Compare the Top Web Application Firewalls (WAF) for Linux as of August 2025

What are Web Application Firewalls (WAF) for Linux?

Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) are security solutions that protect web applications by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic between the application and the internet. They detect and block threats such as SQL injections, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other common attacks targeting application vulnerabilities. WAFs analyze incoming requests in real time, applying customizable security rules to distinguish between legitimate and potentially malicious traffic. Many WAFs are cloud-based, enabling flexible and scalable protection without impacting application performance. By acting as a shield between web applications and attackers, WAFs help ensure data security, regulatory compliance, and uninterrupted user access. Compare and read user reviews of the best Web Application Firewalls (WAF) for Linux currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    CacheGuard

    CacheGuard

    CacheGuard Technologies

    CacheGuard-OS transforms a virtual or bare metal machine into a powerful and easy to handle network appliance. It's a Linux based Operating System built from scratch and especially designed to Secure and Optimize the network traffic. Great care has been taken by CacheGuard-OS developers to select the best of the best Open Source technologies to integrate into CacheGuard-OS. The result is a robust and trustworthy solution that can be up and running within minutes. CacheGuard-OS integrates Open Source software such as but not limited to OpenSSL, NetFilter, IProute2, StrongSwan, ClamAV, Apache, ModSecurity, Squid and Open Source developments made by CacheGuard-OS developers.
    Starting Price: $9.99 per month
  • 2
    SKUDONET

    SKUDONET

    SKUDONET

    Reliable, Scalable, and Secure Load Balancing Formerly known as Zevenet, SKUDONET Enterprise Edition is an advanced and highly scalable Open Source Application Delivery and Security Platform designed to handle large volumes of traffic across any environment—whether physical, virtual, or cloud-based for modern IT infrastructures. Built on the Linux Debian system, SKUDONET offers a robust platform that integrates advanced security and performance features, offering a cost-effective alternative to other solutions on the market. Key Features & Benefits: ✔ High Availability – Prevents downtime with intelligent traffic balancing and clustering ✔ Advanced Security – Includes DoS protection, SSL offloading, and L7 filtering to enhance cybersecurity ✔ High Scalability – Multi-core processing, optimized packet handling, and support for high-throughput environments ✔ Flexible Deployment – Available for bare metal, virtual machines, and cloud platforms with BYOL (AWS, DigitalOcean)
    Starting Price: $1736/year/appliance
  • 3
    Haltdos

    Haltdos

    Haltdos

    Haltdos promises an intelligent WAF & DDoS mitigation service with multi-layered security to online businesses requiring zero management. It is a self-learning solution that continuously learns and adapts network/website traffic and provides real-time and historical insights with stunning visualization. It also provides attack alerts and notifications, attack signatures, customer misbehavior, and audit trail.
  • 4
    Fortinet

    Fortinet

    Fortinet

    Fortinet is a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, known for its comprehensive and integrated approach to safeguarding digital networks, devices, and applications. Founded in 2000, Fortinet provides a wide range of products and services, including firewalls, endpoint protection, intrusion prevention systems, and secure access solutions. At the core of its offerings is the Fortinet Security Fabric, a unified platform that seamlessly integrates security tools to deliver visibility, automation, and real-time threat intelligence across the entire network. Trusted by businesses, governments, and service providers worldwide, Fortinet emphasizes innovation, scalability, and performance, ensuring robust defense against evolving cyber threats while supporting digital transformation and business continuity.
  • 5
    Loadbalancer.org

    Loadbalancer.org

    Loadbalancer.org

    Since 2003, Loadbalancer.org has provided reliable, versatile and cost-effective load balancers engineered to improve the availability of your most critical IT applications. We have extensive experience of solving application delivery challenges, so you can expect honest advice and outstanding support from the load balancer experts. Working closely with leading technology providers in medical, object storage and print, our ADC solutions are specifically tailored to ensure seamless integration and better compatibility for enhanced performance of the entire solution.
    Starting Price: $95 per month
  • 6
    SafeLine WAF

