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Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs NGINX App Protect comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
Barracuda Web Application F...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (17th)
NGINX App Protect
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (16th), Container Security (25th), API Security (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Anne-Aimee Wollerich - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing bot traffic effectively enhances usability for non-technical users
Barracuda Web Application Firewall lacks some of the more specified and structured features offered by solutions like Tenable. Although Tenable is more expensive and less easily deployable, its features are more deepened and chiseled, particularly for IT personnel. For example, Tenable provides more comprehensive dark web scanning capabilities, which Barracuda could improve upon.
Saurav Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers protection to users from external threats
NGINX App Protect secures our company's application, and it has helped me a lot, considering that we have critical infrastructure in India where we see how lots of attacks come onto our organization's servers. The tool offers protection against multiple threats present in India's IT ecosystem. The tool helps our company to make our payments secure, meaning it has the ability to provide a secure payment environment in India. Speaking about the improvements in our company's application performance since implementing NGINX App Protect, the gRPC support for the solution is very low. My company is not getting any proper documentation on how to deploy gRPC over NGINX App Protect. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. People can use the product as their company's base server, WAF, or for its proxy manager, depending on the business requirements. My company follows PCI DSS compliance because we operate in a payment-related industry. Right now, my company follows all the standards, so we comply with all the requirements and policies. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."
"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is external DNS. It is also very secure. They have their own main server and once you configure it, the product takes care of everything. There are no issues in resolving IPs and low latency is also present."
"The initial setup is easy."
"We use Barracuda to protect the application. That's the main feature we use it for."
"Even when we were upgrading to a new OS, we didn't have any difficulties with the product. The stability is good."
"The volumetric DDoS defense is very good because I had a problem with a lot of volumetric DDoS attacks on my servers. After using Barracuda, those attacks have stopped and all the traffic is going smoothly to my servers and the system is working really well."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the simplicity of configuration."
"You don't need help from Barracuda to help with the deployment. The deployment is easy."
"The stability of the product is good. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The customer service and support are exceptional, and I would give them a ten out of ten."
"The policies are flexible based on the technologies you use."
"I tested specific features and evaluated the solution against the Web Application Firewall. I conducted research to test different detection percentages. I did not use it directly for protection but for evaluation purposes."
"The tool is not complex and is very user-friendly."
"There's a cache, or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications."
"It has the best documentation features."
"We were looking for a product that is capable of complete automation and a container based solution. It's working."
"It's very easy to deploy."
"It is a stable solution."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."
"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"Eventually, things go sideways and require fixes when it would have been easier to prevent the issue initially."
"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."
"As most people are aware, the implementation is not easy."
"It is not stable nor mature."
"It would be better if their updates would be released annually."
"There are false positives that I am receiving when compared to other WAFs. The issues with false positives affect client transactions, leading to complaints about blocked transactions."
"There's potential for improvement in the platform's CMS integration."
"Barracuda Web Application Firewall lacks some of the more specified and structured features offered by solutions like Tenable."
"I would suggest that someone implementing this product is knowledgeable in the IT field, and with the network needs. It is complex."
"The documentation is lacking. It's not like what you'd get if you were using Juniper or Cisco. They need to expand on it and make it more useful."
"It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service, to avoid disruptions after implementation."
"Currently, the policies have to be handled manually, and you have to create from scratch, which can be a bit time-consuming, in a large environment."
"Setting policies and parameters through the UI should be more automated because the process is manual, where we can only edit one rule at a time."
"Its technical support could be better."
"NGINX App Protect could improve security."
"NGINX App Protect would be improved with integration with Shape and F5 WAF, which would make it easy for users to manage all their web application security with a single solution."
"Right now, the tool doesn't provide an option revolving around update feeds, specifically the signature update option in the UI."
"As far as scalability, it takes a long time for deployment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"We are using the free version."
"The product is expensive."
"The product is inexpensive."
"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."
"While I would have to check on the price of the solution, I feel it to be okay and it matches the market price."
"The product pricing was competitive for the value it offers regarding security features."
"They have competitive pricing."
"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 solution is based on a licensing model and might be $360 for the hybrid version."
"Our licensing costs are about $40,000 a year."
"There is a license needed to use NGINX App Protect."
"The pricing is reasonable because NGINX operates on an instance basis."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"NGINX is not expensive."
"There is a monthly or annual subscription to use NGINX App Protect. There are not any additional costs to the subscription."
"NGINX App Protect is expensive."
"The price of NGINX App Protect is approximately $3,000 annually. All of our licenses are observed by a managed service partner."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
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...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
Our primary use case was to track the traffic on websites or webshops to identify potential malicious actors, such as...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
The pricing for Barracuda is quite high compared to other OEMs. Each transaction requires my purchase team to negotia...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX App Protect?
I don't know the pricing yet because in my other project, I was not part of the buying side and I was just starting t...
What needs improvement with NGINX App Protect?
It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requir...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Oracle, CBS, Pioneer, Hyundai, Publix, Barnes Noble, Calzedonia, Nordstrom, Samsung, Nascar
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.