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Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs F5 Advanced WAF comparison

 

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

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
F5 Advanced WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 F5 Advanced WAF is 7.8%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
F5 Advanced WAF7.8%
Barracuda Web Application Firewall2.1%
Other90.1%
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.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Application security has protected critical banking services while policy learning minimizes false blocks
F5 Advanced WAF performs well overall, but I have noticed some points that could enhance the solution. Initially, policy tuning could be simpler, as while the learning engine is powerful, initial tuning still requires experienced engineers, which can be challenging for new teams due to the complexity of options and parameters. A more guided and simple tuning workflow would help reduce the learning curve. Additionally, tighter native integration with SIEM or SOAR tools would simplify correlation and investigations for security teams, although log exports are available. Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use and the signature base."
"The installation is straightforward."
"Even when we were upgrading to a new OS, we didn't have any difficulties with the product. The stability is good."
"The customer service and support are exceptional, and I would give them a ten out of ten."
"It allows us to scale out to multiple phase servers."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the simplicity of configuration."
"The initial setup is easy."
"It also has antivirus and DDoS mitigation capabilities. We have enabled these features."
"The most valuable features of the F5 Advanced WAF are the enhanced ASM and the performance. Additionally, the usability and effectiveness are very good."
"With F5 Advanced WAF, it was protection for online publications and for our customers that caused us to choose the platform."
"The solution is easily accessible on mobile and laptop devices."
"Despite a few issues, F5 Advanced WAF is performing well for me."
"The product is used to secure web applications and has the ability to use API templates and bot protection features, such as blocking requests or presenting CAPTCHA pages to end users."
"Overall, F5 Advanced WAF is a strong, dependable enterprise solution that works best when seen as a long-term security platform rather than a quick add-on; once properly designed, sized, and tuned, it runs quietly in the background and effectively does its job without constant attention."
"The most valuable feature of F5 Advanced WAF is its extensive set of capabilities for application protection, including DDoS prevention, and its ability to work with Pentesters and external scanners to observe user activity and eliminate false positives."
 

Cons

"Barracuda Web Application Firewall lacks some of the more specified and structured features offered by solutions like Tenable."
"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."
"This product could easily progress to be among the industry leaders. I think they need to improve enterprise level automation. It integrates with a small number of vulnerability scanners, so report results should be imported manually; same for SIEM integration."
"Its interface can be better. It is not very friendly."
"There are some vulnerabilities that are reported across the tools offered by Barracuda for some devices, which need to be taken care of from an improvement perspective."
"There's potential for improvement in the platform's CMS integration."
"In the Barracuda Web Application Firewall, there should be more affordable options for WAF as a service."
"They should improve their features, so they easily compare to the competition."
"You have to buy another module with an extra license, to have the authentication feature."
"F5 Advanced WAF sells perpetual licenses as perpetual assets during sales without informing me that support ends after a few years."
"There is a gap in report management."
"I would like for there to be a cloud-based solution, this would also help to improve scalability."
"I would like to see improved features in the F5 Advanced WAF solution, especially with a focus on enabling Kubernetes fully."
"More legacy protocols should be added to the solution."
"Nevertheless, F5 products are generally considered to be hard to deploy."
"It should be a little bit easy to deploy in terms of the overall deployment session. One of our customers is a bit unhappy about the reporting options. Currently, it automatically deletes event logs after some limit if a customer doesn't have any external Syslog server. It is a problem for those customers who want to review event logs after a week or so because they won't get proper reports or event logs. They should increase the duration to at least a month or two for storing the data on the device. F5 is not a leader in Gartner Quadrant, which affects us when we go and pitch this solution. Customers normally go and take a look at such annual reports, and because F5 is currently not there as a leader, the customers ask about it even though we are saying it is good in all things. F5 is not known for something totally different or unique. They were a major player in ADP, and they are just rebranding themselves into security. They should improve or increase their marketing as a security company now. They have already started to do that, but they should do it more so that when it comes to security, customers can easily remember F5. At the moment, if we say F5, load balancing comes to mind. With rebranding and marketing, all customers should get the idea that F5 is now mainly focusing on the security part of it, and it is a security company instead of load balancing. This is the first solution that should come to a customer's mind for a web application firewall."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The Barracuda Web Application Firewall is quite expensive."
"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 is expensive."
"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."
"They only offer a yearly licensing plan."
"In my opinion, the product is fairly priced."
"The pricing is less compared to other web applications."
"The pricing is too high."
"After buying the program, you just pay for the support every year."
"As far as the pricing of F5 Advanced WAF I would rate it a four out of five depending on what features I am looking for. Imperva is more expensive."
"There are different licenses available to use F5 Advanced WAF, such as BT, ASM, and LPM."
"F5 Advanced WAF technical support comes at a cost, and it's expensive."
"F5 bundles up services and the bundle is what you pay for rather than individual components."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."
"The pricing of F5 Advanced WAF is more expensive than other solutions like Radware and CD18, it is quite high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
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 Business25
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise31
 

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 do you like most about F5 Advanced WAF?
It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the rules per the requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?
Regarding the price, I think the cost is a bit higher compared to others. Earlier we were using Radware, and compared to Radware, it is very high. However, it is providing more features than Radwar...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?
In terms of additional features I would like to see from them in the future, I think the GTM is a bit complicated to configure, which I observed. Otherwise, LTM and WAF are straightforward. I faced...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Oracle, CBS, Pioneer, Hyundai, Publix, Barnes Noble, Calzedonia, Nordstrom, Samsung, Nascar
MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs. F5 Advanced WAF and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,036 professionals have used our research since 2012.