Top 10 Best Web Application Firewall (WAF) in 2025

A Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a security solution designed to protect web applications by monitoring, filtering, and blocking malicious HTTP/S traffic.

Operating at the OSI model’s application layer (Layer 7), a WAF acts as a reverse proxy between users and web applications, analyzing incoming requests and outgoing responses to identify and mitigate potential threats.

It is particularly effective against common vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.

How a WAF Works

A WAF inspects HTTP/S traffic using predefined rules or policies to detect malicious patterns. Here’s how it operates:

• Traffic Inspection: It examines HTTP methods (e.g., GET, POST), headers, query strings, and request bodies for suspicious activity.
• Filtering Models:
• Negative Security Model: Blocks known malicious patterns or signatures.
• Positive Security Model: Allows only known legitimate traffic while scrutinizing anomalies.
• Real-Time Blocking: Malicious requests are blocked before reaching the web server, while legitimate traffic is allowed through.
• Data Protection: Prevents sensitive data leakage by masking or blocking certain responses.
• Deployment Modes: Commonly deployed as a reverse proxy, ensuring all traffic passes through the WAF for inspection.

Types of WAFs

WAFs are categorized based on their deployment method and environment:

Network-Based WAF:

• Deployed as hardware appliances within an organization’s network.
• Offers low latency and scalability but requires significant investment in physical equipment and maintenance.

Host-Based WAF:

• Software installed on individual servers or virtual machines.
• Provides granular control and customization but consumes local resources and can be complex to implement.

Cloud-Based WAF:

• Hosted by third-party providers, offering scalability and ease of deployment.
• Cost-effective with automatic updates but relies on external management for security.

Benefits of Using a WAF

• Protection Against OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities: Defends against critical threats like SQL injection, XSS, and broken access control.
• Compliance Support: Helps meet regulatory requirements such as PCI DSS by securing sensitive data.
• Scalability: Cloud-based WAFs adapt to fluctuating traffic volumes.
• Enhanced Security Layers: Complements other security tools like intrusion prevention systems (IPS) for a comprehensive defense strategy.

Table of Contents

What is WAF Position in OSI Model?
10 Best Web Application Firewall (WAF) Solutions 2025
10 Best Web Application Firewalls (WAF) Features
1. AppTrana Managed WAF
2. Imperva Cloud WAF
3. Cloudflare WAF
4. F5 Advanced WAF
5. AWS WAF
6. Akamai Kona Site Defender
7. Fortinet FortiWeb
8. Barracuda Web Application Firewall
9. Sucuri WAF
10. SafeLine WAF
Faq

What is WAF Position in the OSI Model?

These days, the number and scope of attacks against web applications have increased and are already at an alarming level. Because of all these attacks, implementing a WAF becomes very important.

Cloud-based WAFs are inexpensive and protect web applications from many known vulnerabilities that can lead to data compromise. Therefore, you should implement a WAF on your network to keep your web application servers more secure.

To protect your applications and prevent attackers from exploiting this newly discovered vulnerability, several of the best WAFs can patch vulnerabilities as soon as they are discovered.

10 Best Web Application Firewall (WAF) Solutions 2025

• Cloudflare WAF: Global cloud WAF with real-time threat detection and mitigation, protecting against OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities.
• Imperva Cloud WAF: Cloud-based WAF offers robust protection against a wide range of web application threats with automated security updates.
• F5 Advanced WAF: Comprehensive WAF with advanced security features, including bot protection, DDoS mitigation, and API security.
• AppTrana Managed WAF: Provides fully managed WAF services with integrated risk-based protection and continuous monitoring.
• AWS WAF: Scalable WAF that integrates with AWS services to protect web applications from common exploits.
• Akamai Kona Site Defender: Enterprise-level WAF that combines DDoS protection and web application security in a single platform.
• Fortinet FortiWeb: Hardware and virtual WAF solutions offering AI-driven threat detection and protection against web application vulnerabilities.
• Barracuda Web Application Firewall: Provides robust, real-time protection with integrated DDoS defense and advanced threat intelligence.
• Sucuri WAF: Cloud-based WAF focused on protecting websites from hacks and DDoS attacks, with integrated performance optimization.
• SafeLine WAF: Self-hosted WAF that offers bot defense, rate limiting, L7 DDoS mitigation, identity auth, and customizable security rules — highly affordable, easy to deploy & configure for SMBs.

