Small business▼−11Since September 2026: 93% → 83%, −11 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
83%from 93% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 0 pointsRank 1 of 62, unchanged
Cloudflare · 1 category · RankedCloudflare WAF
205Judge labels
110First choices
10Negative labels
14 / 14Models named it
1Category
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.8, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
79% in WAF for small business buyers
Rank 1 of 82 in the mid-market standingendorsed leader
11 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 7% of its 67 labels there were negative.
What the models named instead of Cloudflare WAF →By buyer segmentStrongest at small business.
Small business1 of 75
79%75 labels
endorsed leader
Mid-market1 of 82
69%67 labels
endorsed leader
Enterprise1 of 90
59%63 labels
endorsed leader
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 Cloudflare 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 | 69% | 1 of 82 | 7% | 67 | endorsed leader | ▼−21Since September 2026: 89% → 67%, −21 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement. Read over the models both editions asked. |
Movement
Since September 2026, Cloudflare WAF moved past the floor in its one category, WAF, −21 points to 67%.
Best category · WAF · by segment
Mid-market▼−21Since September 2026: 89% → 67%, −21 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement. Read over the models both editions asked.
67%from 89% in September 2026
Cleared the floor by 10 pointsRank 1 of 80, unchanged
Enterprise▲+3Since September 2026: 53% → 57%, +3 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
57%from 53% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 8 pointsRank 1 of 77, unchanged
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WAF | 89% | 67% | ▼−21Since September 2026: 89% → 67%, −21 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement. Read over the models both editions asked. | Moved past the floor | Rank 1 of 82, 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 Cloudflare 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 Cloudflare 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 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Grok 4.20 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| Mistral Small | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| Kimi K2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
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
Direct38 labels31
Paraphrase37 labels34
Comparative41 labels29not counted in share
Budget-constrained36 labels35
Scale-constrained24 labels10
Negative29 labels11not counted in share
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative205 labels in all, every segment counted; 110 of the 150 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.
“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 · WAF · 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 · WAF · 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 · WAF · comparative prompt · first choice
“the recommended WAF and bot protection service for a mid-sized B2B company is Cloudflare. It is considered the best overall and best value” Llama 4 Maverick · WAF · paraphrase prompt · first choice
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.
“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 · WAF · 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 · WAF · negative prompt · soft negative
“Free tiers of popular cloud WAFs (e.g., Cloudflare Free) offer very limited protection” DeepSeek V4 Flash · WAF · negative prompt · soft negative
“parsing discrepancies affect AWS, Azure, Cloud Armor, Cloudflare and ModSecurity alike” Muse Glimmer 30B · WAF · negative prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Cloudflare WAF, over the 203 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Cloudflare WAF was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Cloudflare WAF, over the 203 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Cloudflare 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 Cloudflare 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 178 of the 203 answers that named Cloudflare WAF and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
radware.com98
wafplanet.com73
openappsec.io67
comparitech.com61
imperva.com61
indusface.com57
geekflare.com56
cyberpress.org47
cybersecuritynews.com47
mgsoftware.nl47
614 of the 614 domain citations in answers naming Cloudflare WAF came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
Where Cloudflare WAF stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.ShowHide
Search and answers
Where Cloudflare WAF stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimates- Searches for its name, Google
- 2,900 a month (“cloudflare waf”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 77 a month
- Its own site
- It sits on Cloudflare's site (cloudflare.com), so there are no site figures for it alone
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
69%
rank 1 of 82 in WAF
First choices
110
across its categories
- Named in
- 203 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 178 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 Cloudflare WAF
What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Cloudflare WAF; a claim can dispute any of them.
Cloudflare 31Cloudflare WAF + Bot Management 2Cloudflare (Enterprise WAF) 1Cloudflare (Free Plan) 1Cloudflare (WAF + Bot Management) 1Cloudflare Business 1Cloudflare Free 1Cloudflare Pro 1Cloudflare WAF (Business Plan) 1Cloudflare WAF (Free / Pro Tier) 1Cloudflare WAF (Free Tier) 1Cloudflare WAF / Application Security and Performance 1Cloudflare WAF / WAAP 1Cloudflare's WAF 1
Follow Cloudflare 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
Cloudflare is the company behind Cloudflare WAF.ShowHide
The company
Cloudflare is the company behind Cloudflare WAF.
ShowHideOn record
Company recordsIn its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- complement managed rulesets (such as OWASP and Cloudflare Managed) with a new tool aimed at identifying bypasses and malicious payloads without human involvement, and before they are exploited
- For
- Enterprise, Pro and Biz customers
- Price stated
- More information on pricing and packaging will be released when the feature will be generally available. blog.cloudflare.com/waf-ml
- Free plan or trial
- Available on all plans developers.cloudflare.com/waf
- Certifications
- the highest score for ability to execute in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for WAF
- Not stated on the pages read
- Starting price, integrations, hosting, customers
What Cloudflare WAF's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: blog.cloudflare.com/waf-ml, developers.cloudflare.com/waf, blog.cloudflare.com/account-waf, blog.cloudflare.com/new-cloudflare-waf, blog.cloudflare.com/waf-rules-react-vulnerability. 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 Cloudflare 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 Cloudflare 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 Cloudflare WAF by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where Cloudflare 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 Cloudflare 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.
Badges
Wins only: a badge exists where Cloudflare WAF is ranked in a category's top three this edition. Three sizes, one file each, light and dark; the code is under each.ShowHide
Badges
Wins only: a badge exists where Cloudflare WAF is ranked in a category's top three this edition. Three sizes, one file each, light and dark; the code is under each.
ShowHideAI models recommend Cloudflare WAF first in Web application firewalls this edition. Each badge says so in the buyer's words, names the edition, and links to the standing. The next edition issues a new badge; this one stays true as a record of October 2026.
Wide · 320 × 104 Website, beside other badges
Square · 240 × 240 LinkedIn, slides
Compact · 200 × 56 Email signature, footer
Badges read on light and dark pages. Alt text carries the claim, the category, the edition and the index, so it stays a citation where the image does not load.