes part of our requirements we will definitely use it."
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pros
 

Cons

"Its stability could be better."
"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"The learning curve was steep initially."
"The ModSecurity core rules need to be updated."
"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."
"If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."
"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."
More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall 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."
"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 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."
"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."
"We found it a bit slow when accessing it through the web browser."
More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service cons
"The working speed of the solution needs improvement."
"Needs easier integration with the existing SIAM."
"Implementing and standardizing the solution across the IT landscape in a heterogeneous environment is painful."
"We have encountered some issues with automatic redirection and cancellation, leading to 502 and 504 gateway errors. So, I experienced some trouble with containers."
"It could be more stable, and support could be better. It would also be better if they offered more features. For example, it lacks security features. Before we used another English solution, and we realized that some of the rules were not set up correctly and passed through the Application Gateway's English controllers. But the problem, in this case, is if you send ten rules, for example, six rules hit some issues. IP address blocking could be better. The rules, for example, don't work properly. If you have one issue, one rule or another rule will not work. This sounds like total madness to me."
"We got the feeling that this product wasn't stable or good enough for us."
"The monitoring on the solution could be better."
"The solution can sometimes feel a little cumbersome unless you're a professional infrastructure person."
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"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."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"It is not too pricey."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice
"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."
"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 pricing seven out of ten because some third-party solutions are even costlier than this."
"Regarding pricing for Azure Application Gateway, I would rate it at seven."
"The product is not expensive."
"The pricing is based on how much you use the solution."
"The solution is fairly priced."
"It is not expensive."
"Between v1 and v2, there is a lot of change in the pricing. It is very costly compared to AWS."
"The tool's pricing model is pay-as-you-go."
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

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 Business5
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise24
 

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.
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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...
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 an...
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, ransomwar...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft...
See all answers
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Logo
Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall
Compared 8% of the time
Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Logo
Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall
Compared 7% of the time
Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Logo
Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall
Compared 6% of the time
Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Logo
Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall
Compared 5% of the time
Alibaba Cloud WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Logo
Alibaba Cloud WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall
Compared 3% of the time
More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors
Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Logo
Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Compared 13% of the time
Azure Front Door vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Logo
Azure Front Door vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Compared 12% of the time
AWS WAF vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Logo
AWS WAF vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Compared 10% of the time
Imperva Application Security Platform vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Logo
Imperva Application Security Platform vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Compared 8% of the time
Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Logo
Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Compared 7% of the time
More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Competitors
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Logo
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Compared 7% of the time
F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Logo
F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Compared 7% of the time
Imperva Application Security Platform vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Logo
Imperva Application Security Platform vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Compared 7% of the time
HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Logo
HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Compared 6% of the time
Kemp LoadMaster vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Logo
Kemp LoadMaster vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Compared 3% of the time
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall
March 2026
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall reportDownload Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report
Buyer's Guide
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
March 2026
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service reportDownload Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service product report
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
March 2026
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway reportDownload Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Barracuda WAF as a Service
Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
 

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

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

Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.

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

Microsoft
 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Salvation Army
Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
Buyer's Guide
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
March 2026
Free Report: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
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