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

Microsoft and Barracuda Networks are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Microsoft is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.9, while Barracuda Networks is ranked #31 with an average rating of 6.0. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of Barracuda Networks users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and Azure Front Door compete in cloud-based security and application delivery. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service seems advantageous in pricing and ease of deployment, while Azure Front Door stands out with feature-rich integration and scalability.

Features: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service offers comprehensive threat protection, including DDoS and bot mitigation, and a reliable application firewall. Azure Front Door provides global load balancing, SSL offloading, and excellent scalability options through integration with other Azure services.

Room for Improvement: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service could enhance its integration capabilities and expand feature sets for advanced users. Azure Front Door might improve its ease of deployment and reduce the learning curve. Both services could benefit from more straightforward configuration processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is known for easy deployment and robust customer support, suited for fast setups. Azure Front Door provides extensive documentation and support, though it might require more time to get familiar due to its comprehensive features.

Pricing and ROI: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service offers competitive pricing, appealing to budget-conscious customers with good ROI. Azure Front Door might be more costly, justifying its price through integrated services and long-term performance and value.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Front Door vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

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

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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reviewer2226693

Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

Optimizing global application performance with robust security measures and advanced traffic management

DDoS capabilities in Azure Front Door could certainly be improved. Although Microsoft states it comes with basic DDoS protections out of the box, I find it often ineffectual in mitigating thousands of requests from a single source in a short span of time. User then have to rely on the WAF module where users must configure rate-limiting rules, as it does not automatically sense malicious spikes in traffic. I believe Front Door should have an out-of-the-box premium DDoS protection that can automatically detect and block malicious traffic. I would appreciate improvements in the turnaround time for support, especially since issues with Azure Front Door are usually critical for businesses. If there is an issue, it often results in downtime for line of business applications. I have faced this situation multiple times as one of the largest financial institutions in India is hosted there, adhering to strict SLAs that require prompt responses.

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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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's very user-friendly."

"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

"The tool is user-friendly."

"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."

"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."

"The solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."

"It is a fast and secure DNS."

More Cloudflare pros

"I am impressed with the tool's integrations."

"I particularly appreciate its load-balancing capabilities as it allows us to manage multiple instances and support a global presence effectively."

"It inspects the traffic at the network level before it comes into Azure. We can do SSL offloading, and it can detect abnormalities before the traffic comes into the application. It can be used globally and is easy to set up. It is also quite stable and scalable."

"Azure Front Door's advanced routing rules for traffic management are highly effective, allowing you to configure HTTP tags, change different header or header response values, configure origin domains, and add security to your Layer 7 using these routing rules."

"Azure Front Door provides DDoS protection and features related to WAF."

"Rules Engine is a valuable feature."

"The most valuable feature is that I can have CDN and load-balancing capabilities in a single service instead of managing two separate tools."

More Azure Front Door pros

"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."

"It provides an ease of policy management."

"The solution can be used for threat prevention or as a cloud-to-cloud backup system"

"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."

"The product's bot protection feature is valuable for our company."

Cons

"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."

"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."

"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."

"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."

"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."

"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."

"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."

"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."

More Cloudflare cons

"This is a relatively expensive solution."

"There is room for improvement and they're working on it."

"There's a limitation on the amount of global rules we can add."

"I'm responsible for the governance and cost control of Azure. I'm not a specialist in any products and therefore I couldn't really speak effectively to features that are lacking or missing."

"We should be able to use Front Door defenders with multiple cloud vendors. Currently, they can be used only with the Azure cloud. Azure Front Door should also be able to do global load balancing and provide internal front door services. Microsoft should clearly define what Traffic Manager, Application Gateway, and Azure Front Door products do. These are similar products, and people get confused between these products."

"There could be improvements regarding its pricing for large-scale projects."

"It lacks sufficient functionality."

"I dislike the URL set parameters."

More Azure Front Door cons

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

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

"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."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The pricing of the solution is good."

"The transition to the premium tier has led to increased costs, making it more expensive than the classic tier."

"Considering the standard licensing of the tool, even though we have not checked the billing as of now, it might not be very costly."

"The product is expensive."

"It is on a pay-as-you-go basis."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"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'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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	9

No data available

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...

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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...

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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.

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What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?

We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides...

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What do you like most about Azure Front Door?

Rules Engine is a valuable feature.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Front Door?

I am not sure about the pricing but believe Azure Front Door might require a higher cost due to its entry point nature.

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

It provides an ease of policy management.

See all answers

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

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 52% 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

Radware DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Amazon CloudFront vs Azure Front Door

Compared 14% of the time

Akamai vs Azure Front Door

Compared 11% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Azure Front Door

Compared 8% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Azure Front Door

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Azure Front Door

Compared 4% of the time

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

Compared 55% of the time

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

Compared 16% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 15% of the time

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

November 2025

Download Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Azure Front-Door

Barracuda WAF as a Service

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

Azure Front Door enhances web application performance and security by leveraging traffic inspection, SSL offloading, and a web application firewall. It enables intelligent routing, load balancing, and global resource deployment while providing essential features for online application security.

Azure Front Door integrates GitOps for seamless deployment, offering significant capabilities in giant networks like CDN functionalities and DDoS protection. Its advanced configurations include traffic analytics and transit layer security. Despite its affordability and scalability, users see room for improvement in global load balancing and private IP address support, citing integration challenges with other cloud vendors. The interface may appear complex, and some users desire more transparent pricing, better DDoS defenses, and enhanced monitoring. This platform is especially beneficial for securing external traffic and optimizing content delivery, providing DNS integration and disaster recovery mechanisms.

What are the key features of Azure Front Door?

Traffic Inspection: Enhances security with comprehensive traffic analysis at the network level.
SSL Offloading: Streamlines SSL certificate management and encryption processes.
Web Application Firewall: Offers protection against web vulnerabilities and threats.
Global Resource Implementation: Facilitates deployment across multiple regions.
Intelligent Routing and Load Balancing: Optimizes traffic distribution for efficient performance.
Bot and DDoS Protection: Shields applications from malicious traffic and attacks.
CDN Capabilities: Accelerates content delivery with local caching and optimized routing.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Affordability: Provides robust features at competitive pricing.
Scalability: Adapts easily to growing traffic demands and business needs.
Security: Delivers comprehensive defenses against cyber threats.
Performance Optimization: Enhances application responsiveness and delivery speed.
Global Reach: Supports globally distributed applications with ease.

In industries focusing on online presence and global user engagement, Azure Front Door is invaluable for optimizing web application performance. E-commerce platforms deploy it to secure transactions and enhance load times. Media companies leverage its CDN and security features to ensure seamless content delivery. Enterprises with international operations find it crucial for reliable and secure data access across regions.

Microsoft

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

Sample Customers

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

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Buyer's Guide

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

December 2025

Free Report: Azure Front Door vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Front Door vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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