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Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer comparison

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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare WAF offers quick ROI, crucial protection for e-commerce, saves bandwidth, and balances cost with valuable free features.
Sentiment score
6.7
Barracuda Web Application Firewall ensures cost-effective security, delivering 10% ROI and crucial protection during challenging times like the COVID pandemic.
Sentiment score
4.4
VMWare Avi Load Balancer offers improved failover and cost-efficiency, though benefits vary based on specific use cases.
My experience with the pricing or licensing of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is that many features can be accessed for free, so the pricing is definitely reasonable.
Owner at Hga consulting
My development team is working on the latest language tools or applications, so until then, this web application firewall is essential in my network to protect my existing online assets or software.
Director Information Technology at College of Physicians & Surgeons Pakistan
We have seen a return on investment as the manual work for monitoring attacks and generating reports is reduced significantly, saving money.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
VMWare Avi Load Balancer has created a smoother failover process without issues, keeping the state normal, where typically there would be manual intervention.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
I have not found any return on investment so far, as it does not really lend itself to that; it is more about not having to stand up another data center for redundancy.
Vdi Consultant at Garbutt Ltd
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Cloudflare WAF support is mixed; responsive for some, but Indian customers face call availability and administrative issues.
Sentiment score
6.6
Barracuda Web Application Firewall support is effective but varies by location, technician expertise, and response times.
Sentiment score
6.0
VMware Avi Load Balancer's customer service is praised for integration but receives mixed feedback on support efficiency and consistency.
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.
Owner at Hga consulting
The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
I would rate customer support a solid ten, as they are consistently on top of every issue, addressing them without delays and providing excellent support twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The customer service and support from Barracuda have been excellent.
Technical Lead at cmsit services
The customer service and support are exceptional, and I would give them a ten out of ten.
Cyber Security Consultant at Axle iT
The solution architect from VMware side told me that there would be no issue adding them. Here we are with an RFP, and we cannot add them easily.
Pre Sales at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The support for VMWare Avi Load Balancer is really good, and the integration with other tools is really effective, which makes the overall experience smoother.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
I find their knowledge base limited and very difficult to navigate for finding information.
Vdi Consultant at Garbutt Ltd
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers impressive scalability and automated management, but additional features may incur costs for smaller organizations.
Sentiment score
6.6
Barracuda Web Application Firewall is scalable, with easy upgrades, though physical appliance limitations and configuration issues exist.
Sentiment score
6.9
VMWare Avi Load Balancer generally scales well due to its architecture, despite varying user experiences with infrastructure constraints.
The scalability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between 8 to 9, as it depends upon the use cases and what exactly the client needs.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
The VMSS feature allows for easy upgrades or scaling of virtual editions.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
I believe Barracuda Web Application Firewall is quite scalable, and I would rate it as an eight.
Cyber Security Consultant at Axle iT
In my role as a database engineer, scalability works in two layers and rarely becomes a bottleneck.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
Scalability-wise, VMWare Avi Load Balancer is good.
Trainer/Consultant at Koenig Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
It does not have built-in failover capabilities.
Vdi Consultant at Garbutt Ltd
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is praised for stability, high performance, effective protection, daily use, and minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
7.9
Barracuda Web Application Firewall is highly stable and reliable, with occasional performance issues and minor GUI crashes reported.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMWare Avi Load Balancer is stable with quick recovery and analytics but struggles under heavy traffic, possibly due to hardware.
The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
These result in clients complaining about blocked transactions on a daily basis.
Technical Lead at cmsit services
Barracuda Web Application Firewall is stable in my experience.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
VMWare Avi Load Balancer is very reliable and stable.
Vdi Consultant at Garbutt Ltd
From a stability point of view, VMWare Avi Load Balancer is stable.
Trainer/Consultant at Koenig Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare WAF needs feature enhancements, better usability, improved support, advanced DDoS protection, and solutions for latency and alerts.
Barracuda Web Application Firewall needs improvements in log storage, interface, API security, scalability, pricing, support, and documentation.
VMWare Avi Load Balancer needs improved WAF protection, multi-cloud capabilities, interoperability, security, integration, and Kubernetes feature enhancements.
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.
Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
I think they're doing a good job with DNS and as support for any domains that I create or that my clients create, it's mandatory for me to ensure they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider.
Owner at Hga consulting
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.
CTO at PlayNirvana
Reducing false positives must be a priority.
Director Information Technology at College of Physicians & Surgeons Pakistan
The issues with false positives affect client transactions, leading to complaints about blocked transactions.
Technical Lead at cmsit services
Tenable provides more comprehensive dark web scanning capabilities, which Barracuda could improve upon.
Cyber Security Consultant at Axle iT
Multi-cloud capability comes from a configuration called NSX Extended.
Pre Sales at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The need for policy execution tracing to simplify debugging is evident because if connections are routed incorrectly, for example, directly to a replica, debugging can become painful in production.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
It would also be beneficial to have true VMWare Avi Load Balancer failover at the VMWare Avi Load Balancer level.
Vdi Consultant at Garbutt Ltd
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers affordable, flexible pricing with no upfront costs, noted for competitiveness and included support services.
Barracuda Web Application Firewall offers competitive pricing with negotiable terms, despite being costly for some European users.
VMWare Avi Load Balancer is cost-effective, competitive, with flexible licensing options based on bandwidth or CPU usage.
I requested a quote from Barracuda's UK team, which was half the price I was quoted in Pakistan.
Director Information Technology at College of Physicians & Surgeons Pakistan
The pricing for Barracuda is quite high compared to other OEMs.
Technical Lead at cmsit services
They are competitive when compared to other vendors including F5 and Imperva, who tend to have higher prices.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
it operates on a capacity and consumption model, unlike traditional appliances that charge based on hardware.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides comprehensive security features, easy setup, scalability, and competitive pricing with praised performance and stability.
Barracuda Web Application Firewall enhances security and efficiency with features like bot management, real-time threat detection, and DDoS protection.
VMWare Avi Load Balancer offers cloud-native delivery, policy-driven architecture, centralized control, enhanced security, and advanced analytics for users.
The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.
Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.
IT Manager at Amla Commerce
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools add a layer that we're able to visualize and see before it actually hits the local firewall.
Owner at Hga consulting
The most valuable features of Barracuda Web Application Firewall include advanced bot protection, DDoS protection, and addressing the top ten vulnerabilities.
Technical Lead at cmsit services
This process protects against attacks including SQL injection or cross-site scripting, where Barracuda Web Application Firewall will block any request that matches attack signatures.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The most valuable feature of Barracuda Web Application Firewall is managing bot traffic.
Cyber Security Consultant at Axle iT
Since implementing VMWare Avi Load Balancer, we no longer need to manually change IP addresses in our configuration, as Avi automates this process, which controls traffic and network appropriately, adding a layer of security and assurance.
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
The special capability I appreciate about VMWare Avi Load Balancer is its ease of use; it is very lightweight and quite inexpensive to deploy.
Vdi Consultant at Garbutt Ltd
The features I find most valuable in VMware Avi Load Balancer are the load balancing part and the WAF part.
Trainer/Consultant at Koenig Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th)
Barracuda Web Application F...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (17th)
VMWare Avi Load Balancer
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Barracuda Web Application Firewall1.9%
Imperva Application Security Platform7.7%
Fortinet FortiWeb6.0%
Other84.4%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMWare Avi Load Balancer4.9%
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)13.0%
NetScaler12.1%
Other70.0%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

