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Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs StackPath WAF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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)
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)
20th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StackPath WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
53rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 3.8%, down from 5.8% 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. The mindshare of StackPath WAF is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall3.8%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service1.0%
StackPath WAF0.5%
Other94.7%
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.
FC
Stable product with an easy setup process
We use StackPath WAF to protect small websites for our customers The product’s most valuable is WAF. The authentication feature helps us protect WordPress sites. The product’s performance for caching feature needs improvement. It could provide high security to handle large traffic volumes for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."
"This solution does a good job of preventing web application attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting attacks."
"We like that there's load balancing, firewall capabilities, DDoS protection, et cetera, all covered by Cloudflare."
"It protects web applications efficiently."
"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."
"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."
"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."
"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."
"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."
"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has impacted my organization positively with fast deployment and simple onboarding."
"The solution can be used for threat prevention or as a cloud-to-cloud backup system"
"It provides an ease of policy management."
"Overall, Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has been a solid experience, as the platform has done a good job of protecting our application while remaining easy to manage."
"The product's bot protection feature is valuable for our company."
"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has never failed us so far; it is good, and we have not seen any clients complaining that it is not doing its job, failing, freezing, or hanging."
"Legitimate traffic has improved around 30 to 40% after implementing Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service."
"The product’s most valuable is WAF. The authentication feature helps us protect WordPress sites."
 

Cons

"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."
"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."
"The learning curve was steep initially."
"Its stability could be better."
"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."
"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."
"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."
"Support can be challenging at times."
"The licensing and cost structure perspective may need clear planning."
"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."
"We found it a bit slow when accessing it through the web browser."
"I chose an eight out of ten perhaps because the price is very high and not recommended for all organizations."
"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service can be improved by adding much more security features on a daily basis."
"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."
"I think Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service can still do better on the DLP side."
"One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strategy."
"The product’s performance for caching feature needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"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 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."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"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."
"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 affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
No data available
 

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 Business13
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
No data available
 

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?
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is strong, but there are definite areas where it could be improved to deliver even more va...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service protects web applications and apps from external threats while simplifying deployment and ...
What advice do you have for others considering Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?
I rate Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service an eight on a scale of one to ten. I chose an eight out of ten perhaps because the ...
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Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Barracuda WAF as a Service
StackPath Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Salvation Army
Robotics Cats, Jewlr
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Fortinet, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.