List of the Top 16 Free Web Application Firewalls (WAF) in 2026

Cloudflare serves as the backbone of your infrastructure, applications, teams, and software ecosystem. It offers protection and guarantees the security and reliability of your external-facing assets, including websites, APIs, applications, and various web services. Additionally, Cloudflare secures your internal resources, encompassing applications within firewalls, teams, and devices, thereby ensuring comprehensive protection. This platform also facilitates the development of applications that can scale globally. The reliability, security, and performance of your websites, APIs, and other channels are crucial for engaging effectively with customers and suppliers in an increasingly digital world. As such, Cloudflare for Infrastructure presents an all-encompassing solution for anything connected to the Internet. Your internal teams can confidently depend on applications and devices behind the firewall to enhance their workflows. As remote work continues to surge, the pressure on many organizations' VPNs and hardware solutions is becoming more pronounced, necessitating robust and reliable solutions to manage these demands.

CacheGuard is a free, open-source network security gateway designed for small and medium businesses that need professional-grade internet protection without the cost of a dedicated IT team or a commercial appliance subscription. Most SMBs rely on the router their internet provider gave them. That router was built to connect, not to protect — it forwards all traffic without inspecting it, leaving the network exposed to malware, phishing, data leaks, and unauthorised access. CacheGuard fixes this by sitting between the internal network and the ISP router, acting as the security checkpoint for all internet traffic. What CacheGuard covers: Stateful firewall — control what enters and leaves your network Web antivirus — real-time scanning of HTTP/HTTPS traffic URL filtering — block websites by category or custom list SSL inspection — inspect encrypted HTTPS traffic Web Application Firewall — block malicious web requests VPN server — secure remote access for your team Web cache — faster browsing, lower bandwidth usage QoS and WAN load balancing — traffic shaping across internet links Key advantages over commercial alternatives: No licence cost, no subscription, no vendor lock-in Runs on any spare x86 PC or common hypervisor Web-based admin interface — no command-line expertise needed Open-source and auditable — in active development since 2002 ISP router requires no reconfiguration CacheGuard installs from a single ISO in under an hour and is suitable for offices, schools, branch networks, and home labs.

Vercel is a comprehensive cloud platform that merges AI tooling, developer-friendly infrastructure, and global scalability to help teams ship exceptional web experiences. It simplifies the entire development lifecycle by connecting code, deployment, and performance optimization under a single system. Through integrations with frameworks like Next.js, Turbopack, Svelte, Vite, and Nuxt, developers gain the flexibility to architect applications exactly how they want while benefiting from built-in optimizations. Vercel’s AI Cloud introduces powerful capabilities such as the AI Gateway, AI SDK, workflow sandboxes, and agents—making it easy to infuse apps with LLM-driven logic and automation. With fluid compute and active CPU-based pricing, the platform supports everything from lightweight tasks to heavy AI workloads without overprovisioning resources. Global edge deployment ensures that every update reaches users instantly, delivering consistently low latency across continents. The platform also offers previews for every git push, helping teams collaborate and validate features before production release. Enterprise-grade security, observability, and reliability give organizations confidence as they scale to millions of users. Vercel’s ecosystem of templates and integrations lets teams kickstart new applications or migrate existing ones with minimal friction. Altogether, Vercel empowers companies to build smarter, faster, and more scalable digital products using the combined power of modern web frameworks and advanced AI capabilities.

Haltdos guarantees complete high availability for your website and web services through its advanced Web Application Firewall, application DDoS mitigation, Bot Protection, SSL offloading, and Load Balancing solutions, all deployed across both public and private cloud environments. It continuously monitors, identifies, and autonomously addresses a variety of cyber threats, including the OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities and Zero-day attacks, effectively eliminating the need for human involvement in the mitigation process. This proactive approach not only enhances security but also ensures that your online operations remain seamless and uninterrupted.

Introducing the leading API security platform that understands the context of the industry. Traceable detects all your APIs, assesses their risk levels, prevents API-related attacks that can result in data breaches, and offers analytics for both threat detection and investigative purposes. By utilizing our platform, you can efficiently identify, oversee, and protect every aspect of your APIs, while also enabling rapid deployment and seamless scalability to adapt to your organization's evolving requirements. This comprehensive approach ensures that your API security remains robust in the face of emerging threats.

Tencent EdgeOne is a next-generation CDN and cloud security platform designed to optimize web performance and defense. Offering powerful DDoS protection and a cutting-edge WAF, it shields applications against sophisticated cyber threats while ensuring fast, stable content delivery. As a premier China CDN provider, Tencent EdgeOne leverages Tencent’s extensive global and China-based network infrastructure to reduce latency and improve availability for users inside China and worldwide. This platform is ideal for businesses needing seamless integration of content acceleration with security measures tailored for challenging markets. With Tencent EdgeOne, developers get an all-in-one solution combining speed, security, and reliability in one package.