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.
Shahzad Abid - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Information Technology at College of Physicians & Surgeons Pakistan
Has protected our legacy applications effectively but has required constant manual filtering due to false positives
I assess the effectiveness of the machine learning-driven threat detection in Barracuda Web Application Firewall as sometimes behaving abnormally, often showing me false positive attacks, so I have to fix these attacks from time to time. From a stability point of view, I would definitely rate Barracuda Web Application Firewall a seven out of ten. There is definitely some room for improvement; nothing is perfect in the world. I am not satisfied with the technical support from Barracuda. I am somewhat disappointed with the technical support that I have received so far. Whenever I generate a ticket for my problem, it goes to the Indian support team, and they all the time start with the most junior team member, consuming all my precious time. At the end, I have to close that ticket without any satisfactory solution. I have complained that they should shift my support to any other region because I don't need Indian support; they are simply pathetic and not up to mark. To improve Barracuda Web Application Firewall, customers should be given ongoing training opportunities regarding the product and its features. I am not familiar with many features that are available, only using those which are necessary for my applications. I believe Barracuda must provide clearer product information or training sessions to make it more user-friendly, as sometimes its interface can be rigid and lacking in helpful resources or user tutorials about its features. For it to get closer to a ten, I think advanced reporting is missing because, as I mentioned earlier, there are many false positive events being recorded. Often, when I analyze these attacks, they turn out to be genuine customers or users interacting with my product, but Barracuda tags them as attackers. Reducing false positives must be a priority.
Suleiman  Mohammed - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Database Engineer, SRE at Interswitch Group
Improved database high availability has simplified failover and optimized read write routing
In my opinion, VMWare Avi Load Balancer is a complicated tool with many advanced features that can be beneficial, but policies are powerful yet difficult to debug when traffic behaves unexpectedly or becomes heavy. This complexity can make it challenging to pinpoint where a request goes. The need for policy execution tracing to simplify debugging is evident because if connections are routed incorrectly, for example, directly to a replica, debugging can become painful in production. There are still improvements to be made, particularly in simpler policy debugging. A clearer view of traffic routing for each database would greatly enhance the experience.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
 

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 Business26
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
 

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 is your primary use case for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
I have been working with Barracuda Web Application Firewall for more than almost three and a half years. Its main use...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Barracuda Web Application Firewall are reasonable. They are competitive wh...
What needs improvement with Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
The areas where it could be better are in security profiles, where a single service can have only one policy. There i...
What needs improvement with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
The issue with load balancers is that they are all the same. I would rate it seven. I do not recall VMWare Avi Load B...
What advice do you have for others considering Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
We tested some scripts, but they did not fulfill everything. My recommendation is to reduce the price and make it two...
What is your primary use case for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
We are using native cloud capability. The issue is not from us. VMware changed their module. They are selling perpetu...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
No data available
Avi Software Load Balancer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Oracle, CBS, Pioneer, Hyundai, Publix, Barnes Noble, Calzedonia, Nordstrom, Samsung, Nascar
Palo Alto Networks, DGDean, Swisslos
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Fortinet, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: May 2026.
896,387 professionals have used our research since 2012.