No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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

Sponsored
 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare WAF offers quick ROI, crucial protection for e-commerce, saves bandwidth, and balances cost with valuable free features.
Sentiment score
5.3
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service enhances security, reduces cyber threats by 95%, boosts productivity, and cuts costs significantly for businesses.
Sentiment score
6.1
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway enhances ROI by reducing infrastructure costs, simplifying setup, and using cost management tools for accurate assessments.
My experience with the pricing or licensing of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is that many features can be accessed for free, so the pricing is definitely reasonable.
Owner at Hga consulting
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has positively impacted our organization by reducing cyber threats like ransomware and phishing by ninety-five percent.
DevOps Manager at Flash.co
For us, the biggest value comes from improved security and the reduced workload on the team, which makes the investment feel justified.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
From an ROI and impact perspective, there is a 20 to 35% reduction in day-to-day administrative effort.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway significantly impacts our cost savings while maintaining higher performance.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
If we can use a shared resource, then the return on investment is really nice.
Cloud Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
We have seen a return on investment in terms of time-saving and cost-saving by not creating our own infrastructure.
Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Cloudflare WAF support is mixed; responsive for some, but Indian customers face call availability and administrative issues.
Sentiment score
5.6
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is praised for its responsive, effective customer support, with high user satisfaction and consistent approval ratings.
Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway support experiences vary; some praise expertise, while others criticize delays and inconsistent quality.
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.
Owner at Hga consulting
The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
We had an incident requiring direct support, and the representatives were really helpful, resolving our query within forty-five minutes.
DevOps Manager at Flash.co
The engineers were helpful and knowledgeable, and we were able to get the guidance we needed.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
I would rate Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service customer support as a nine on a scale of one to ten.
Networking Admin at a tech company with 51-200 employees
I would say they provide the best support for Application Gateway because they own the product, so their support is top-notch.
Cloud Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
There is room for improvement, specifically in paid support, by providing more direct contact.
Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation
I would rate Microsoft support as good because they have a very skilled technical support team in the background
Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers impressive scalability and automated management, but additional features may incur costs for smaller organizations.
Sentiment score
6.3
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service effectively manages scalability and high availability, easily adapting to increasing demands through platforms like AWS Marketplace.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway provides scalable solutions but has mixed reviews regarding cost and ease of scaling and upgrades.
The scalability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between 8 to 9, as it depends upon the use cases and what exactly the client needs.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
Scalability is good for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service; we can scale up or down based on our needs.
DevOps Manager at Flash.co
As our needs have grown and we have added more applications, it has handled this expansion without creating extra management overhead.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a very scalable product.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
It has the autoscaling feature, so there is not much concern around performance; it can scale significantly.
Cloud Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a scalable solution.
Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is praised for stability, high performance, effective protection, daily use, and minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
7.7
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is reliable with effective detection, though some face configuration challenges and downtimes affecting ratings.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is stable and reliable, with high ratings, despite occasional issues due to misconfiguration.
The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
We have not faced any downtime, crashes, or lag.
DevOps Manager at Flash.co
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is extremely accurate in detection and reporting, and I find very few false positives.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has been stable in our experience, and we have not faced any major downtime or service-impacting issues.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
We have been using it for the past two to three years, and there have been good results with no problems so far.
Cloud Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
The stability is good, and except for a few instances, I don't see the non-availability of Azure Cloud services.
Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare WAF needs feature enhancements, better usability, improved support, advanced DDoS protection, and solutions for latency and alerts.
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service needs improvements in data storage, stability, AI, reporting, security, licensing, and regional data center operations.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is criticized for high costs, complexity, lacking documentation, and needing improvements in security, scalability, and support.
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.
Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
I think they're doing a good job with DNS and as support for any domains that I create or that my clients create, it's mandatory for me to ensure they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider.
Owner at Hga consulting
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.
CTO at PlayNirvana
The ROI they have given us is tremendous, and they are doing really well in terms of product, scalability, and service.
