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Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs Symantec Web Application Firewall 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 Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Web Application Fi...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
31st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Symantec Web Application Firewall is 0.8%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall4.0%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service0.9%
Symantec Web Application Firewall0.8%
Other94.3%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
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.
Samir Paul - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Vatsal Mehta - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Co-Founder & CEO at HEDEHI Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Boosts Security Measures with Easy Deployment and Implementation
Regarding areas for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall, I think they can enhance the features they currently focus on, as there are various types of web applications, and it would be great if they could develop features to cater to all these types. For example, a feature to scan for unauthorized plugins or extensions could let us know if those extensions are authorized, unauthorized, or malicious. There's room for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall by introducing AI into their dashboard so that we can query the dashboard and fetch data insights, similar to querying ChatGPT for answers. They currently have this feature but can make improvements for better querying to get insights.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."
"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."
"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."
"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."
"It protects web applications efficiently."
"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."
"We extensively use the solution every day. The solution is very stable; we haven’t seen any glitches."
"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."
"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service's real-time attack detection feature has improved our customers' threat response strategies significantly."
"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has positively impacted our organization by reducing cyber threats like ransomware and phishing by ninety-five percent."
"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."
"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."
"It provides an ease of policy management."
"The setup was straightforward."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"This product is doing what it should and what we are expecting from it."
"The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats."
"It provides us with a sense of security."
"The best feature of Symantec Web Application Firewall is that it is very easy to use, and the deployment and implementation processes are really easy."
 

Cons

"Cloudflare should update the version of the ModSecurity core rule set that they run on."
"We don't even use Cloudflare Bot Management because it's too expensive; you need to pay per request, and it's much cheaper to get one or two additional machines."
"They need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long."
"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."
"If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."
"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."
"The learning curve was steep initially."
"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."
"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."
"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service can be improved by adding much more security features on a daily basis."
"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The licensing and cost structure perspective may need clear planning."
"Some complex issues take longer to resolve, but overall, we have been satisfied with the support."
"There's room for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall by introducing AI into their dashboard so that we can query the dashboard and fetch data insights, similar to querying ChatGPT for answers."
"It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."
"On a scale from one to 10, I would give it a five. I'm not convinced that it's necessarily the best solution going forward in the future."
"One of our issues is that sometimes scanning slows down the endpoints."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"The solution is expensive."
"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"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 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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Security Firm
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 needs improvement with Symantec Web Application Firewall?
Regarding areas for improvement in Symantec Web Application Firewall, I think they can enhance the features they curr...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Web Application Firewall?
Our use case for Symantec Web Application Firewall is primarily for security purposes as we develop web application s...
What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Web Application Firewall?
I would recommend Symantec Web Application Firewall to other users due to all the benefits I mentioned earlier, such ...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Barracuda WAF as a Service
Symantec WAF, Blue Coat Protecting Web Applications
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Salvation Army
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.