Small business▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
2%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 9 pointsRank 37 → 4 of 62
Barracuda · 2 categories · Named, not rankedBarracuda WAF
13Judge labels
2First choices
4Negative labels
6 / 14Models named it
2Categories
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.8, every buyer segment counted.
Standing
7 labels, too few to rank
A product needs 10 labels in a category before a share or quadrant is stated. Barracuda WAF was named 7 times in WAF and 1 other category, where Cloudflare WAF led with 69%. The labels and the evidence are below, counted exactly.
By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.
Small business5 of 75
2%4 labels
under the label threshold
Mid-market7 of 82
2%6 labels
under the label threshold
Enterprise64 of 90
0%2 labels
under the label threshold
In waf · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading
Standing by category
Every category where a model named Barracuda WAF for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.
| Category | Function | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web application firewalls | Network and edge | 2% | 7 of 82 | 17% | 6 | under 10 labels · led by Cloudflare WAF at 69% | ▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
| Bot management | Network and edge | 0% | 79 of 83 | 100% | 1 | under 10 labels · led by Cloudflare Bot Management at 56% |
Movement
Since September 2026, Barracuda WAF held within the floor in all two categories: no change cleared 11 points.
Best category · WAF · by segment
Mid-market▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
2%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 9 pointsRank 9 → 8 of 80
Enterprise=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 11 pointsRank 67 → 57 of 77
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WAF | 0% | 2% | ▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 9 → 7 of 82 |
| Bot management | 0% | 0% | newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now. | New this edition | Rank 79 of 83, unchanged |
Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.
The floor is 11 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions
By model
How each model treated Barracuda WAF across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated Barracuda WAF across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
By framing
Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.
FramingLabels by classFirst choices
Direct5 labels2
Paraphrase1 labelNone
Comparative4 labelsNone
Budget-constrained0 labelsNone
Scale-constrained0 labelsNone
Negative3 labelsNone
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative13 labels in all, every segment counted; 2 of the 2 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.
What the models said for it
Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.
“the strongest default choice is usually Barracuda WAF if you want straightforward deployment and mid-market-friendly operations” Perplexity Sonar · WAF · direct prompt · first choice
“with Barracuda as the simplicity alternative” Muse Glimmer 30B · WAF · direct prompt · alternative
And against it
Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.
“standard F5 WAF rules, Barracuda WAF) - Why: These are often rule-based signature matching that sophisticated bots bypass easily.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Bot management · negative prompt · hard negative
“frequently cited for heavy resource consumption and tricky policy configuration” Qwen 3.7 Flash · WAF · negative prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Barracuda WAF, over the 13 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Barracuda WAF was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Barracuda WAF, over the 13 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Barracuda WAF was named but was not.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.
What carried it into the answer
The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Barracuda WAF. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 10 of the 13 answers that named Barracuda WAF and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
comparitech.com7
g2.com7
radware.com7
indusface.com6
peerspot.com5
cybersecuritynews.com4
fastly.com4
geekflare.com4
checkpoint.com3
csoonline.com3
Fifty of the fifty domain citations in answers naming Barracuda WAF came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
Where Barracuda WAF stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.ShowHide
Search and answers
Where Barracuda WAF stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimates- Searches for its name, Google
- 170 a month (“barracuda waf”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 4 a month
- Its own site
- It sits on Barracuda's site (barracuda.com), so there are no site figures for it alone
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
2%
rank 7 of 82 in WAF
Segment leader
69%
Cloudflare WAF
- First choices
- 2 across its categories
- Named in
- 13 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 10 of the answers that named it
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Names read as Barracuda WAF
What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Barracuda WAF; a claim can dispute any of them.
Barracuda WAF / WAF-as-a-Service 1
Follow Barracuda WAF
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
The company
Barracuda is the company behind Barracuda WAF.ShowHide
The company
Barracuda is the company behind Barracuda WAF.
ShowHideOn record
Company recordsIn its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- purpose-built, comprehensive protection for web apps and APIs with multi-cloud protection and simple licensing
- For
- Financial Services
- Price stated
- simple, deterministic licensing barracuda.com/products/application-protection/awaf
- Free plan or trial
- Try Free barracuda.com/products/application-protection/awaf
- Customers named
- One North
- Not stated on the pages read
- Starting price, integrations, certifications, hosting
What Barracuda WAF's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: barracuda.com/products/application-protection/awaf, barracuda.com/products/application-protection/aws-waf, barracuda.com/solutions/financial-services/secure-web-apps, barracuda.com/products/application-protection/waf-as-a-service, barracuda.com/products/application-protection/secure-app-delivery. A claimed page can correct any of them.
Is this your product?
Claim this page
Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Barracuda WAF's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Barracuda WAF, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Barracuda WAF by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where Barracuda WAF is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name Barracuda WAF, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.