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Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs Fortinet FortiWeb 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
7.2
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Barracuda Web Application F...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (18th)
Fortinet FortiWeb
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes
Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.
Anne-Aimee Wollerich - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing bot traffic effectively enhances usability for non-technical users
Barracuda Web Application Firewall ( /products/barracuda-web-application-firewall-reviews ) lacks some of the more specified and structured features offered by solutions like Tenable. Although Tenable is more expensive and less easily deployable, its features are more deepened and chiseled, particularly for IT personnel. For example, Tenable provides more comprehensive dark web scanning capabilities, which Barracuda could improve upon.
Kacem CHAMMALI - PeerSpot reviewer
Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb
The xFF, or X-Forwarded-For feature, IP reputation, and protected hostname. We can block access using the IP address, so no one can connect to our web server or website using the real IP. They need to use the FQDN instead. Even if an attacker detects the IP address, they can't connect directly to the server due to FortiWeb and the option to protect the hostname. All traffic passes through FortiWeb. Machine learning capabilities in FortiWeb: I don't use machine learning all the time. In the initial phase of FortiWeb deployment, we use the learning process to detect the traffic passing through FortiGate to our website.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"
"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."
"The solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"Some of the most valuable features are the ease of deployment, the Barracuda support, the easy-to-use console, and the granularity of the reports."
"The customer service and support are exceptional, and I would give them a ten out of ten."
"The solution is user-friendly and easy to set up."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use and the signature base."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward, especially if you enlist assistance."
"Barracuda Web Application Firewall provides optimized performance, a user-friendly environment, helpful dashboards, and is simple to use."
"The updating and signature features are my primary use case for the solution. These features are beneficial to my organization."
"Even when we were upgrading to a new OS, we didn't have any difficulties with the product. The stability is good."
"The reason I recommend this product is because it guarantees that your network will be safe if it is set up properly and you fully utilize most of the functions."
"FortiWeb has antivirus, web filtering, and application control features."
"The most valuable feature is ease of use."
"The most valuable feature is that this product represents a whole solution, including a WAF, and even anti-defacements."
"The ease of configuration is valuable. We have Azure WAF, we have OCI WAF, and we also have Cloud Armor for GCP, but their configuration isn't very easy. It's pretty simple in FortiWeb, and we can enable or configure whatever we want."
"It is a good product. We have just blocked everything coming from some geographical locations or certain countries, and it has been working very efficiently when I look at logs, events, and incidents generated from the system. It is generating very good analytic reports about it. This is the most valuable thing about this solution. It has load balancing and almost everything that a web application firewall needs. It is very flexible and easy to learn and configure. It can be easily learned and configured by using the information available on different channels such as YouTube."
"Fortinet FortiWeb has improved my organization by protecting our customer's web infrastructure environment."
"FortiWeb offers a good price for the marketplace. In the Sri Lankan market, it's hard to find high-end products that can match FortiWeb's pricing. For high-end solutions, the price is always extremely high."
 

Cons

"The pricing could be improved."
"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."
"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"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."
"There are some vulnerabilities that are reported across the tools offered by Barracuda for some devices, which need to be taken care of from an improvement perspective."
"The policy updates could be improved."
"Sometimes when we put it in action, we have some blogs that appear as false positives. I think that it's improving. Barracuda should minimize false positives."
"I would like to see an improved capacity to store logs so that they will be available for a longer time."
"The documentation is lacking. It's not like what you'd get if you were using Juniper or Cisco. They need to expand on it and make it more useful."
"Its interface can be better. It is not very friendly."
"I would like to see a native multi-cloud cover."
"As most people are aware, the implementation is not easy."
"The upgrade process could be a bit smoother."
"Describing security rules should be improved. It's tricky to define new feature tools when you want to describe an attack pattern and want to block it."
"The integration with other products should be improved."
"FortiWeb needs to have support for the newest technology being used in web applications."
"The support side of things can be improved."
"The initial setup is complex."
"When there is downtime at their data center, it becomes a transit point issue for us, causing downtime in our environment as well."
"Integration and learning about attacks. I would improve these areas by making FortiWeb integrate with other network technologies and feedback from multiple platforms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The price is reasonable."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"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."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The price of the solution is a little expensive. There is a license for this solution and it can be purchased every one, two, or five years."
"The price of this solution is okay."
"The price is reasonable, more so than other products."
"The Barracuda Web Application Firewall is quite expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"In my opinion, the product is fairly priced."
"The product is inexpensive."
"They only offer a yearly licensing plan."
"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a ten out of ten."
"It is an expensive suite and it is an expensive solution, but it is a manageable one for an enterprise."
"We are on an annual license for this solution and the price is approximately €100."
"The solution is cheaper compared with other solutions. It has a yearly license."
"The license cost depends on the size of the box or the size of the solution. It can go from €200 Euros to a few hundred thousand Euros a year depending on your size."
"The pricing is in the middle. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten. It feels like a justified cost for the features."
"The maintenance fee for this product could be improved."
"It is fine now. We had to earlier negotiate the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Educational Organization
42%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
It significantly improved our overall web security posture, addressing intrusions and enhancing control over web URLs...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
Our primary use case was to track the traffic on websites or webshops to identify potential malicious actors, such as...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
The pricing for Barracuda is quite high compared to other OEMs. Each transaction requires my purchase team to negotia...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiWeb?
The WAF profiles has been effective at mitigating web-based threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiWeb?
Fortinet FortiWeb is cost-effective compared to solutions like F5. It offers strong performance for the price, provid...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiWeb?
The cloud-based security service of Fortinet FortiWeb could be enhanced to match the level of providers like Cloudfla...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
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.
Oracle, CBS, Pioneer, Hyundai, Publix, Barnes Noble, Calzedonia, Nordstrom, Samsung, Nascar
Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiWeb and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.