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Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

 

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

Barracuda Web Application F...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
17th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kemp LoadMaster
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
20th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (9th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Barracuda Web Application Firewall is 2.1%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Barracuda Web Application Firewall2.1%
Kemp LoadMaster1.7%
Other96.2%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Shahzad Abid - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Information Technology at College of Physicians & Surgeons Pakistan
Has protected our legacy applications effectively but has required constant manual filtering due to false positives
I assess the effectiveness of the machine learning-driven threat detection in Barracuda Web Application Firewall as sometimes behaving abnormally, often showing me false positive attacks, so I have to fix these attacks from time to time. From a stability point of view, I would definitely rate Barracuda Web Application Firewall a seven out of ten. There is definitely some room for improvement; nothing is perfect in the world. I am not satisfied with the technical support from Barracuda. I am somewhat disappointed with the technical support that I have received so far. Whenever I generate a ticket for my problem, it goes to the Indian support team, and they all the time start with the most junior team member, consuming all my precious time. At the end, I have to close that ticket without any satisfactory solution. I have complained that they should shift my support to any other region because I don't need Indian support; they are simply pathetic and not up to mark. To improve Barracuda Web Application Firewall, customers should be given ongoing training opportunities regarding the product and its features. I am not familiar with many features that are available, only using those which are necessary for my applications. I believe Barracuda must provide clearer product information or training sessions to make it more user-friendly, as sometimes its interface can be rigid and lacking in helpful resources or user tutorials about its features. For it to get closer to a ten, I think advanced reporting is missing because, as I mentioned earlier, there are many false positive events being recorded. Often, when I analyze these attacks, they turn out to be genuine customers or users interacting with my product, but Barracuda tags them as attackers. Reducing false positives must be a priority.
IshtiaqKhalil - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Engineer at BOK
Displays flexible, user-friendly interface with minor licensing challenges
The product could be improved with a more intuitive interface for complex configurations and more advanced analytics. Additionally, enhanced security features, like a more robust Web Application Firewall, and stronger APIs for better automation would be beneficial. Overall, the main areas for improvement are in strengthening the advanced features to better meet the demands of large-scale enterprise environments. key features for the next release should focus on three areas. First, an enhanced, next-generation security suite with a more powerful Web Application Firewall (WAF) and integrated bot protection. Second, more advanced and customizable analytics dashboards to provide deeper insights into application performance. Finally, greater support for modern, cloud-native environments, including better APIs for automation and seamless hybrid-cloud traffic management

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It significantly improved our overall web security posture, addressing intrusions and enhancing control over web URLs in our environment."
"Setup of this solution is straightforward. It's a stable and scalable solution, with good performance and fast technical support."
"Data leak prevention is very important and ensures protection against attacks."
"Its recommendation about the probabilities on the website is great. It also has free probability managers for the website, which is really helpful. The protection engine, signature-based protection behavior, and analysis features are also great. It also has an ATP module for sandbox scanning and behavior analysis for file uploads."
"Our customers value the solution's simplicity."
"The product's advanced bot and threat protection capabilities are valuable."
"You don't need help from Barracuda to help with the deployment. The deployment is easy."
"If an attack is coming continuously, you can ask the device to block it temporarily for two to three minutes. F5 has not provided us with an option to block certain IPs for some time. Barracuda can help you block someone if the source is from a different IP. You can apply the rule to the device and block it for whatsoever time you want. The solution will unblock the IP after the prescribed time as well."
"Load-balancing is a great feature that is very easy to configure and it is always working fine."
"It has been functional. We don't have any outages."
"The old process of manually having to redirect Outlook Web Access traffic and Email traffic to a second server is a thing of the past."
"I like the way this solution handles multiple SSLs in different domains while still load balancing."
"The pricing of the solution is valuable."
"The solution is easy to configure when changing the load balancing method to Round Robin or least connection."
"We needed a Microsoft Threat Management Gateway server replacement solution for a customer and were impressed with the simplified deployment of the Kemp LoadMasters."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial setup of Kemp LoadMaster is very simple."
 