10 Best Web Application Firewalls (WAF) Features

Best WAF Solutions	Key Features
1. Cloudflare WAF	1. Denial-of-service attacks mitigated 2. Activity log 3. Top events by source 4. Events by service 5. Events summary
2. Imperva Cloud WAF	1. RASP(Runtime Application Self-Protection) 2. API Security 3. Advanced Bot Protection 4. DDoS Protection 5. Attack Analytics
3. F5 Advanced WAF	1. Comprehensive F5 web application security 2. Cost-effective and easy-to-manage compliance 3. Streamlined out‑of‑the‑box security 4. Deployment flexibility for virtualized and private clouds 5. Stolen credential protection
4. AppTrana Managed Web Application Firewall	1. Instant and Easy Setup 2. Active Bot Protection Management 3. Built-in Ruleset 4. Customized Ruleset 5. Comprehensive Threat Coverage
5. AWS WAF	1. Blocks Malicious Bots 2. Protection against common Vulnerabilities 3. Easy and Quick to implement 4. REST API 5. Intelligent Threat Mitigation
6. Akamai Kona Site Defender	1. High configurability 2. Zero-second SLA 3. Actionable insights 4. API discovery & security 5. Flexible management
7. Fortinet FortiWeb	1. Web application security 2. Bot defense 3. Api discovery and protection 4. Soc operations 5. Regulatory compliance
8. Barracuda WAF	1. Cloud Native for modern workload 2. Agile-friendly and DevOps ready 3. mobile app protection 4. Stop Bad Bots 5. Ensure protection from Web Attacks and DDoS
9. Sucuri WAF	1. Virtual Patching and Hardening 2. Block DDoS Attacks 3. Protected Pages 4. IP Allowlisting 5. Application Profiling
10. SafeLine WAF	1. Advanced Bot Defense 2. Rate Limiting & L7 DDoS Mitigation 3. Identity Authentication 4. Customizable Allow & Deny Rules 5. Easy Self-hosted Deployment & Super Affordable

1. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Cloudflare is positioned as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic QuadrantTM for WAAP, 2022.

There are four pricing tiers available on Cloudflare:

• free
• pro
• business
• enterprise

In order to enhance WAF security, Cloudflare WAF recently implemented machine learning.Customers at the Enterprise, Pro, and Biz tiers can have early access to the new detections.But this deal isn’t open to the public just yet.

You’ll have to put your name on a list to take advantage of this deal until it goes public.

Features

• Cloudflare WAF guards against the top 10 OWASP vulnerabilities.
• Some of these are SQL attack, XSS, running code from afar, and others.
• These users can make their own rules for protecting online apps.
• Using behavioral analytics, it finds and stops behavior that seems odd.
• Cloudflare WAF stops DDoS attacks as well as application-layer protection.

What is Good?	What Could Be Better?
Load Balancing is present.	Third-party Integration poses a problem.
Technical Support is fast to response	The report could be more granular.
Customizable security rules.
Improves threat visibility with extensive insights and analytics.

2. Imperva Cloud Web Application Firewall

Imperva Cloud WAF’s automated policy formulation and rapid rule propagation help secure online applications and simplify DevOps’ third-party code work. Mitigate.

Software execution environment protection Real-time attack detection protects web applications from external attacks and injections.

All vulnerable web app sections, including API endpoints, are automatically safeguarded. Edge traffic blocking is the best technique for ensuring uptime and business continuity without sacrificing throughput.

The Imperva WAF is available in two distinct flavors:

• Waf SaaS
• In-House WAF or Hosted Cloud WAF

Features

• Imperva Cloud WAF protects against OWASP Top 10 flaws, SQL injection, XSS, and remote file inclusion in a strong way.
• It has great tools for stopping bots.
• It shields online programs from DDoS attacks that are based on volume, application layer, and protocol.
• Powerful security analytics and reporting are part of the answer.

What is Good?	What Could Be Better?
Fewer False Positive	Web Application Firewall slows down sometimes
Strongly defends against many web application exploits.	A third-party service’s downtime or difficulties may put you at risk.
Provides sophisticated security customization and rule-setting.
Scales well to traffic and application demands.

3. F5 Advanced WAF

The built-in policy templates in F5 AWAF facilitate security regulation of the most popular applications. Based on data, AWAF generates security rules independently.

Without requiring changes to the apps themselves, F5’s Advanced WAF prevents the vast majority of attacks.

Online app users can define their settings to increase security. F5’s AWAF uses positive and negative security models to prevent known and undiscovered attacks.

