Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs HAProxy comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Barracuda Web Application Firewall and HAProxy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Amazon and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF).
To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: February 2023).
687,256 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"If an attack is coming continuously, you can ask the device to block it temporarily for two to three minutes. F5 has not provided us with an option to block certain IPs for some time. Barracuda can help you block someone if the source is from a different IP. You can apply the rule to the device and block it for whatsoever time you want. The solution will unblock the IP after the prescribed time as well.""Setup of this solution is straightforward. It's a stable and scalable solution, with good performance and fast technical support.""What I like most about Barracuda Web Application Firewall is its availability. I also like that it's an easy-to-use solution.""The most valuable feature is the rule set.""Has a good dashboard.""The solution has been quite stable. It's reliable.""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.""Barracuda Web Application Firewall provides optimized performance, a user-friendly environment, helpful dashboards, and is simple to use."

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"The most valuable feature of HAProxy is that its open source.""We don't have a problem with the user interface. it's good.""Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind.""The solution is user-friendly and efficient.""It is scalable.""The most valuable thing for me is TCP/IP Layer 4 stuff you can do with HAProxy. You can go down to the protocol level and make decisions on something.""I can't speak to all of the HAProxy features because we don't use them all, but load balancing is very good.""Load balancing is valuable, and we are also using the WAF feature."

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Cons
"As most people are aware, the implementation is not easy.""I have issues with the load balancing of the solution which is slow. The connection pooling in Barracuda also doesn't work. There is an issue when someone needs access to a site quickly. The issue is with HTTPS services. I am not sure if they have changed all these in the solution’s latest version.""Barracuda Web Application Firewall's load balancing feature could be improved.""An area for improvement in Barracuda Web Application Firewall is attack identification. Other banks identified attacks and tracked logs that the solution wasn't able to identify because of its ready-made rules pre-deployed by the vendor. My organization raised this issue with the technical support team. Another area to improve in Barracuda Web Application Firewall is its service desk. The team resorted to stonewalling because they couldn't accept that a feature was missing in the solution, and it was only after a lot of drilling down that the service desk team accepted that, and would be adding that feature in the future. My organization had to submit a report to the Reserve Bank of India with information on the logs identified and the attacks that happened, and that there was a failure on the part of the Barracuda Web Application Firewall. The Reserve Bank of India conducts a tri-monthly cyber risk audit in all Indian banks. Even smaller banks identified and caught attacks that my organization wasn't able to do, so I was looking into other solutions that competitor banks could be using because Barracuda Web Application Firewall failed to identify some of the attacks.""I have found F5 more stable than Barracuda Web Application Firewall. They should improve the stability.""It would be better if their updates would be released annually.""While the UI is good, it can get a little bit complicated.""There are issues when upgrading firewalls and we experience different issues across customers."

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"I would like to see better search handling, and a user interface, with a complete functional graphical unit""Sometimes it's challenging to get through the log, and you need a log to understand what is going on. It isn't easy to map the logging with the documentation, and every time I read the log, I have to pull out the documentation to understand what I'm reading.""The reconfigurability in terms of the tooling could be improved and maybe an editor plugin can be added.""While troubleshooting, we are having some difficulties. There are no issues when it is running; it is stable and very good; however, if there is a troubleshooting issue or an incident occurs, we will have issues because this is open-source.""The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs.""HAProxy could improve by making the dashboards easier to use, and better reports and administration tickets.""HAProxy could do with some good combination integrations.""We've changed solutions as it doesn't fit with our current needs."