Cons

"We encountered a few glitches while implementing API security features into the product."
"I would like to see an improved capacity to store logs so that they will be available for a longer time."
"They could improve their performance, support, and their upgrades. Their updates used to be good. Their improvements were right on the money but nowadays, the updates are minor."
"The solution needs to leverage some additional features to a broader scale of software-defined networks."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"Sometimes when we put it in action, we have some blogs that appear as false positives. I think that it's improving. Barracuda should minimize false positives."
"I have found F5 more stable than Barracuda Web Application Firewall. They should improve the stability."
"I faced an issue when Barracuda decided not to support Azure Stack Hub anymore, which was a significant issue as we had many customers using it on that platform."
"SNMP and/or RESTCONF management, in order to collect many counters, for plotting in a central application need to be improved."
"So far, the only hitch we have run into is that would have been nice to have an easier method to add allow/whitelist entries into the Access Control lists for virtual services."
"We experienced a brief period of instability."
"It would be nice if the historical metrics were easily exportable from the interface."
"If there is anything that needs to be updated, the GUI can get a refresh to make it look more like 2020, although it is just a cosmetic change."
"The configuration of the basic services is pretty straight forward but for more complex solutions, there needs to be better documentation or knowledge base articles."
"If you want logging for SMTP traffic, you have to enable ESP, which requires you to define allowed IP addresses. That’s irritating, to say the least."
"The product is really good as-is out of the box. If there is one thing I would change is to have the license file not be coupled with the MAC address of the device. This is actually not really useful in a virtual environment where if you have a single VM with KEMP LoadMaster and you have not set up static MAC Address, if you, for example, recreate the VM and just load the disk file on a new VM it will get new MAC address and the NLB will not work as it will not see a proper license."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution is okay."
"The price of the solution is a little expensive. There is a license for this solution and it can be purchased every one, two, or five years."
"The product is inexpensive."
"While I would have to check on the price of the solution, I feel it to be okay and it matches the market price."
"For small companies, the price is very expensive because the WAF is an enterprise-level application, not intended for smaller businesses. In my opinion, the price is right for enterprise-level use."
"The solution is based on a licensing model and might be $360 for the hybrid version."
"They only offer a yearly licensing plan."
"The Barracuda Web Application Firewall is quite expensive."
"The price is lower than other options."
"It has a great price for the solution they offer."
"At $2,500 USD, this is absolutely a fantastic buy for the money!"
"The price is great and the value is definitely there."
"The product definitely provides what the organization needs and its cost is reasonable considering the value it brings."
"Pricing for the perpetual licensing was fair to us for the features and ease of use we received."
"Setup is easy, the cost is affordable, and the licensing is quick and simple."
"It has a very attractive ratio of price/performance."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
It significantly improved our overall web security posture, addressing intrusions and enhancing control over web URLs in our environment.
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
I am not using the API protection feature right now because I don't host any APIs through Barracuda Web Application Firewall. I use a second procedure for API, which is point-to-point VPN connectiv...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
At the time I was acquiring Barracuda Web Application Firewall, I found it costly compared to other products. To overcome that price factor, I excluded some features or subscriptions to align with ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?
My primary advice is to carefully analyze your total cost of ownership (TCO) rather than just the initial purchase price. Kemp LoadMaster is highly competitive on price and often provides a much be...
What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?
The product could be improved with a more intuitive interface for complex configurations and more advanced analytics. Additionally, enhanced security features, like a more robust Web Application Fi...
What is your primary use case for Kemp LoadMaster?
Our primary use case was traffic load balancing and distribution. The solution was essential for managing all inbound client traffic, including HTTPS and DNS requests, by routing it through our fir...
 

Also Known As

No data available
LoadMaster Load Balancer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Oracle, CBS, Pioneer, Hyundai, Publix, Barnes Noble, Calzedonia, Nordstrom, Samsung, Nascar
Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT€ Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs. Kemp LoadMaster and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.