Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services comparison

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Download the complete report

Helped 902,894 peers since 2012

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 ...

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 4.0%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 1.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	4.0%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services	1.9%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service	0.9%
Other	93.2%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

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.

Read full review

Samir Paul

Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Cloud WAF has protected critical web apps and APIs and delivers fast bot and DDoS defense

Regarding improvements for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service, the UI and user experience can feel dated. While the interface is functional and centralized, some third-party reviews indicate that the UI can feel outdated, and enhancements are required to provide an executive look that can be aligned with modern and intuitive next-generation competitors. The licensing and cost structure perspective may need clear planning. Barracuda service is customizable but external references note that licensing and cost planning can become complex. Advanced analytics and executive reporting could be better. The platform provides visibility and compliance reporting but organizations looking for a very polished executive dashboard, deep attack visualization, or broader cloud-native security context may find it more focused on WAF operation. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is best suited for app and API protection and is not a full CNAPP platform. It is strong for application layer protection but is not positioned as a full CNAPP covering posture management. Modernizing the UI further, simplifying packaging and licensing clarity, enhancing the executive reporting and risk dashboard, and expanding broader cloud-native integration would be beneficial improvements.

Read full review

Mohan Janarthanan

Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions

Centralized security has protected APIs and optimized multi‑cloud traffic management

F5 Distributed Cloud Services has been used for two years for DDoS protection, and there is a particular feature called API protection. Within API protection, there is malicious user mitigation, which is one particular technology that has been implemented. This is a kind of advanced bot attack prevention. Malicious user mitigation is an AI/ML-based technology that was introduced by the F5 team, and this particular MUG protects rate limiting. If some users are having anomaly detection or someone is trying to do a bot attack, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge for that particular user alone and not for all users. For example, if someone is trying to act as a rogue, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge in the backend system on that particular system, so they cannot try again and again at the same time. It is for a concurrent session, and it will give the CAPTCHA challenge. This MUG, malicious user mitigation, prevents bot attacks. F5 Distributed Cloud Services includes the real-time intelligence feature, which helps with threat response strategies from a threat intelligence perspective. For example, if there are geo-restrictions or geo-based restrictions, sometimes people may come in through proxy-based servers, and it will prevent that. The load balancing feature optimizes application performance. Observability is the basic piece where F5 got introduced. This observability piece provides end-to-end visibility on the application performance. It gives complete end-to-end visibility across network latency and application performance issues. Sometimes when it is getting more than 200 pages, it throws errors such as 300, 400, or whatever has been configured, including 500 errors. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has helped improve traffic management efficiency. Most applications are hosted in the Check Point and F5 firewall, F5 web application firewall, where applications and traffic management can be accessed in a single dashboard. Automated threat detection is a basic feature of F5 Distributed Cloud Services meant for that purpose. There are two scenarios with automated threat detection, which is provided by F5. It is a completely machine learning solution that came from the bot defense, and it automatically protects against sophisticated attacks.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The impact of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's integration with existing web technologies on our site's performance and security measures is quite great, actually."

"This is a good product; it's reliable and scales well."

"The Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's most valuable feature is its ease of configuration."

"The setup process is very simple for me."

"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."

"The product has improved our security posture by blocking bad actors."

"For us, the key feature of Cloudflare is DDoS protection and IP hiding, especially since we are a crypto company."

"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"Overall, Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has been a solid experience, as the platform has done a good job of protecting our application while remaining easy to manage."

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

"The solution covers a lot of major protection or threat management functions in the feature itself."

"It provides an ease of policy management."

"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has never failed us so far; it is good, and we have not seen any clients complaining that it is not doing its job, failing, freezing, or hanging."

"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has impacted my organization positively as it provides peace of mind through DLP features."

"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has impacted my organization positively with fast deployment and simple onboarding."

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

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service pros

"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."

"Technical support from F5 is good compared to Cisco and HP."

"F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well."

"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."

"Elastic environments are the most valuable features because I can pull these apps and migrate the on-premises environment to the Distributed Cloud environment, and this capability is very strong and the security regarding the apps is really very powerful."

"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."

"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."

Cons

"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."

"The learning curve was steep initially."

"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."

"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."

"The reporting could be improved if it were more granular."

"There could be an option to duplicate the cluster to maintain the consistency of rules."

"Support can be challenging at times."

"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"We found it a bit slow when accessing it through the web browser."

"Some complex issues take longer to resolve, but overall, we have been satisfied with the support."

"I think pricing could be improved regarding Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service."

"I think Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service can still do better on the DLP side."

"The price of their licensing model is a bit steep, and the pricing and SIEM integration sometimes create challenges, and we need to get professional help with those areas."

"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."

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

"One way Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service can be improved is by making the implementation easier."

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service cons

"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."

"For small players, it is completely not worth it."

