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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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the simplicity of configuration."
"What I like most about Barracuda Web Application Firewall is its availability. I also like that it's an easy-to-use solution."
"Setup of this solution is straightforward. It's a stable and scalable solution, with good performance and fast technical support."
"I find the solution very stable."
"It's very simple and predictable, because Barracuda provides a vision of the current state of your application. It gives you an understanding of what is happening on your site and any attempts against you at your source. This is the main value that Web Application Firewall provides our company. These aspects are also the main reason for this documentation process."
"It is stable and the performance is good."
"Some of the most valuable features are the ease of deployment, the Barracuda support, the easy-to-use console, and the granularity of the reports."
"The initial setup is easy."
"It's scalable and very easy to manage."
"This solution is an enterprise-class firewall that provides both load-balancing and security."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is artificial intelligence and to get extra internal access."
"I definitely recommend this solution because of the time you save on analysis."
"Good dashboard and reporting."
"Web attack signatures are very important for detecting web attacks."
"The solution uses AI to protect against botnet attacks."
 

Cons

"We get false positives about phishing emails."
"If you know nothing about networks, then you can't set it up."
"Barracuda Web Application Firewall's load balancing feature could be improved."
"The GUI needs to be improved because it sometimes hangs and needs to be restarted."
"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."
"Barracuda Web Application Firewall’s scalability needs improvement."
"While the UI is good, it can get a little bit complicated."
"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."
"The solution's dashboard could be improved. When you're moving from policy to policy, the logs and the integration of the logs in other systems aren't straightforward."
"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."
"The product could be more user-friendly, particularly the user interface for administrators."
"I would not expect traffic details to pass through the web application firewall across the length of the whole application. I think that there is a web application where it can let the application function without traffic going in into the WAF."
"I would like for there to be a cloud-based solution, this would also help to improve scalability."
"I would like to see a better interface and better documentation compatibility with other products. It's more complicated with OWASP."
"F5 Advanced WAF could improve resource usage, it is CPU intensive. Additionally, adding automated remediation would be a benefit. For example, an easy button alerts us of the events that are occurring, and what we want to do at the time. An automated approach where somebody could be alerted very quickly. Instead of going and reconfiguring everything, an automated approach is what I'm looking at."
"This solution can be made more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product pricing was competitive for the value it offers regarding security features."
"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."
"They have competitive pricing."
"Cost is a bit on the higher side. Big companies can afford it."
"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 pricing is reasonable."
"In my opinion, the product is fairly priced."
"They only offer a yearly licensing plan."
"There are various plans available for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF as a Service, including a trial version."
"I don't have any issue with the pricing of this solution."
"I think the price is very high."
"The way we deployed it, I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing."
"There is a perpetual license that comes with your hardware. There is also an additional fee for support."
"It is expensive. Its price should be better. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. Its licensing is also based on the model. There are no additional costs."
"A yearly license for F5 Advanced WAF is expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable when compared with other products, such as FortiWeb. I am very satisfied with the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
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 Business26
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise30
 

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.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.