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

Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs NetScaler comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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 Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Barracuda Web Application F...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
17th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetScaler
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd), Network Management Applications (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.4%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Web Application Firewall is 1.9%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 3.8%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall5.4%
NetScaler3.8%
Barracuda Web Application Firewall1.9%
Other88.9%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
CTO at PlayNirvana
Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.
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.
LD
Information Technology Division Director at Ethiopian Roads Administration
Offers better visibility into user sessions compared to other solutions
Improvements are needed to address the issue of machines becoming unregistered, ensuring stability for end users. Troubleshooting with Citrix support can be challenging, so clearer diagnostics would be beneficial. As for global server load balancing, it works well on-premises, depending on user volume and service stability. Overall, it's satisfactory for us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There is a huge signature repository"
"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."
"It's pretty convenient and pretty easy to set up and run. And then kind of for static content, it also offers caching."
"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."
"Does a good job preventing web application attacks."
"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."
"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."
"The setup process is very simple for me."
"The stability of the solution is good. I don't think we've experienced bugs, crashes, or glitches."
"Our customers value the solution's simplicity."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use and the signature base."
"We only need one subscription to be protected against both active DDoS and offline DDoS attacks."
"The product has fantastic support services."
"The customer service and support from Barracuda have been excellent."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward, especially if you enlist assistance."
"The most valuable feature is the rule set."
"I would say the rewriting and redirection functions are must-have's for us."
"We like the periodic upgrades and backups, also made via ADMs, and it makes our environment much more robust and reliable."
"One feature that works really well is the SSL VPN. It's very easy to set up and you can go very granular with it. You can define what user groups get what kind of access and the management overhead is very low."
"High availability, performance, and security are the main pillars. It enhances the security for accessing the applications."
"Load Balancing and SSL offloading are key features."
"It is the best product out there."
"The maintenance of the solution is not complex."
"Manageability and visibility are good."
 

Cons

"They need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."
"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."
"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."
"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."
"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well. They have documentation for everything you're looking for, but they lack a single piece of documentation to tie everything together. As a new user or beginner, it took us a little bit of time to figure out how to put all these things in place."
"If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."
"I would like to see an improved capacity to store logs so that they will be available for a longer time."
"As most people are aware, the implementation is not easy."
"The usability of the interface could be improved."
"They should improve their features, so they easily compare to the competition."
"We've had some blocks of the application and some false positives."
"The GUI needs to be improved because it sometimes hangs and needs to be restarted."
"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."
"While the UI is good, it can get a little bit complicated."
"Development team's response time could be better."
"They need to make the solution a little more familiar with easy study guides, learning videos, etc."
"I would like to see more integration for single sign-on."
"There is room for improvement regarding the pricing policy for Citrix offices."
"The SLB could be better, and they should improve it."
"Technical support sometimes takes a little longer because of the multilevel ticket priority."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Too many bugs in the software and it's always difficult when you need to update."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"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."
"It is not too pricey."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"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."
"They only offer a yearly licensing plan."
"The price of this solution is okay."
"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."
"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."
"Our licensing fees are paid annually and the cost is between €600 and €800 (approximately $665.00 to $885.00 USD)."
"In my opinion, the product is fairly priced."
"The product pricing was competitive for the value it offers regarding security features."
"The product is expensive."
"Its price is comparable to others and affordable."
"Citrix NetScaler VPX is not the cheapest solution out there, but you get what you pay for."
"Citrix NetScaler's pricing is slightly above average but not overly expensive. I would consider F5 BIG IP to be the most expensive, Citrix NetScaler to be the second most expensive, and then Kemp Load Balancer to be the third."
"It's an expensive product but it works well."
"Licensing is adequate. I wanted to have a more prominent license, but until I do they don't give enough support. The additional cost would be too much."
"For the specific use case that my customers primarily engage with, I would give the pricing a rating of seven out of ten."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
883,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise57
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...
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?
I am not using the API protection feature right now because I don't host any APIs through Barracuda Web Application F...
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 over...
What do you like most about Citrix ADC?
The most valuable feature for us is the application firewalling in Citrix NetScaler, ensuring only valid traffic ente...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix ADC?
After deployment, Citrix Netscaler shifted to a subscription-based license scheme for support, which is slightly more...
What needs improvement with Citrix ADC?
Citrix NetScaler is a robust product, but mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexi...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
No data available
Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall, NetScaler VPX - Customer Licensed
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Oracle, CBS, Pioneer, Hyundai, Publix, Barnes Noble, Calzedonia, Nordstrom, Samsung, Nascar
ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs. NetScaler and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
883,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.