Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

Barracuda Networks and Progress Software are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #35, while Progress Software is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.5. Additionally, 75% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and Kemp LoadMaster based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

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

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Kemp LoadMaster

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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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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IshtiaqKhalil

Information Security Engineer at BOK

Displays flexible, user-friendly interface with minor licensing challenges

The product could be improved with a more intuitive interface for complex configurations and more advanced analytics. Additionally, enhanced security features, like a more robust Web Application Firewall, and stronger APIs for better automation would be beneficial. Overall, the main areas for improvement are in strengthening the advanced features to better meet the demands of large-scale enterprise environments. key features for the next release should focus on three areas. First, an enhanced, next-generation security suite with a more powerful Web Application Firewall (WAF) and integrated bot protection. Second, more advanced and customizable analytics dashboards to provide deeper insights into application performance. Finally, greater support for modern, cloud-native environments, including better APIs for automation and seamless hybrid-cloud traffic management

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

"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."

"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."

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

"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."

"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."

"Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host."

"Even when there is a high load on our servers, Cloudflare is able to cache the data and serve it to users, ensuring they can still access the website."

"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."

More Cloudflare pros

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

"It provides an ease of policy management."

"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 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"

"The most valuable feature so far has been the high-availability options that allowed us to add an additional Kemp LoadMaster VLM virtual appliance into our VMware vSphere environment, to provide failover for our existing LoadMaster."

"I like the way this solution handles multiple SSLs in different domains while still load balancing."

"The most valuable features for us are the Load Balancing and Web Application Firewall, as we have a lot of web applications."

"The user interface is very easy to work with."

"Security is considered the most effective feature in Kemp LoadMaster."

"Edge Security Pack is valuable because of the way it separates between critical infrastructure and the public internet."

"The configuration is really easy and the web portal is self-explanatory."

"Exchange load balancing and reverse proxy for Skype for Business are key features."

More Kemp LoadMaster pros

Cons

"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."

"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."

"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."

"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."

"The pricing could be improved."

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

"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."

"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."

More Cloudflare cons

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

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

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

"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."

"The only thing I have struggled with is setting up automatic backups."

"I definitely think that the WAF can be improved."

"The auth website of ESP is really lacking. It’s not responsive (mobile friendly) and the procedure of changing the website is difficult. We tend to avoid using pre-auth for that reason."

"In my opinion, the layer seven loads balancing that we're mainly using for web servers, doesn't seem to pick up when there are issues at the application level."

"UI is very basic and unattractive."

"In the next release, Kemp should include the ability for LoadMaster to create different DNS record types."

"I really don't like the way the logs are presented in the software."

"It would be nice if the historical metrics were easily exportable from the interface."

More Kemp LoadMaster cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"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."

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

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

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

"The price is reasonable."

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

More Cloudflare 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."

"Currently, no cost is involved with a virtual load balancer. They have used open source. We did not pay for software. We paid for the expertise. We are only paying the consulting charges, which are very reasonable, that is, around a thousand dollars."

"The price is great and the value is definitely there."

"Download Kemp's VLM trial and take it for a test drive; you will be impressed."

"The product definitely provides what the organization needs and its cost is reasonable considering the value it brings."

"This is a cost-efficient product."

"Less expensive than Citrix."

"The price is lower than other options."

"Pricing for the perpetual licensing was fair to us for the features and ease of use we received."

More Kemp LoadMaster pricing and cost advice

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.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	16

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?

My primary advice is to carefully analyze your total cost of ownership (TCO) rather than just the initial purchase pr...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?

The product could be improved with a more intuitive interface for complex configurations and more advanced analytics....

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Kemp LoadMaster?

Our primary use case was traffic load balancing and distribution. The solution was essential for managing all inbound...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 50% 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

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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

Compared 47% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 15% of the time

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

Compared 14% of the time

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

Compared 13% of the time

AWS WAF vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 10% of the time

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HAProxy vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 17% of the time

NetScaler vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 12% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 11% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 10% of the time

NGINX Plus vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

January 2026

Download Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service product report

Buyer's Guide

Kemp LoadMaster

December 2025

Download Kemp LoadMaster product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Barracuda WAF as a Service

LoadMaster Load Balancer

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

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

Kemp LoadMaster is a powerful load balancing solution that also serves as a web application firewall. Its primary use case is load balancing and application load balancing, making it an ideal solution for organizations that must distribute traffic across multiple servers. Kemp's integration with an active directory for ESP usage, hosting/deployment of SSL certificates, and pricing are some of its most valuable features.

Using Kemp has helped organizations mitigate cross-scripting vulnerabilities, cookie-related issues, and content security policy issues. It has also allowed them to handle everything with Kemp instead of working on each application individually.

Progress Software

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

Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Kemp LoadMaster

December 2025

Free Report: Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Kemp LoadMaster

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

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