# Cloudflare WAF vs ModSecurity: which do AI models recommend for WAF, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, Web application firewalls. Eleven of fourteen models named Cloudflare WAF first on the direct prompt; zero named ModSecurity. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/network/web-application-firewalls/cloudflare-waf-vs-modsecurity/

| | First-choice share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Models naming it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare WAF | 69% | #1 of 11 | 7% | 67 | 14 of 14 |
| ModSecurity | 8% | #2 of 11 | 54% | 26 | 12 of 14 |

## The direct prompt, model by model

- Claude Haiku 4.5: cloudflare waf first (first choices: AWS WAF, Cloudflare WAF)
- GPT-5.4 mini: cloudflare waf first (first choices: Cloudflare WAF) (alternatives: Imperva Cloud WAF)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: cloudflare waf first (first choices: Cloudflare WAF) (alternatives: AWS WAF, Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service, Fastly Next-Gen WAF)
- Grok 4.1 Fast: cloudflare waf first (first choices: Cloudflare WAF) (alternatives: AWS WAF, Akamai App & API Protector, Azure Application Gateway WAF, Imperva Cloud WAF, Radware Cloud WAF, Sucuri WAF)
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: cloudflare waf first (first choices: Cloudflare WAF) (alternatives: AWS WAF, Fastly Next-Gen WAF)
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: cloudflare waf first (first choices: Cloudflare WAF) (alternatives: AWS WAF, Fastly Next-Gen WAF, Imperva Cloud WAF)
- Kimi K2: cloudflare waf first (first choices: Cloudflare WAF) (alternatives: AWS WAF, Imperva Cloud WAF)
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: cloudflare waf first (first choices: Cloudflare WAF) (alternatives: AWS WAF, F5 Advanced WAF, Imperva Cloud WAF)
- MiniMax M2.5: cloudflare waf first (first choices: Barracuda Web Application Firewall, Cloudflare WAF) (alternatives: OpenAppSec / Check Point CloudGuard WAF)
- GPT-6 Luna: cloudflare waf first (first choices: Cloudflare WAF) (alternatives: AWS WAF, Azure Front Door Premium with WAF, Fastly Next-Gen WAF)
- Muse Glimmer 30B: cloudflare waf first (first choices: Cloudflare WAF) (alternatives: Barracuda WAF, Sucuri WAF)
- Perplexity Sonar: neither first, one named (first choices: Barracuda WAF) (alternatives: Akamai App & API Protector, Cloudflare WAF, Imperva Cloud WAF)
- Mistral Small: neither first, one named (first choices: Barracuda Web Application Firewall) (alternatives: Cloudflare WAF, Imperva Cloud WAF, Reblaze WAAP)
- Llama 4 Maverick: neither named (first choices: Radware Cloud WAF)

## What the models said about Cloudflare WAF

- "Misconfigured "Big Three" WAFs (Cloudflare, Akamai, Imperva)... you have effectively bypassed the WAF. ... Do not avoid these vendors, but avoid the configuration" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "Cloudflare's managed-rule body limit varies by plan, and content beyond it may not be fully analyzed." (GPT-6 Luna, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "Free tiers of popular cloud WAFs (e.g., Cloudflare Free) offer very limited protection" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "Cloudflare WAF (Best All-Rounder & Cloud-First B2B)... widely considered the most accessible and comprehensive WAF for small-to-mid-market businesses" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, direct prompt, first choice)
- "Massive global scale, edge programmability, OWASP Core Rule Set-based rules, and easy self-serve setup. Consistently named a Forrester Wave Leader." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, comparative prompt, first choice)
- "1. Cloudflare WAF - Strengths: Global threat intelligence, machine learning, and a massive CDN for low latency and high performance." (Mistral Small, comparative prompt, first choice)

## What the models said about ModSecurity

- "ModSecurity, the classic open-source WAF engine, has reached End-of-Life (EOL)." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt, hard negative)
- "Avoid/Be cautious with: Unpatched ModSecurity v3 versions" (Kimi K2, negative prompt, hard negative)
- "A critical vulnerability (CVE-2025-47947) in ModSecurity, a widely deployed open-source WAF, allows attackers to crash systems through denial of service attacks" (Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "If you want the absolute lowest cost and have internal sysadmin skills: go with ModSecurity (free) + OWASP CRS." (MiniMax M2.5, budget prompt, first choice)
- "best-value WAF is usually an open-source stack: ModSecurity + OWASP Core Rule Set (CRS)" (GPT-5.4 mini, budget prompt, first choice)
- "ModSecurity with OWASP CRS is the de-facto standard free engine." (Muse Glimmer 30B, budget prompt, first choice)

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category. Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category. Published under CC BY 4.0; the output is the models' output, and nothing here is a recommendation by the index.