More HAProxy Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "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."
  • "While I would have to check on the price of the solution, I feel it to be okay and it matches the market price."
  • "The price is reasonable, more so than other products."
  • "They only offer a yearly licensing plan."
  • "The solution is based on a licensing model and might be $360 for the hybrid version."
  • "The pricing is reasonable."
  • More Barracuda Web Application Firewall Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It is free of cost."
  • "HAProxy is free open-source software."
  • "When it comes to pricing HAProxy is free."
  • "HAProxy is a free open-source solution."
  • "The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."
  • More HAProxy Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:We used Barracuda Web Application Firewall to protect the banking system. There were cyber drills where we had to find some logs, share those logs, and identify the attacks.
    Top Answer:I do recommend HAProxy for more simple applications or for companies with a low budget, since HAProxy is a free, open-source product. HAProxy is also a good choice for someone looking for a stable… more »
    Top Answer:The features I find valuable in this solution are session control which automatically disconnects users that forget to log off, and the ability to write rules to either allow or block certain file… more »
    Ranking
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    5,132
    Comparisons
    3,970
    Reviews
    13
    Average Words per Review
    435
    Rating
    7.7
    Views
    11,919
    Comparisons
    8,862
    Reviews
    12
    Average Words per Review
    451
    Rating
    7.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
    Learn More
    HAProxy
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    Overview

    Barracuda Web Application Firewall is a game-changing cloud-connected security solution that enables organizations to safeguard both their applications and their data from an ever-growing array of advanced cyber threats. It offers protection from cyber attacks that target not only data and applications stored on the cloud but also those that are housed on web servers. 43% of the time a breach takes place via a compromised application. Barracuda Web Application Firewall prevents these types of breaches from occurring.

    Barracuda Web Application Firewall denies hackers the ability to penetrate your system by using a number of techniques to keep your organization safely insulated. The first method of protection consists of two parts. The first part involves a thorough scanning of all inbound web traffic. This solution monitors everything that comes into the system. It employs IP reputation intelligence, which filters all incoming data. If the source of the data has a bad reputation, it is blocked by the firewall. Administrators now have a way of locking out many common threats that could otherwise compromise sensitive networks. These scans can also allow administrators to protect their systems from within as DLP (Data Loss Prevention) protocols. If any sensitive data attempts to leave, administrators will automatically be alerted and the data will be blocked from exiting.

    Barracuda Web Application Firewall can also be set up to apply the AAA (Authentication, Authorization & Accounting) framework to an organization’s network. If an intruder manages to get past the authentication stage, the authorization protocols kick in. After the authorization stage comes accounting, which works by tracking and logging users’ activities so that administrators will be in a position to prevent long-term damage from being done. This three-step process can be implemented without requiring administrators to make changes to their applications.

    Key Features

    Some of Barracuda Web Application Firewall’s key features include:

    • The ability to employ adaptive profiling. Administrators will have an easier time enforcing security policies once this feature is enabled. It takes data from safe sources and builds profiles that can be used to create whitelisting protocols that prevent unsafe actions from occurring on the system.
    • The ability to assess threats in real time. Barracuda Web Application Firewall uses machine learning to detect new threats and attacks as they emerge.
    • The ability to manage the Barracuda Web Application Firewall system from a single interface. Administrators can manage their Barracuda Web Application Firewall configurations from one centralized location.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Barracuda Web Application Firewall stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. One of the main ones is the robustness of the solution. Users are given access to a vast variety of security features in a single product.

    PeerSpot user Muhammed S., a Presales Solutions Architect at Hilal Computers, notes this when he writes, "The solution offers multiple security features. There are machine learning features and great URL encryption. It also offers multi-protocol support against DDoS attacks."

    Other reviewers note that Barracuda Web Application Firewall is user-friendly, easy to set up, stable, and reliable.

    HAProxy is considered by many in the industry to be one of the fastest and most popular and trusted software load balancer products in the marketplace today. Organizations are able to immediately deploy HAProxy solutions to enable websites and applications to optimize performance, security, and observability. HAProxy solutions are available to scale to any environment.

    HAProxy is an open-source product and has a robust, active, reliable community. The solutions are continually tested and improved on by the community. HAProxy offers a dynamic design to support the most modern architectures, microservices, and deployment environments (appliances, containers, virtual, and cloud).