Intelligent load balancing across multiple servers gives SAAS F5 AWAF excellent availability. F5 AWAF’s application layer encryption protects data from man-in-the-middle attacks and other data exfiltration viruses.

Features

• F5 Advanced WAF stops XSS, SQL injection, session hijacking, and other OWASP Top 10 threats.
• Threat information feeds and IP reputation files are used by F5 WAF products to make security better.
• With F5 Advanced WAF, you can stop bots that send data automatically.
• These tools can decode SSL/TLS data so that threats in encrypted traffic can be found and stopped.

What is Good?	What Could Be Better?
It is a very lightweight tool.	Not Compatible with multiple cloud environments needs to be improved.
Strongly defends against several application-layer dangers.	Deployment of the tool is complex.
Improves security with advanced threat intelligence and machine learning.
Provides customized security and policy control.

4. AppTrana Managed WAF

AppTrana Managed WAF provides accessible dashboards and other info to help you respond to assaults. Even AppTrana’s most advanced DDoS protections are behavior-based.

With nodes strategically distributed worldwide, AppTrana powers your website’s content delivery network. Its continual scanning allows you to monitor dangers in real-time.

Automatic or manual scans can be scheduled.AppTrana is monitored by a large team of professionals to improve web application security.

Comply with PCI-DSS and other governance and compliance criteria. Beyond the OWASP Top 10, our solution protects against API abuse, bots, and complex rate limits.

Features

• Incoming data is checked for risks by AppTrana Managed WAF, and dangerous requests are blocked to keep web apps safe.
• The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Top 10 lists the ten biggest security problems with web apps.
• AppTrana Managed WAF keeps an eye on web application data all the time.
• Managed WAF systems can be changed to work with different web apps.

What is Good?	What Could Be Better?
Configuration is Very Simple, and it contains all the required features	custom rules in the firewall can have more features.
Very affordable cost.	Fake positives can occur when automated systems designate legitimate traffic as threats.
Easy setup and integration without complicated setups.
Threat identification and mitigation using AI.

5. AWS WAF

Common threats like SQL injection and XSS can be blocked and bot traffic may be managed with the help of AWS WAF. The AWS WAF console has a wizard for establishing a web ACL.

You can use AWS WAF to provide REST APIs from Amazon API Gateway, Application Load Balancers, GraphQL APIs from AWS AppSync, or User Pools from Amazon Cognito.

Applications running in Amazon ECS containers can be safeguarded with the help of the AWS Web Application Firewall. AWS WAF controls good and malicious bots. Bot Control rules provide key functionality.

Features

• XSS and SQL attack can happen in online apps, but AWS WAF stops them.
• This gives you managed rule sets that stop common threats.
• You can set limits on the number of requests that come from certain IP addresses or groups in AWS WAF. Abuse and DoS attempts can’t happen now.
• It lets you make security rules to keep your web apps safe.

What is Good?	What Could Be Better?
Web Traffic is managed properly.	Technical support is costly
Automatically adjusts to online traffic and application demand.	Technical support responds late
Allows custom rules to filter and stop harmful communication.
Making new custom rules are easy to make and implement.

6. Akamai Kona Site Defender

Akamai has been a Gartner® WAAP Magic QuadrantTM Leader for six years. Akamai Kona’s automatic, adaptive, cloud-agnostic security solves his WAAP issues.

Akamai Kona reduces processing and false positives with machine learning-based tuning and real-time protection. Akami’s WAAP spotted APIs early.

You can learn about and use new APIs. Our WAF provides 24/7 monitoring, configurable dashboards, and rapid notifications.

All safety measures are automatable. DDoS attacks on networks can stop instantly. Rapidly address application threats. It’s easy to control and navigate complicated settings with flexible operation.

Features

• Thanks to Akamai’s huge edge computer network, Kona Site Defender can provide security services all over the world that can be scaled up or down.
• You can’t do a DDoS attack with Kona Site Defender.
• It keeps people who use online services safe from a number of security rules and laws, such as the OWASP Top 10.
• With bot security technologies, it stops traffic from bad bots.

What is Good?	What Could Be Better?
Can create custom rules.	High Cost.
The scalability of the tool is very good.	The generation of the Report could be improved.
Contains real-time threat intelligence and proactive mitigation.
Allows application-specific security policy customization.

7. Fortinet FortiWeb

FortiWeb, Fortinet’s Web Application Firewall, can protect your application from known and unknown vulnerabilities.

