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Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs NGINX App Protect comparison

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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)
Barracuda Web Application F...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (17th)
NGINX App Protect
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (16th), Container Security (23rd), API Security (4th)
 

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.
Anne-Aimee Wollerich - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing bot traffic effectively enhances usability for non-technical users
Barracuda Web Application Firewall lacks some of the more specified and structured features offered by solutions like Tenable. Although Tenable is more expensive and less easily deployable, its features are more deepened and chiseled, particularly for IT personnel. For example, Tenable provides more comprehensive dark web scanning capabilities, which Barracuda could improve upon.
Saurav Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers protection to users from external threats
NGINX App Protect secures our company's application, and it has helped me a lot, considering that we have critical infrastructure in India where we see how lots of attacks come onto our organization's servers. The tool offers protection against multiple threats present in India's IT ecosystem. The tool helps our company to make our payments secure, meaning it has the ability to provide a secure payment environment in India. Speaking about the improvements in our company's application performance since implementing NGINX App Protect, the gRPC support for the solution is very low. My company is not getting any proper documentation on how to deploy gRPC over NGINX App Protect. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. People can use the product as their company's base server, WAF, or for its proxy manager, depending on the business requirements. My company follows PCI DSS compliance because we operate in a payment-related industry. Right now, my company follows all the standards, so we comply with all the requirements and policies. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."
"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."
"It's very user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."
"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 stability of the solution is good. I don't think we've experienced bugs, crashes, or glitches."
"The volumetric DDoS defense is very good because I had a problem with a lot of volumetric DDoS attacks on my servers. After using Barracuda, those attacks have stopped and all the traffic is going smoothly to my servers and the system is working really well."
"The updating and signature features are my primary use case for the solution. These features are beneficial to my organization."
"The installation is straightforward."
"There is no one special feature, but the WAF itself is valuable: user-friendly protection against web attacks etc., authentication, reporting, accountability, alerting, and hardened OS."
"It is stable and the performance is good."
"One of the strongest points is its robust issue discovery capabilities. Barracuda invests significant efforts in identifying and resolving issues. They have multiple products that work in tandem to perform these checks, which is beneficial because it automates security updates. This is the primary reason I recommend it to my customers."
"The stability of the product is good. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of NGINX App Protect is the reverse proxy."
"NGINX App Protect is stable."
"It is a very good tool for load balancing."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the OWASP certification. Additionally, the tool's ability to enforce strong passwords and OTP within minutes is impressive. With its analytics and recommendations, it is a very good solution."
"The most valuable feature is that there is a link in the system that will help to analyze the security of an application when something abnormal is found."
"The policies are flexible based on the technologies you use."
"It has the best documentation features."
"There's a cache, or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications."
 

Cons

"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."
"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."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"Technical support is lacking."
"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."
"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."
"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."
"If you know nothing about networks, then you can't set it up."
"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."
"I have to go to an individual obligation, make changes, and come out, and go to the next obligation and make the same changes. There is no grouping option."
"As a service, Barracuda needs to host in Saudi Arabia, as they currently don't have this functionality."
"As most people are aware, the implementation is not easy."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"I would like to see better controlling of the traffic."
"Sometimes when we put it in action, we have some blogs that appear as false positives. I think that it's improving. Barracuda should minimize false positives."
"Its technical support could be better."
"I encountered issues with NGINX App Protect while trying to upgrade custom rules."
"The product's price is high, making it an area of concern where improvements are required. The tool's licensing model is also not good."
"It doesn't have more advanced features like no false-positive security, which you can configure in Advanced WAF."
"The solution needs to be improved in the e-commerce portal."
"NGINX App Protect would be improved with integration with Shape and F5 WAF, which would make it easy for users to manage all their web application security with a single solution."
"Currently, the policies have to be handled manually, and you have to create from scratch, which can be a bit time-consuming, in a large environment."
"The dashboard could provide a more comprehensive view of the status of the connections."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"We are using the free version."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"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."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The price is reasonable, more so than other products."
"Our licensing fees are paid annually and the cost is between €600 and €800 (approximately $665.00 to $885.00 USD)."
"Cost is a bit on the higher side. Big companies can afford it."
"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."
"The price of this solution is okay."
"The product is inexpensive."
"The product is expensive."
"The pricing is reasonable because NGINX operates on an instance basis."
"The price of NGINX App Protect is not much different from the products that fall under the leader category of Gartner Magic Quadrant."
"There is a monthly or annual subscription to use NGINX App Protect. There are not any additional costs to the subscription."
"The product's price is high."
"There are not any additional costs we had to pay to use NGINX App Protect."
"There is a license needed to use NGINX App Protect."
"NGINX App Protect is expensive."
"The price of NGINX App Protect is approximately $3,000 annually. All of our licenses are observed by a managed service partner."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Retailer
8%
 

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 Business25
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise11
 

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 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?
Our primary use case was to track the traffic on websites or webshops to identify potential malicious actors, such as...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
The pricing for Barracuda is quite high compared to other OEMs. Each transaction requires my purchase team to negotia...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX App Protect?
I don't know the pricing yet because in my other project, I was not part of the buying side and I was just starting t...
What needs improvement with NGINX App Protect?
It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requir...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall
 

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.
Oracle, CBS, Pioneer, Hyundai, Publix, Barnes Noble, Calzedonia, Nordstrom, Samsung, Nascar
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs. NGINX App Protect and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.