SafeLine is a leading web application firewall platform renowned for its robust global user base and strong presence in the open-source community, boasting over 17,000 GitHub stars and extensive active usage worldwide. Powered by a next-generation semantic analysis engine that leverages machine learning, SafeLine achieves a remarkable 99.995% threat detection accuracy while maintaining a negligible false positive rate. It excels in defending websites from a variety of cyber threats including sophisticated bot attacks, HTTP flood DDoS assaults, and API vulnerabilities like SQL injection and cross-site scripting. The multi-layered bot protection system employs CAPTCHA verification, dynamic responses, and anti-replay strategies to effectively thwart malicious crawlers. Additionally, SafeLine offers integrated identity and access management compatible with cloud and on-premise applications through flexible protocols. The platform’s modular architecture and intuitive wizard-based configuration streamline deployment and ongoing management for enterprises of all sizes. Pricing plans are clearly outlined and competitive, ranging from a no-cost personal option to fully featured professional packages without limits on application numbers. Use cases span e-commerce, SaaS, and content delivery services, where it safeguards sensitive transactions, APIs, and copyrighted materials during high traffic events. SafeLine’s commitment to transparency and community-driven development ensures rapid innovation and regular feature updates. Customer support is readily available through forums and an active Discord community, enhancing the overall user experience.

Our technology is designed to be incredibly user-friendly while still maintaining high performance and a full range of features. We complement this with outstanding support and a commitment to fair, affordable pricing. Our solutions cater to everyone, from ambitious small startups with limited resources to large global corporations, and we appreciate each one of them! With straightforward options like Load balancing, WAF, GSLB, and SSO/Pre-Authentication, you can easily integrate our offerings. Moreover, we proudly present the only genuine ADP Application Delivery Platform that enables you to enhance both functionality and longevity through our app store or applications developed internally. This versatility ensures that all users can tailor the technology to meet their specific needs effectively.

Our cloud-based SWAP has been recognized as one of the premier defenses against threats such as cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and Distributed Denial of Service attacks. Utilizing a logic-driven approach, Cloudbric's SWAP incorporates pattern recognition, semantic analysis, heuristic evaluation, and foundational rulesets, all of which are automated and user-friendly. This level of automation eliminates the frequent need to modify security policies or update signatures. Additionally, private Web Application Firewall (WAF) deployments offer a range of customization options to meet specific needs. Our service guarantees the security of your website, ensuring it remains operational and shielded from DDoS attacks. Cloudbric takes proactive measures to thwart DDoS attacks at layers 3, 4, and 7, capable of managing threats that can surge to an impressive 20Tbps. Moreover, our solution not only offers robust protection but also enhances the overall resilience of your online presence.

MyDiamo, created by Penta Security Systems, a leading provider of encryption solutions in the Asia-Pacific region, is accessible for noncommercial purposes to everyone. For businesses and organizations that need enhanced capabilities, a commercial license can be acquired. Users can perform index searching even with column-level or partial encryption without compromising system performance. Additionally, it is designed to work seamlessly with open-source database management systems like MySQL, MariaDB, and Percona, ensuring compliance with regulations such as GDPR, PCI DSS, and HIPAA. One of its key advantages is that no code alteration is necessary, as it operates in parallel at the engine level, making it a user-friendly option for data security. Furthermore, its deployment allows organizations to maintain data integrity while implementing strong encryption measures.

WEDOS Protection is an advanced security solution that integrates powerful DDoS mitigation, CDN acceleration, and intelligent traffic filtering to deliver exceptional web stability, high availability, and optimal performance. It effectively protects online businesses from volumetric DDoS attacks and sophisticated application-layer threats, including botnets and Layer 7 exploits that target specific website functions. The global WEDOS infrastructure is supported by edge servers distributed worldwide, which analyze and manage incoming traffic in real time to prevent threats before they impact your site. Features include DNS protection, a cutting-edge Web Application Firewall (WAF), HTTPS proxy capabilities, smart caching technology, and multiple layers of anti-bot filtering. These combined protections form a resilient security ecosystem that does not compromise speed or accessibility. The service is simple to implement with no required changes to your existing codebase, making deployment quick and seamless. Even during intense cyberattacks, WEDOS maintains high availability and low latency, ensuring your website remains responsive. It is particularly well-suited for high-traffic websites, e-commerce platforms, digital agencies, IT administrators, and hosting providers who require reliable protection. The proprietary network infrastructure enables fast global content delivery alongside security measures. WEDOS Protection provides a balanced approach to defending websites while enhancing their overall user experience.

