# Web application firewalls for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "web application firewall" and as "WAF and bot protection service", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/network/web-application-firewalls/smb/

**Standing:** Cloudflare leads with 73% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 44 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cloudflare | 73% | 6% | 47 |
| 2 | Cloudflare WAF | 20% | 0% | 19 |
| 3 | Sucuri | 5% | 5% | 38 |
| 4 | AWS WAF | 0% | 22% | 41 |
| 5 | Azure WAF | 0% | 18% | 11 |
| 6 | ModSecurity | 0% | 60% | 15 |
| 7 | Akamai | 0% | 70% | 20 |
| 8 | Imperva | 0% | 67% | 30 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Cloudflare WAF; alternatives AWS WAF
- GPT-5.4 mini: Cloudflare WAF; alternatives AWS WAF, Azure Web Application Firewall
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Cloudflare WAF; alternatives AWS WAF, Azure WAF, Fastly Next-Gen WAF, Sucuri Website Security
- Perplexity Sonar: Cloudflare WAF, Sucuri
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS WAF, Sucuri
- Mistral Small: Cloudflare; alternatives Sucuri
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Cloudflare WAF; alternatives Sucuri
- Llama 4 Maverick: Cloudflare; alternatives Sucuri
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Cloudflare; alternatives AWS WAF, Amazon CloudFront, Imperva, Sucuri
- Kimi K2: Cloudflare WAF; alternatives AWS WAF, Sucuri
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Cloudflare WAF; alternatives AWS WAF, Sucuri WAF
- MiniMax M2.5: Cloudflare; alternatives Imperva, Sucuri

## Sources the answers cite

64 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- cyberpress.org: 48 answers, 49 citations
- wafplanet.com: 36 answers, 90 citations
- geekflare.com: 32 answers, 33 citations
- openappsec.io: 23 answers, 31 citations
- comparitech.com: 21 answers, 22 citations
- expertinsights.com: 20 answers, 20 citations
- cybersecuritynews.com: 19 answers, 24 citations
- sourceforge.net: 17 answers, 17 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://cyberpress.org/waf-solutions-by-business-size (48 answers)
- https://geekflare.com/cybersecurity/best-web-application-firewall (30 answers)
- https://comparitech.com/net-admin/best-web-application-firewall (21 answers)
- https://expertinsights.com/network-security/the-top-web-application-firewalls (20 answers)
- https://sourceforge.net/software/web-application-firewalls-waf/for-small-business (17 answers)
- https://wafplanet.com/ (15 answers)
- https://wafplanet.com/blog/waf-pricing-comparison-2026 (14 answers)
- https://openappsec.io/post/best-waf-solutions-in-2024-2025-real-world-comparison (13 answers)
- https://wafplanet.com/best-waf-for/small-business (13 answers)
- https://cybersecuritynews.com/best-web-application-firewall-solutions (11 answers)

## Warned against

- Imperva: 20 of 30 labels negative. "Enterprise-Grade Commercial WAFs (Imperva, Akamai, F5 BIG-IP ASM)
Avoid unless you are being acquired by a Fortune 500 company." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- Akamai: 14 of 20 labels negative. "A common mistake for small teams is choosing enterprise-grade platforms (Imperva, Akamai, F5)" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, comparative prompt)
- ModSecurity: 9 of 15 labels negative. "Unmanaged Open-Source WAFs (e.g., Raw ModSecurity)... Why to avoid them: While the software is free, the labor is incredibly expensive." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)
- AWS WAF: 9 of 41 labels negative. "The Catch: It requires manual configuration, and AWS Bot Control is charged on a usage basis ... which can get expensive and complex to fine-tune" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, paraphrase prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://it-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://it-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.