FortiWeb offers simple hardware appliances to powerful virtual machine alternatives that can be integrated into the latest cloud systems.

FortiWeb Cloud WAF-as-a-Service defends against OWASP Top 10 and zero-day application layer attacks.

FortiWeb can also help you safeguard the application programming interfaces (APIs) that make your mobile app’s B2B communication possible.

Features

• FortiWeb protects against all web application errors, such as SQL injection and XSS, which are in the OWASP Top 10 list of weaknesses.
• These can look at SSL/TLS data and decrypt it to find hidden threats.
• Using behavioral analysis, it finds strange patterns in the traffic to web applications.
• It has tools to find and stop bots, which makes it easier to use.

What is Good?	What Could Be Better?
The report is well-defined.	GUI is limited.
Setup is very easy.	Support team delays in replying.
PCI compliance is followed well.
Supports large traffic without sacrificing performance.

8. Barracuda WAF

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service protects your entire attack surface, including REST APIs and API-based applications. API Discovery minimizes manual labor by generating the necessary rule sets for the API on its own.

Barracuda’s cloud-based web application firewall (WAF) protects APIs from threats such as parser and distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS).

Advanced Bot Protection is a feature of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service that employs machine learning to enhance its detection and prevention of malicious bots.

Comprehensive DDoS protection is included at no additional cost in our Web Application Firewall, which defends against attacks on Layers 3 through 7.

Features

• Barracuda WAF stops XSS, SQL injection, and other web application flaws fast.
• It gets threat reports in real time from Barracuda Central and other trustworthy sources.
• To find and stop bot activity, it is used for “bot mitigation.”
• It can read and decode SSL/TLS-encrypted data to find and stop threats that are hidden.

What is Good?	What Could Be Better?
Good Response Time	Reporting can be a little difficult.
Detects and mitigates threats using machine learning and behavioral analysis.	Initial setup can be a little difficult.
Easy configuration for fast implementation.
Spam Emails are blocked if they don’t pass the analysis

9. Sucuri WAF

Patches and firewall rules protecting your site against intrusion are regularly updated. With a Web Application Firewall and a global Anycast network, you’ll never experience any downtime.

The WAF intrusion prevention system can plug holes and prevent threats. Some sites can be secured using passwords, captchas, 2FA, IP whitelisting, and more.

All HTTPS data is inspected before reaching your server. We use algorithms and signatures to avoid dangerous requests and attacks.

Features

• Sucuri WAF stops a number of threats to web applications. Some of these are SQL attack, XSS, adding files from afar, and more.
• Sucuri WAF lessens the damage that DDoS attacks do to websites on a big scale.
• Virtual fixing allows it to protect against flaws in web applications quickly.
• It can find spyware and get rid of it.

What is Good?	What Could Be Better?
Enhances the speed of the website using CDN speed enhancement.	The support team responds late.
Sucuri has Website Backups.	Chat Support is useless.
Setup is Easy.
Better logging with the use of the free plugin.

10. SafeLine WAF

SafeLine WAF is a self-hosted, feature-rich web application firewall designed for all sizes of businesses as well as advanced users who want full control over their website security. 

It combines powerful bot defense, rate limiting, identity authentication, customizable security rules and intelligent web threat detection while remaining highly affordable.

Its setup and configuration are straightforward, making it accessible even for teams without extensive security experience.

SafeLine also supports multi-server deployments, enabling flexible scalability and ensuring high availability.

Features

• Advanced Bot Defense – Blocks malicious bots and automated attacks effectively.
• Rate Limiting & L7 DDoS Mitigation – Protects applications from sudden traffic spikes and sophisticated layer 7 DDoS attacks.
• Identity Authentication – Optional user verification layer for sensitive endpoints.
• Customizable Security Rules – Fully flexible ruleset to meet unique application needs.
• Fast Deployment & Easy Configuration – Self-hosted solution that can be up and running in minutes.
• Intelligent Web Threat Detection – Leverages a proprietary Semantic Analysis Engine that goes beyond signature-based detection.
• Multi-Node Deployment – Supports load balancing, and automatic failover across multiple servers to ensure high availability.

What is Good?	What Could Be Better?
Feature-Rich Yet Affordable	Free version supports up to 10 web applications; but Pro version has no limit.
Easy Setup & Configuration	Each deployment or server requires different paid licenses.
Full control over security rules	Technical support may respond slower outside working hours.
Complete ownership of data and deployment environment.	The documentation is not detailed enough.
High Availability
Instant and Free Support
Neat GUI