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Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) 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
77
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (34th)
FortiWeb Web Application Fi...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (15th)
 

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.
Hadar Eshel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.…
Martin Janzsó - PeerSpot reviewer
Has good integration with load-balancing applications
Regarding areas for improvement, the documentation needs work. We had issues with a customer because the documentation didn't clearly show which devices can connect with FortiWeb WAF, leading to misconfiguration and difficult meetings. We also need deeper technical support - finding who's responsible for technical aspects is challenging. Hungary has a good Fortinet office with strong sales and pre-sales employees.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool is user-friendly."
"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"The technical support is good."
"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."
"I get a lot of value from Cloudflare's API because it enables you to build a separate environment inside the solution. You can create a domain for performing test requests before you move to the production environment and connect various domains."
"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."
"Cloudflare makes it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple users and multiple clients, and basically go in and access their account, make the changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"The product's bot protection feature is valuable for our company."
"It provides an ease of policy management."
"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."
"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."
"We use it to secure VMs and applications. It protects against DDoS attacks. It's very user-friendly."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall helps us to block certain categories of browsing, such as weapons, and other inappropriate content on the client side. We have also blocked social media sites like TikTok and Facebook to enhance user productivity and maintain application security."
"The product is easy to configure."
"The good thing about Fortinet is that their enablement is very good in terms of training me and enabling resources on their technology."
"FortiWeb has a very extensive library of known attack signatures, which makes the product fit for any environment, regardless if the customer uses Windows-specific or non-Windows-specific applications."
"I believe it is the best option on the market."
"The tool's HTTP traffic, website fixing, and blocking are fantastic. It is user-friendly with easy configuration."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall blocks attacks from application layers and provides protection."
 

Cons

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."
"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."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"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."
"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."
"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strategy."
"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"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."
"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."
"FortiWeb WAF's tuning causes trouble. It's complicated. The solution needs to improve the signature feature as well."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall's signature database updates could be improved."
"Regarding areas for improvement, the documentation needs work. We had issues with a customer because the documentation didn't clearly show which devices can connect with FortiWeb WAF, leading to misconfiguration and difficult meetings. We also need deeper technical support - finding who's responsible for technical aspects is challenging. Hungary has a good Fortinet office with strong sales and pre-sales employees."
"WAF needs more signatures on FortiWeb and updates the database continuously to protect against new attacks."
"The product lacks features offered by enterprise-level firewall tools."
"FortiWeb could have an inbound load balancing pack."
"The price is a little higher than the competitors."
"The technical support team is bad."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"We are using the free version."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The product is expensive but it offers flexible pricing. It could be affordable."
"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."
"It is a cost-effective product. If you need an extra module in the product, there will be an extra cost in addition to the licensing fee."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall's pricing is suited for small or medium organizations."
"The product provides very good prices to customers. The price is set well and offers great value for money."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"FortiWeb Web Application Firewall is not expensive."
"The licensing cost of the product is pretty high compared to other OEMs in the market."
"I would rate the pricing a four out of ten."
"The tool is really expensive."
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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%
Government
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Media Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise4
 

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 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...
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.
What do you like most about FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtration, web filter, application filter, and IPS.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
The pricing for FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) is reasonable. That said, it depends on how many websites we ...
What needs improvement with FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF)?
Their AI technology is good. Overall, Fortinet is only good. The improvement needed is in their response time. In the...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Barracuda WAF as a Service
No data available
 

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.
Salvation Army
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
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