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 #19 with an average rating of 10.0, while Progress Software is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.5. Barracuda Networks holds a 0.9% mindshare in WAF, compared to Progress Software’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 83% 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: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

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

March 2026

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Helped 885,311 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 March 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.4%, down from 6.9% 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 Kemp LoadMaster is 1.7%, up from 1.6% 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	5.4%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service	0.9%
Kemp LoadMaster	1.7%
Other	92.0%

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.

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Tarandeep Kaur

DevOps Manager at Flash.co

Security management has reduced ransomware risk and now protects cloud workloads efficiently

The best features that Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service offers are an intuitive centralized dashboard, allowing us to manage policies, Internet protocol servers, antiviruses, anti-DDoS attacks, and traffic shaping across multiple sites. This feature enables seamless scaling of our environments, especially as we work within Amazon Web Services. Additionally, real-time threat intelligence helps us to detect threats in real-time. Another major feature I love is application control and VPN support, providing granular visibility and protection without needing separate appliances. The centralized dashboard is helping us streamline visibility across our admin panels and provides site-to-site visibility deployed directly to our AWS environment, securing VPC traffic and ensuring the firewall is in place. The real-time threat intelligence is an advanced feature helping us track real-time attacks, such as anti-DDoS attacks, ransomware, or viruses that can compromise system integrity. Through the intuitive centralized dashboard, we can manage policies and set rules, assisting us effectively.

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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

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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 protects web applications efficiently."

"Cloudflare has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple clients; I can easily go in and access their accounts, make changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."

"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."

"The initial setup process is simple."

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

"Very glad the WAF rulesets works out of box, and requires very little tuning or maintenance."

"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."

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

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service's real-time attack detection feature has improved our customers' threat response strategies significantly."

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

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

"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."

"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."

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service pros

"The old process of manually having to redirect Outlook Web Access traffic and Email traffic to a second server is a thing of the past."

"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."

"In terms of the value you get for the amount of money you pay, this is the number one solution."

"The most beneficial function of using the ADC is to ensure this resiliency."

"The feature that allows us to easily disconnect a server when we need and bring back online is the most valuable. It's a click of a button. This allows us to keep all systems up. We can then run updates, perform reboots whatever we need to one of the servers without taking production down."

"It's been a great reliable product for us, and I would recommend it to anyone!"

"LoadMaster has greatly helped us with the uptime of our email services."

"We had some issues in patching management, so we deployed this product for virtual patching, the IPS rule, and it gives us very good results because we have very critical servers."

More Kemp LoadMaster pros

Cons

"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."

"The platform's control features related to real-time authentication and response time need improvement."

"The learning curve was steep initially."

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

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"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 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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service cons

"The only thing that I miss is that the TMG server was giving me live information about who is connected and what is the request about."

"I would like to see more automation and control of overactive and inactive resources. If I could schedule these around our updates then it would be all automated. I would like to set up an automated script to coincide with the scripts I use to update resources and servers."

"Hardware version needs a dual power solution."

"With the license purchase afterwards, if it expires, it begins dropping the HTTP traffic, also the DNS traffic."

"To make it a perfect ten out of ten it would need better connection logging. It should also have better management monitoring tools."

"It would be helpful if there were a way to incorporate tooltips on the fields so that we don't have to dig through documentation."

"The only thing that I miss is that the TMG server was giving me live information about who is connected and what is the request about."

"When we go serverless, we may again have to revisit this because the configuration needs to be changed. With this change, we can run into a lot of other configurations that we haven't got into, which involve additional expenses. It would be challenging to convince management to buy at that price point. It would be a balancing act of justifying that expense and the value, that is, how it is going to save a bit of time and make our platform secure. It can have better configuration ability. A lot of iterations happen when we have multiple servers pointing to the same domain. If we do not orchestrate carefully, it gets into a loop, which takes away the precious time of the user who is trying to subscribe to a service. It takes a little longer time to realize services as well as web pages."

More Kemp LoadMaster cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

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

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

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

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

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

"It is not too pricey."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"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."

"Licensing is yearly and I am going to guess that it is CAN $2000.00."

"The price of the solution is cheap."

"Less expensive than Citrix."

"Setup is easy, the cost is affordable, and the licensing is quick and simple."

"At $2,500 USD, this is absolutely a fantastic buy for the money!"

"This is a cost-efficient product."

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

"Any decent product will cost money and if you want great support and a great product, then you will want to spend the money on it."

More Kemp LoadMaster pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

13%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Government

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Media Company

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

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	5
Large Enterprise	2

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

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

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

I see that cost can be a limitation for small businesses. Additionally, if they can provide more advanced features an...

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

We primarily use Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service for raising security incidents by proactively blocking malware, ransomwar...

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

I rate Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service a five out of five overall. The reason I choose five out of five is that all the th...

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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

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

Alibaba Cloud WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 3% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb 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

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

Compared 8% of the time

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

Compared 7% of the time

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Competitors

NetScaler vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 15% of the time

HAProxy vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 14% of the time

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

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 9% of the time

NGINX Plus vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 9% of the time

More Kemp LoadMaster Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

March 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

March 2026

Download Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service product report

Buyer's Guide

Kemp LoadMaster

March 2026

Download Kemp LoadMaster product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

Barracuda WAF as a Service

LoadMaster Load Balancer

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

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

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

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

March 2026

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: March 2026.

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