Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall comparison

Barracuda Networks and Cloudflare are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #35, while Cloudflare is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.5. Additionally, 75% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Cloudflare users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and Cloudflare Web Application Firewall compete in the web application security market. Data indicates Cloudflare has an edge due to its superior feature set despite a higher price point.

Features: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service offers automatic scaling, robust security policies, and ease of configuration. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall includes DDoS protection, CDN integration, and comprehensive security measures.

Room for Improvement: Barracuda could enhance its feature set and performance capabilities. It could benefit from more expansive integration options. Improved documentation would also aid users. Cloudflare would be better served with more straightforward pricing, additional support for smaller businesses, and enhanced usability for less technical users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Barracuda provides straightforward deployment and quick customer service, suitable for fast integration. Cloudflare's deployment model supports large-scale implementations with efficient setup processes. Both services have responsive support, but Barracuda is typically faster in resolving issues.

Pricing and ROI: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is budget-friendly with low initial costs, providing solid ROI for small to mid-sized operations. Cloudflare's higher expense is justified by its extensive security features, offering substantial ROI for enterprises needing comprehensive protection. Barracuda is attractive to cost-sensitive organizations, while Cloudflare serves those requiring extensive security infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

December 2025

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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

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

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Hadar Eshel

Co-Founder and CEO at Cloudway

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.…

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Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

Effectively protects clients from automated threats and ensures global security

I cannot say much about areas of improvement for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall because I haven't gone through deep understanding of it, as I am still learning. However, they need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long. If I took 48 hours to answer a request at my company, it would be a tough time to see or address the issue, and it would be frustrating.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare has many features."

"It is a fast and secure DNS."

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

More Cloudflare pros

"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."

"It provides an ease of policy management."

"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."

"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."

"It is configurable via API."

"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."

"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."

"It is a SaaS solution unlike much of the competition."

"There is a huge signature repository"

"Technical support has a very fast response time and they are helpful."

"It protects web applications efficiently."

"The setup process is very simple for me."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

Cons

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."

"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

"Latencies are always a problem."

"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."

"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."

"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."

More Cloudflare cons

"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."

"It's a very specific solution that is only requested for a customer's web code or their global IT policy."

"One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strategy."

"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"The learning curve was steep initially."

"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."

"The platform's control features related to real-time authentication and response time need improvement."

"A key challenge arises when dealing with numerous integrations with HVAC systems. Depending on the specifics, there might be some configuration mismatches, which necessitate specific support."

"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

"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 cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The product is expensive but it offers flexible pricing. It could be affordable."

"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."

"It is not too pricey."

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

It provides an ease of policy management.

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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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The product has a valuable security control functionality.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't really use the rule-based logic feature or utilize the WAF's ability to scale as a cloud-based service. I don...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 51% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 17% of the time

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

Compared 16% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 15% of the time

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Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Huawei Cloud WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 3% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

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Cloudflare

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

January 2026

Download Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service product report

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Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

January 2026

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Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Barracuda WAF as a Service

Cloudflare WAF

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is a comprehensive solution designed to provide application security, DDoS protection, SSL authentication, protocol support, and application delivery. It is a plug-and-play solution with automated policies, simple configuration, and easy rule creation.

The solution can be used for threat prevention or as a cloud-to-cloud backup system based on email protection with cloud security. It is also a web application firewall and covers major protection and threat management functions. With Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service, customers can ensure the security of their web code and comply with global IT policies.

Barracuda Networks

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Salvation Army

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

December 2025

Free Report: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

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