DevOps Manager at Flash.co
Modernizing the UI further, simplifying packaging and licensing clarity, enhancing the executive reporting and risk dashboard, and expanding broader cloud-native integration would be beneficial improvements.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
There is one issue regarding local data storage, as they do not have that capability, and we are storing the data in another foreign country, which is against the law.
IT Project Manager at Brilliant telecommunications
One feature I mentioned is the support for non-HTTPS protocols such as TCP, which could allow one endpoint for all kinds of protocols.
Cloud Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
There is room for improvement in terms of support, such as assigning agents directly for more straightforward engagement.
Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation
In future releases of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, I would like to see more AI functionalities and a better dashboard as well as some customizations.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers affordable, flexible pricing with no upfront costs, noted for competitiveness and included support services.
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service offers flexible, cost-effective pay-as-you-go pricing with essential features, reducing costs while providing customizable options.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's cost is debated; appreciated for scalability but potentially expensive with additional fees compared to AWS.
This system allows us to pay only for what we use, saving a lot of money, so I give it a ten out of ten as it is both a money and time saver for the organization.
DevOps Manager at Flash.co
Barracuda service is customizable but external references note that licensing and cost planning can become complex.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
While it may not be the cheapest solution available, we believe the security, ease of management, and operational benefits provide good value for the investment.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
We would prefer to have it cheaper, but it is still expensive.
Cloud Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Azure solutions are quite expensive.
Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation
When it comes to pricing for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, I would rate it a seven out of ten.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides comprehensive security features, easy setup, scalability, and competitive pricing with praised performance and stability.
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service provides comprehensive security with features like AI-driven detection, real-time analytics, and centralized management.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway provides secure, efficient traffic management with integration, automation, and scalability benefits for straightforward application deployment.
The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.
Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools add a layer that we're able to visualize and see before it actually hits the local firewall.
Owner at Hga consulting
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.
DevOps Manager at Flash.co
One of the strongest points is the speed of deployment, which features a three-step deployment wizard, pre-built templates, and quick onboarding, making it suitable for teams that want protection fast without complex infrastructure setup.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I particularly appreciate its ability to automatically detect and block common web attacks such as SQL injection, XSS, and bot-based threats without requiring manual intervention.
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
We are using it for some of the security features for our applications, particularly for securing traffic in transit with SSL.
Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation
The Web Application Firewall (WAF) in Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has been very effective in protecting applications from security threats.
IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital
The gateway's Web Application Firewall feature enhances security as it is the first entry point to your network from the outside world.
Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
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)
25th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure Application...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
9th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.5%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is 3.5%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall4.5%
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway3.5%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service1.0%
Other91.0%
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.
Samir Paul - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Cloud WAF has protected critical web apps and APIs and delivers fast bot and DDoS defense
Regarding improvements for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service, the UI and user experience can feel dated. While the interface is functional and centralized, some third-party reviews indicate that the UI can feel outdated, and enhancements are required to provide an executive look that can be aligned with modern and intuitive next-generation competitors. The licensing and cost structure perspective may need clear planning. Barracuda service is customizable but external references note that licensing and cost planning can become complex. Advanced analytics and executive reporting could be better. The platform provides visibility and compliance reporting but organizations looking for a very polished executive dashboard, deep attack visualization, or broader cloud-native security context may find it more focused on WAF operation. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is best suited for app and API protection and is not a full CNAPP platform. It is strong for application layer protection but is not positioned as a full CNAPP covering posture management. Modernizing the UI further, simplifying packaging and licensing clarity, enhancing the executive reporting and risk dashboard, and expanding broader cloud-native integration would be beneficial improvements.
SS
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software 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 Business12
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise24
 

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 needs improvement with Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?
Regarding improvements for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service, the UI and user experience can feel dated. While the interface...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?
My main use case for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is protecting web applications running on HTTP and HTTPS sockets from...
What advice do you have for others considering Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is best suited for app and API protection and is not a full CNAPP platform. It is strong f...
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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Regarding the pricing and licensing of Application Gateway, it is not cheap because the version we are using is WAF V...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Salvation Army
Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.