    HAProxy utilizes a cloud-native protocol, which makes it a complete solution for cloud services such as Red Hat OpenShift, OVH, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more. It also can be used as the reference load balancer in OpenStack.

    HAProxy Products

    • HAProxy One: This is a next-gen end-to-end application delivery platform created to secure and streamline modern application architectures. It offers a complete suite of solutions, such as application delivery software, turnkey, and appliance services observed and administered through a central control plane. The product supplies application acceleration, CDN, DDoS, bot management, WAF capabilities, and load balancing.
    • HAProxy Fusion Control Plane: This product enables organizations to streamline workflows, arrange traffic routing and security protocols, enhance the speed of delivery, and scale out of the organization’s applications. HAProxy Fusion Control Plane offers an intuitive user interface to observe and control the complete product lineup and API for administering numerous fleets of HAProxy Enterprise servers, either in the cloud or on premises.
    • HAProxy Edge: This product offering is an application delivery network (ADN) that provides a broad array of turnkey application services with amazing scale and complete visibility. Services include application and content acceleration, advanced security, and load balancing.
    • HAProxy ALOHA Hardware or Virtual Load Balancer: This product is a virtual load balancer or plug-and-play hardware constructed upon HAProxy Enterprise that is designed to support proxying at Layer 4 and Layer 7. It has a user-friendly GUI, simple deployment, and no limit on backend servers, making it a complete product for organizations desiring a reliable system to provide high-end load distribution for critical services.
    • HAProxy Enterprise Kubernetes Ingress Controller: This product is designed to facilitate smooth traffic flow into a Kubernetes cluster. It is able to automatically discover anomalies and changes in an organization's Kubernetes infrastructure and provide precise distribution of traffic to healthy pods, with no downtime caused by poor pod health or scaling changes. The product comes with an embedded WAF to optimize the security of an organization’s applications running in Kubernetes.
    • HAProxy Enterprise: This product is the enterprise-class edition of HAProxy offering a dynamic and sturdy code base with next-generation features, an enterprise suite of add-ons, professional services, and trusted support. 

      • Cluster-wide tracking and rate limiting
      • Advanced DDoS and bot management
      • Web application firewall
      • Reliable expert support
      • High performance modules
      • Device detection and geolocation
      • Real-time dashboard

    Reviews from Real Users

    Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind.” - Nathanel S., Platform Architect at SES

    “I use HAProxy for individuals who can not buy low balancers. I built NFV in a box and send individuals a pathway into an HAProxy VM. The setup was not difficult; it usually takes a day to complete for a VPC. When it comes to pricing, HAProxy is free.” - Nasir O., Network & Cloud Architect at Koala Compute Inc.

    Offer
    Learn more about Barracuda Web Application Firewall
    Learn more about HAProxy
    Sample Customers
    Oracle, CBS, Pioneer, Hyundai, Publix, Barnes Noble, Calzedonia, Nordstrom, Samsung, Nascar
    Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider30%
    Maritime Company20%
    Wholesaler/Distributor10%
    Non Profit10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm33%
    Retailer17%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Large Enterprise36%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise60%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise38%
    Large Enterprise32%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise63%
    Buyer's Guide
    Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    February 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Amazon and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: February 2023.
    687,256 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Barracuda Web Application Firewall is ranked 8th in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 14 reviews while HAProxy is ranked 5th in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 12 reviews. Barracuda Web Application Firewall is rated 7.8, while HAProxy is rated 7.2. The top reviewer of Barracuda Web Application Firewall writes "Reliable and stable with a straightforward setup". On the other hand, the top reviewer of HAProxy writes "You can go down to the protocol level and make decisions on something". Barracuda Web Application Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiWeb, F5 Advanced WAF, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, AWS WAF and Imperva DDoS, whereas HAProxy is most compared with NGINX Plus, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, Kemp LoadMaster, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Fortinet FortiADC.

    We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.