"The worst experience is that with so many solutions available, it is very complicated to know all of the solution modules, and the offers from F5 Distributed Cloud Services are vast."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."

"Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not too pricey."

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"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."

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"The product is expensive but it offers flexible pricing. It could be affordable."

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

Security Firm

Construction Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

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 needs improvement with Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

Regarding improvements for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service, the UI and user experience can feel dated. While the interface...

What is your primary use case for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

My main use case for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is protecting web applications running on HTTP and HTTPS sockets from...

What advice do you have for others considering Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is best suited for app and API protection and is not a full CNAPP platform. It is strong f...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

F5 Distributed Cloud Services is affordable. I think it is very affordable. I do not think it is expensive.

What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

I need to think about this for the future. F5 Distributed Cloud Services needs to create links with Amazon and Google...

What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

I collect reviews for F5 Distributed Cloud Services and F5 Silverline Managed Services. I work with F5 Distributed Cl...

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Comparisons

Compared 7% of the time

Check Point WAF (formerly CloudGuard WAF) vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

Indusface AppTrana vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 3% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

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

Compared 13% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 10% of the time

AWS WAF vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 9% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 8% of the time

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 7% of the time

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Competitors

Azure Front Door vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 13% of the time

Akamai vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 9% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 8% of the time

Cloudflare vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 8% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 6% of the time

More F5 Distributed Cloud Services Competitors

Product Reports

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Download Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service product report

F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

Barracuda WAF as a Service

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall integrates DDoS protection, load balancing, and firewall capabilities. Its ease of use, configurability, and robust security measures make it a versatile choice for protecting web applications.

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides a comprehensive defense against threats with advanced reporting and robust security measures. It includes DNS integration, rate limiting, and extensive rule sets, all within a SaaS model that allows API configurability. Users value its caching, scalability, and pricing, although enhancements are needed in rate-limiting and third-party integration. Improvements in customer support, especially in India, real-time controls, and user documentation are also desired. Users seek a more intuitive dashboard, better log management, and improved alert systems, along with multitenancy capabilities and enhanced reporting.

What are the key features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

DDoS Protection: Shields applications from denial-of-service attacks
Load Balancing: Ensures efficient traffic distribution
DNS Integration: Enhances domain name system security
Rate Limiting: Controls traffic flow and reduces abuse
Extensive Rule Sets: Offers customizable security rules

What benefits and ROI can users find in reviews?

Scalability: Easily adapts to growing business needs
Pricing: Offers reasonable pricing structure
Caching: Improves application performance and speed
Configurable Security: Provides customizable defense settings
Efficient Management: Simplifies security and application control

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall finds application in industries like banking and retail by acting as a comprehensive security gateway, managing authentication and authorization while protecting web applications from malicious Layer 7 traffic. It also implements load balancing, CDN, and zero-trust policies, supported by advanced reporting, analytics tools, and threat scoring to meet specific industry needs.

Cloudflare

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service streamlines cloud security with features like automatic updates, real-time detection, and bot protection. It enhances AWS environments with simplified management and threat intelligence.

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service provides robust application security, leveraging automatic security updates and real-time attack detection to defend against threats. Its centralized dashboard offers an intuitive management experience, complemented by automated policies. Real-time threat intelligence, application control, and VPN support contribute to its security efficacy. Its capabilities to detect and prevent DDoS, application, and unknown OS attacks ensure comprehensive protection. Although licensing complexity, high costs, stability concerns, and regional compliance issues pose challenges, it effectively secures websites and email systems against malware, phishing, and ransomware, and simplifies cloud migration.

What are the key features of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

Automatic Security Updates: Keeps protection current to combat emerging threats.
Real-Time Attack Detection: Identifies attacks as they occur for immediate response.
Bot Protection: Shields applications from malicious bots and automated threats.
Centralized Dashboard: Simplifies management with an intuitive interface.
Threat Intelligence: Continuously updates to address potential vulnerabilities.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Streamlined Management: Reduces complexity through an intuitive dashboard.
Enhanced Security: Offers comprehensive defense against various cyber threats.
Scalability: Easy scaling across AWS environments ensures growing demands are met.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces hardware costs by replacing on-premises infrastructures.

In industries like e-commerce and finance, Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is implemented for its effectiveness in securing cloud-based applications while reducing the need for on-premises equipment. Its strength in protecting both websites and email systems makes it a preferred choice for businesses migrating to cloud solutions.

Barracuda Networks

F5 Distributed Cloud Services excel in enhancing security, optimizing web application delivery, and ensuring robust network performance. Users value its integrated Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, global server load balancing, and intuitive management interface. It boosts organizational efficiency, reduces operational costs, and scales seamlessly, making it essential for businesses operating in distributed environments.

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Salvation Army

Information Not Available

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services