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Kemp LoadMaster vs Symantec Web Application Firewall 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kemp LoadMaster
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
27th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (17th)
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 August 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 3.8%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 1.3%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Web Application Firewall is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall3.8%
Kemp LoadMaster1.3%
Symantec Web Application Firewall0.8%
Other94.1%
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.
IshtiaqKhalil - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Engineer at BOK
Displays flexible, user-friendly interface with minor licensing challenges
The product could be improved with a more intuitive interface for complex configurations and more advanced analytics. Additionally, enhanced security features, like a more robust Web Application Firewall, and stronger APIs for better automation would be beneficial. Overall, the main areas for improvement are in strengthening the advanced features to better meet the demands of large-scale enterprise environments. key features for the next release should focus on three areas. First, an enhanced, next-generation security suite with a more powerful Web Application Firewall (WAF) and integrated bot protection. Second, more advanced and customizable analytics dashboards to provide deeper insights into application performance. Finally, greater support for modern, cloud-native environments, including better APIs for automation and seamless hybrid-cloud traffic management
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

"The product has improved our security posture by blocking bad actors."
"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."
"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."
"It protects web applications efficiently."
"The Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's most valuable feature is its ease of configuration."
"It is a SaaS solution unlike much of the competition."
"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."
"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."
"Kemp Loadmaster gives our customers an easy and cheap way of load-balancing their workloads and adding reverse proxy for added security."
"Once we implemented Kemp and shared our new security scorecard, our projects got extended, so I believe that Kemp has helped to bring us more business."
"Using Kemp as a front-facing service appliance, it allows me to have the flexibility of swapping out real servers behind the scenes without any intervention from my network team."
"The most valuable feature that I found is the load balancing feature, it is the core function of the product."
"We ran a single (non-redundant) LoadMaster appliance in our VMware environment for close to five years with zero outages caused by it, so I am very impressed with the stability of KEMP's devices."
"In terms of the value you get for the amount of money you pay, this is the number one solution."
"The most beneficial function of using the ADC is to ensure this resiliency."
"When the templates are used, there is not much left to configure and they just work!"
"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."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"The solution has an up-to-date data repository to deal with external threats."
"This product is doing what it should and what we are expecting from it."
"The setup was straightforward."
"It provides us with a sense of security."
 

Cons

"The reporting could be improved if it were more granular."
"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."
"If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."
"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."
"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."
"Its stability could be better."
"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."
"I really don't like the way the logs are presented in the software."
"I think there should be more visual instructions on how to configure advanced features."
"So far, the only hitch we have run into is that would have been nice to have an easier method to add allow/whitelist entries into the Access Control lists for virtual services."
"On the improvement side my comment would be about the equivalent hardware based LM (LM-X1) to offer redundant power supply like the more beefier KEMP models do."
"In the next release, Kemp should include the ability for LoadMaster to create different DNS record types."
"Certificate installations could be simplified and modernized, and allowed to be monitored for expirations/issues."
"Obviously, there are a lot of moving parts and fieldssettings on Kemp LoadMaster. Not all the settings are easily understandable."
"The ability to see live traffic is not great and can be improved."
"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."
"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."
"It would be an improvement if the management dashboards were not reliant upon Java."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"It is not too pricey."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"Licensing is yearly and I am going to guess that it is CAN $2000.00."
"The price of the solution is cheap."
"Currently, no cost is involved with a virtual load balancer. They have used open source. We did not pay for software. We paid for the expertise. We are only paying the consulting charges, which are very reasonable, that is, around a thousand dollars."
"It has a very attractive ratio of price/performance."
"Download Kemp's VLM trial and take it for a test drive; you will be impressed."
"The price is great and the value is definitely there."
"This is a cost-efficient product."
"They have multiple tiers of licensing and you can upgrade it easily."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
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 Business24
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise16
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?
My primary advice is to carefully analyze your total cost of ownership (TCO) rather than just the initial purchase pr...
What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?
The product could be improved with a more intuitive interface for complex configurations and more advanced analytics....
What is your primary use case for Kemp LoadMaster?
Our primary use case was traffic load balancing and distribution. The solution was essential for managing all inbound...
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
LoadMaster Load Balancer
Symantec WAF, Blue Coat Protecting Web Applications
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT€ Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Kemp LoadMaster vs. Symantec Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,647 professionals have used our research since 2012.