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Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs HAProxy vs Imperva DDoS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Kaushlendra Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for load balancing, but its dashboard and reporting could be improved
We use the solution for load balancing The solution's implementation and troubleshooting are not easy. The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved. I have been using HAProxy for 12 years. We didn’t face any issues with the solution’s stability. I rate the solution’s stability an…
DerrickAkankwasa - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide DDoS protection and better security at effective rate
It is expanding its number of data centers for scrubbing traffic. Currently, there is only one POP for cleaning in South Africa. They might add another POP in North Africa, possibly in Nigeria or Egypt. Latency concerns customers, especially in regions like East and West Africa, where traffic has to travel to South Africa before returning. Increasing the number of POPs across the continent would help address these latency issues and improve overall service. While the platform is already quite strong, there’s always room for improvement, especially in keeping up with emerging trends and new types of attacks. Enhancing security capabilities could be beneficial. Integrating more advanced AI features could significantly improve its effectiveness and help customers leverage these tools more effectively. It would be great to see more focus on AI integration to handle and analyze data more efficiently.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our customers value the solution's simplicity."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use and the signature base."
"The customer service and support from Barracuda have been excellent."
"Even when we were upgrading to a new OS, we didn't have any difficulties with the product. The stability is good."
"The updating and signature features are my primary use case for the solution. These features are beneficial to my organization."
"Barracuda Web Application Firewall provides optimized performance, a user-friendly environment, helpful dashboards, and is simple to use."
"The most valuable features of Barracuda Web Application Firewall include advanced bot protection, DDoS protection, and addressing the top ten vulnerabilities."
"It's very simple and predictable, because Barracuda provides a vision of the current state of your application. It gives you an understanding of what is happening on your site and any attempts against you at your source. This is the main value that Web Application Firewall provides our company. These aspects are also the main reason for this documentation process."
"​It has allowed us to evenly distribute the load across a number of servers, and check their health and automatically react to errors."
"We were able to use HAProxy for round robin with our databases, or for a centralized TCP connection in one host."
"We use it as a load balancer for our application servers."
"The support for all major Linux distros makes running and testing a breeze."
"It solves a problem for me where I can build files, not based on the health of the check, but rather the speed of the check."
"HAProxy Enterprise Edition has been rock solid. We have essentially had no downtime caused by our load balancers in the last 10 months, because they’ve worked so well. Previously, our load balancers caused us multiple hours per year in downtime."
"Advanced traffic rules, including stick tables and ACLs, which allow me to shape traffic while it's load balanced."
"HAProxy potentially has a good return on investment"
"The three-second service level agreement is already better than the competition."
"​Technical support provides good, quick responses."
"There are quite a few useful Imperva Incapsula features. For example, one of them is the reports. The graphics are very good and it's easy to configure. The whole process is very fast and reliable too. They have good tech support as well."
"It is a stable solution."
"This product is a reliable defense from malicious attacks on a network environment."
"On the site security, I can see which countries have incidents, whether it was a robot attack, a real human user, or non-human user."
"They're quite easy to install and quite easy to set up. Clients really like that. Especially when you're dealing with the cloud, it's really easy."
"Real-time monitoring is also a great tool, as you may watch several parameters in real time."
 

Cons

"The usability of the interface could be improved."
"The solution could use more reports."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"There are false positives that I am receiving when compared to other WAFs."
"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."
"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."
"The policy updates could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in HAProxy's dynamic configuration."
"There is no standardized document available. So, any individual has to work from scratch to work it out. If some standard deployment details are available, it would be helpful for people while deploying it. There should be more documentation on the standard deployment."
"Maybe HAProxy could be more modular."
"Dynamic update API. More things should be possible to be configured during runtime."
"The product does not have any new technologies."
"The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs."
"​It needs proper HTTP/2 support.​"
"The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved."
"The weakest point of Imperva is their first level of support, which should be improved. They should also improve the access and security logs viewing directly on the portal. I would like to see better access and security logs through the portal and not only through a SIM solution. Currently, if you want to explore your access and security logs from Imperva, you need a SIM tool or a SIM infrastructure on your side to do it. You can't do it manually or directly through the portal, which is a big problem for us. I had a call yesterday with Imperva for the roadmap, and I just told them this. They agreed that this is an improvement point from their side."
"I would like to have support for SSL management and secure DNS."
"Imperva now offers add-ons to add functionality, but I would like to see these included in the product, even if it would cost more."
"We faced issues regarding compliance with client procedures. The client had strict compliance rules, and Imperva needed to be on a VM, while the client required containerization, causing a conflict. They went with Imperva for the on-premise version but shelved the cloud project due to too many blockers."
"Users would benefit from better documentation. There is official documentation, but sometimes we need more detail. We have some use cases that are not so run of the mill. It would be great if there was a knowledge base that we could go to for more answers."
"The rules surrounding the making of web applications could be improved."
"Some maintenance must be performed by our IT team."
"The product could use a broader scope in the area of policies."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing fees are paid annually and the cost is between €600 and €800 (approximately $665.00 to $885.00 USD)."
"They have competitive pricing."
"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 Barracuda Web Application Firewall is quite expensive."
"The product is inexpensive."
"While I would have to check on the price of the solution, I feel it to be okay and it matches the market price."
"Cost is a bit on the higher side. Big companies can afford it."
"The price of this solution is okay."
"The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial."
"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."
"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."
"Test/lab virtual machines can be installed without a licence. They can't be used for performance testing but otherwise behave like production nodes."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"It is free of cost."
"HAProxy is free open-source software."
"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."
"We have an issue with Imperva Incapsula in the Iraqi market because of the high price."
"Pricing could be more competitive."
"​Although the pricing can be a little high, it is worth the protection and security that it offers.​"
"We are satisfied with the pricing."
"The cost is on par with other solutions such as Cloudflare and Akamai."
"The solution's price is high for small companies."
"The license is on a yearly basis."
"It is a very expensive solution. The price is very high. A lot of customers tell us that they would love to use Imperva more. I have some customers who have 50 websites, but they have only 10 websites on Imperva because of the price. They would love to have all their websites running through Imperva, but they can't. They have to choose the more critical websites to protect because the price is very high. It is a very good product, but it is too expensive. If you buy a plan for 20 megabytes and you don't consume all of your 20 megabytes, it is okay, but if you consume more, you are charged for the superior traffic."
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Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Do you recommend HAProxy?
I do recommend HAProxy for more simple applications or for companies with a low budget, since HAProxy is a free, open...
What do you like most about HAProxy?
The solution is effective in managing our traffic.
What do you like most about Imperva Incapsula?
We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provi...
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators o...
 

Also Known As

No data available
HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
Imperva Incapsula
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Oracle, CBS, Pioneer, Hyundai, Publix, Barnes Noble, Calzedonia, Nordstrom, Samsung, Nascar
Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), F5, Microsoft and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.