Since 2011, DDoS-GUARD has established itself as a frontrunner in the realm of DDoS defense and content delivery solutions. Our unique approach utilizes our proprietary network, featuring scrubbing centers equipped with ample computational power and bandwidth to handle significant traffic loads. Unlike many competitors, we do not rely on reselling third-party services, ensuring that our offerings are genuinely our own. In today's increasingly digital landscape, cyber threats are on the rise, with a notable surge in DDoS attacks that are becoming more sophisticated, larger in scale, and more varied. To combat this evolving threat, we continually refine our traffic scrubbing algorithms, enhance our bandwidth capacities, and expand our processing resources. This proactive strategy enables us to not only shield our clients from all types of known DDoS attacks but also to identify and mitigate previously unrecognized anomalies in network activity. Our commitment to innovation ensures that we stay ahead in the fight against cyber threats.

Open-appsec is an innovative open-source project that leverages machine learning to deliver proactive security measures for web applications and APIs, safeguarding against the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities as well as zero-day exploits. This system can be seamlessly integrated as an add-on to Kubernetes Ingress, NGINX, Envoy, and various API Gateways. The core engine of open-appsec observes typical user interactions with your web application, utilizing this behavior data to identify any requests that deviate from established norms, subsequently forwarding these anomalies for further scrutiny to determine their potential maliciousness. To achieve this, open-appsec employs two distinct machine learning models: 1. A supervised model developed offline, drawing insights from millions of both malicious and harmless requests. 2. An unsupervised model that evolves in real time within the protected environment, focusing on the unique traffic patterns of that specific setting. In addition to its robust detection capabilities, open-appsec streamlines maintenance by eliminating the need for frequent threat signature updates and exception management, which are often prerequisites in many conventional WAF solutions. Overall, open-appsec not only enhances security but also reduces the complexity typically associated with managing web application firewalls.

ArvanCloud CDN features numerous PoP locations strategically positioned worldwide to efficiently deliver online content to users from the closest geographical point, ensuring optimal quality and speed. With the ArvanCloud Cloud Computing infrastructure, you can easily set up unlimited cloud servers within just a few clicks. Furthermore, each server allows for the creation of multiple cloud storage disks, enabling effective management of your data center communications through Firewall and the use of private or public networks. Data stored in ArvanCloud’s Cloud Storage is secured, providing peace of mind against potential data loss, and you can access a dependable storage system from virtually anywhere in the world. Additionally, ArvanCloud's Container-Based Platform as a Service adheres to Kubernetes standards, allowing you to launch an operational product with just a few simple commands, making it exceptionally user-friendly and efficient for developers. Overall, ArvanCloud's comprehensive solutions support a seamless cloud experience tailored to various needs.

VNIS distinguishes itself as a comprehensive security solution for Web, App, and API, being the only Multi-CDN service in Vietnam that effortlessly connects top-tier global CDNs via a centralized management interface. - Strong DDoS Protection: It can successfully mitigate large-scale Layer 3/4/7 DDoS attacks with an astounding capacity reaching up to 2,600 Tbps. - Smart Security Features: The system utilizes AI-enhanced Cloud WAAP (Web Application and API Protection), incorporating an extensive suite of over 2,400 security protocols designed to protect against the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities, newly discovered zero-day exploits, and malicious bots. - Sophisticated Traffic Control: By employing AI Smart Load Balancing (RUM, GSLB), it adeptly manages traffic flow to ensure that connections are made through the fastest and most dependable servers available. Moreover, the platform's cutting-edge functionalities provide a strong defense against constantly changing cyber threats, making it an indispensable option for companies aiming to ensure thorough online security. As a result, VNIS not only secures digital assets but also enhances overall operational efficiency through its intelligent management systems.

BunkerWeb stands out as an innovative, open-source Web Application Firewall (WAF) tailored for the security requirements of contemporary web applications. Functioning as a full-fledged web server based on NGINX, it guarantees that your web services are "secure by default." This tool can be seamlessly integrated into diverse environments such as Linux, Docker, Swarm, and Kubernetes, and provides complete configurability via a user-friendly web interface for those who favor it over command-line interactions. In essence, BunkerWeb streamlines the intricacies of cybersecurity, making it user-friendly for everyone, regardless of their technical background. Moreover, BunkerWeb is equipped with vital security features within its core framework while also facilitating easy upgrades through a versatile plugin system, ensuring it can meet a wide array of security needs. With its adaptable architecture, users can tailor their security solutions to fit specific operational contexts, enhancing overall web protection.