    SafeLine WAF

    Chaitin Tech

    SafeLine WAF is a self-hosted, semantic-based Web Application Firewall developed by the team at Chaitin Technology. It focuses on protecting web applications from a wide range of threats, especially zero-day and application-layer (Layer 7) attacks, with high precision and minimal false positives. It is open source, easy to deploy, and designed to be flexible enough for both enterprise and personal use.
    Starting Price: $0/month
  • 7
    Edgenexus Load Balancer (ADC/WAF/GSLB)
    Choose us because we offer the easiest to use technology without sacrificing features or performance. We back this up with outstanding support and care, delivered under a fair and cost effective pricing model Our technology is used by the smallest startups with big ideas and small budgets all the way to global enterprises and anything in between. We love them all the same! Easy to use Load balancing, WAF, GSLB and SSO/Pre-Authentication. It is also the Only true ADP Application Delivery Platform where the functionality and lifespan can be enhanced using the app store or applications that you develop in house.
    Starting Price: $50
  • 8
    WEDOS Protection

    WEDOS Protection

    WEDOS Group SA

    WEDOS Protection is a modern security solution combining powerful DDoS mitigation, CDN acceleration, and intelligent traffic filtering — designed for high availability, stability, and optimal web performance. It protects serious online businesses against volumetric and sophisticated application-layer attacks, including botnets and L7 exploits. Our global infrastructure WEDOS Global uses edge servers distributed worldwide to analyze and control traffic in real time. The service provides DNS protection, an advanced Web Application Firewall (WAF), HTTPS proxy, smart caching, anti-bot filters, and multiple protection layers that together form a robust security and performance ecosystem. ✅ Effective L3–L7 DDoS mitigation ✅ Global content acceleration via proprietary network ✅ Easy to implement – no code changes needed ✅ High availability and low latency even during attacks An ideal choice for high-traffic websites, ecommerce projects, agencies, and hosting providers.
    Starting Price: $1
  • 9
    open-appsec

    open-appsec

    open-appsec

    automatic web application & API security using machine learning open-appsec is an open-source initiative that builds on machine learning to provide pre-emptive web app & API threat protection against OWASP-Top-10 and zero-day attacks. It can be deployed as add-on to Kubernetes Ingress, NGINX, Envoy and API Gateways. open-oppsec simplifies maintenance as there is no threat signature upkeep and exception handling, like common in many WAF solutions.
  • 10
    NetScaler

    NetScaler

    Cloud Software Group

    Application delivery at scale can be complex. Make it simpler with NetScaler. Firmly on-prem. All-in on cloud. Good with hybrid. Whichever you choose, NetScaler works the same across them all. NetScaler is built with a single code base using a software-based architecture, so no matter which ADC form factor you choose — hardware, virtual machine, bare metal, or container — the behavior will be the same. Whether you are delivering applications to hundreds of millions of consumers, hundreds of thousands of employees, or both, NetScaler helps you do it reliably and securely. NetScaler is the application delivery and security platform of choice for the world’s largest companies. Thousands of organizations worldwide — and more than 90 percent of the Fortune 500 — rely on NetScaler for high-performance application delivery, comprehensive application and API security, and end-to-end observability.
  • 11
    BunkerWeb

    BunkerWeb

    Bunkerity

    BunkerWeb is a next-generation and open-source Web Application Firewall (WAF). Being a full-featured web server (based on NGINX under the hood), it will protect your web services to make them "secure by default". BunkerWeb integrates seamlessly into your existing environments (Linux, Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes, …) and is fully configurable (don't panic, there is an awesome web UI if you don't like the CLI) to meet your own use-cases . In other words, cybersecurity is no more a hassle. BunkerWeb contains primary security features as part of the core but can be easily extended with additional ones thanks to a plugin system).
  • 12
    Ivanti

    Ivanti

    Ivanti

    Ivanti offers integrated IT management solutions designed to automate and secure technology across organizations. Their Unified Endpoint Management platform provides intuitive control from a single console to manage any device from any location. Ivanti’s Enterprise Service Management delivers actionable insights to streamline IT operations and improve employee experiences. The company also provides comprehensive network security and exposure management tools to protect assets and prioritize risks effectively. Trusted by over 34,000 customers worldwide, including Conair and City of Seattle, Ivanti supports secure, flexible work environments. Their solutions enable businesses to boost productivity while maintaining strong security and operational visibility.
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