Cloudflare vs Cloudflare WAF
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Cloudflare and Cloudflare WAF.
Quick Verdict
4.3/5
Cloudflare
0 reviews
4.2/5
Cloudflare WAF
0 reviews
Cloudflare is rated higher (4.3 vs 4.2). Global network that speeds up and protects websites with CDN caching, DDoS protection, free SSL and DNS. Free plan; Pro costs $20/month billed annually ($25 monthly). Cloudflare's Web Application Firewall protects against OWASP Top 10, zero-day vulnerabilities, and DDoS. 300+ global PoPs absorb attacks. Free plan blocks basic threats; Pro adds OWASP managed rules.
Cloudflare Global CDN and DDoS protection with object storage | Cloudflare WAF Web Application Firewall protecting millions of sites | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.3 (0 reviews)✓ | 4.2 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | From $20/mo | Free tier available✓ |
| Best for | Websites and SaaS front ends that want a free or flat-priced global CDN with DDoS protection and TLS included — and can accept proxying all traffic through one vendor. | Any website behind Cloudflare that wants a maintained application firewall and DDoS absorption as a baseline — from hobby projects on the free tier to compliance-bound businesses on Business or Enterprise. |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | Global — 300+ cities | — |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tiers3 compatibleddos protectioneu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi accessipv6terraform provider | free tierddos protectionapi accesseu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter |
| Visit Cloudflare → | Visit Cloudflare WAF → | |
Cloudflare
Pros
- + Unmetered bandwidth and requests on every plan, including Free
- + Free managed WAF ruleset, Universal SSL and unmetered DDoS protection by default
- + 330+ city network with Anycast routing and no region pricing
- + Flat per-domain pricing is easy to budget; no egress surprises
- + Terraform provider and full API for configuration as code
Cons
- - No uptime SLA below the Business plan
- - Per-domain billing gets expensive for domain portfolios
- - Advanced WAF tuning and rate limiting are plan-gated
- - Proxy architecture is a concentration risk during network-level incidents
- - Large feature surface means caching misconfigurations can go unnoticed
Cloudflare WAF
Pros
- + WAF engine and managed ruleset included on every plan, including Free
- + Unmetered DDoS absorption at the edge on all tiers
- + Central rules maintenance — no appliances, agents or rule deployments to manage
- + Attack-score and bot-management layers available as needs grow
- + Flat plan pricing; no per-request or per-rule metering
Cons
- - Advanced rate limiting, attack-score rules and full log export are plan-gated
- - Managed rules can block legitimate traffic; tuning requires a logging-first workflow
- - Free plan limits request body inspection to 1 MB
- - Only applies to proxied records — DNS-only traffic is not filtered
- - A compensating control, not a substitute for fixing application vulnerabilities
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