Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service 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:
 

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) (13th)
Azure Web Application Firewall
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (13th), Microsoft Security Suite (22nd)
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (34th)
 

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.
Mano Senaratne - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive suite simplifies configuration while frequent updates require management
Mainly, it comes with the complete suite of Microsoft services. I can use it in conjunction with the best options and other features that come with it. Configuration is much easier than using different platforms. For example, if I have hosted the application in AWS and am using the Application Firewall from Azure, there are certain additional steps to follow when configuring them. With Microsoft, everything is within a single suite, making it easier to configure and plan. Azure continually upgrades platforms and sends us messages to upgrade to the next version, simplifying the process. Later, it's much easier if I want to upgrade the software platform, scale it, or move it to a different application host as the whole suite comes together. The return on investment is good. If I am doing applications for clients, I can invoice them for better costs. Most applications that I run and use have a better return on investment.
Hadar Eshel - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to install platform with valuable policy management features
We use the product for securing email systems, protecting websites, and safeguarding web-based applications and portals One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strategy. Additionally, it could operate in a local data center.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Even when there is a high load on our servers, Cloudflare is able to cache the data and serve it to users, ensuring they can still access the website."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."
"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."
"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"
"The Microsoft support and the analytics are what I appreciate about Azure Web Application Firewall; it integrates effectively with things such as Sentinel and Defender for Cloud, so mostly it's the analytics and now the AI capabilities that have been introduced with Co-pilot."
"I can only strongly recommend using the Azure Web Application Firewall."
"It has been a stable product in my experience."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Web Application Firewall is its ability to filter requests and block false positives by using custom rules and the OWASP rule set."
"Configuration is much easier than using different platforms."
"The solution has good dashboards."
"The return on investment is good."
"We have found the most valuable features to be the web application, minimal skills required for management, control through policies, and automation."
"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."
"It provides an ease of policy management."
"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."
"The solution can be used for threat prevention or as a cloud-to-cloud backup system"
"The product's bot protection feature is valuable for our company."
 

Cons

"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."
"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."
"The product needs to improve its automation."
"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."
"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."
"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."
"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."
"Deployment should be simplified so that a non-techie can handle it."
"The pricing needs improvement, and I think for beginners it will be a little bit complicated, so the ease of use could be enhanced."
"The documentation needs to be improved."
"There is a need to be able to configure the solution more."
"The management can be improved."
"In Brazil, we have some problems with the phone service that affect our connection with the cloud. However, it isn't common."
"From a reporting perspective, they could do more there."
"We would like to see additional site services using AI to provide information about blocking requests and offer analytics on the origin of calls."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strategy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"We are using the free version."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."
"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"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."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"The price is for this solution is fair and there is a license needed."
"We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft and the pricing is good."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The price of the solution depends on your architecture and how you manage it. You can control the cost in Azure quite well. The costs do not directly correlate to expenses in the features we are using."
"The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month."
"Azure WAF has price advantages over other WAF solutions. The pricing model is flexible because you pay on a scale based on the level of protection you need."
"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 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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
Government
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Media Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
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 Business6
Large Enterprise12
No data available
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Web Application Firewall?
I would place Azure Web Application Firewall at an eight on a scale from one to 10, with one being cheap and 10 being...
What needs improvement with Azure Web Application Firewall?
The pricing needs improvement, and I think for beginners it will be a little bit complicated, so the ease of use coul...
What needs improvement with Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?
One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strateg...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?
We use the product for securing email systems, protecting websites, and safeguarding web-based applications and portals.
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
Barracuda WAF as a Service
 

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.
Information Not Available
Salvation Army
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.