AI Visibility Rankings · Security

Top 20 web application firewalls by AI search visibility (2026)

Security services used to protect web applications from exploits, bots, DDoS, and application-layer attacks in production environments. Ranked by a composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →

Refreshed Jun 05, 2026

26%

Avg visibility across category

Avg citation rate

20/20

Brands successfully audited

At a glance

Category leader Cloudflare 100% visibility · named in 8 of 8 AI answers

Most cited brand Fastly 38% citation rate · the AI's most-trusted source brand in web application firewalls

Top cited domain fastly.com Referenced by AI across the web application firewalls query set — the highest-leverage PR target in this category

Visibility spread 100pp Gap between top and bottom of the ranking · 8 brands at 0% (invisible to the AI)

What we observed in this categoryauto-generated

Cloudflare holds a commanding position in the Web Application Firewalls category with 100% AI visibility — a 12.5-point gap above Imperva and AWS WAF, both at 87.5%, and nearly four times the 26.2% category average. This gap is consequential because it means Cloudflare appears in every AI Overview response sampled, while even second-tier leaders miss roughly one in eight queries. The drop from rank 4 (Akamai, 75%) to rank 5 (Fastly, 50%) marks a secondary cliff where visibility roughly halves.

A notable divergence exists between AI visibility and citation rates across this category. The top four brands — Cloudflare, Imperva, AWS WAF, and Akamai — each hold 0% citation despite high visibility scores, meaning AI Overviews name them frequently but never link back to their own domains as sources. Fastly is the sole top-five brand that earns citations (37.5%), creating a split: brands can be 'named' by AI without being 'trusted' as source material, a distinction that has direct implications for referral traffic.

The top cited sources list reveals that AI Overviews in this category anchor heavily on third-party review and analyst content rather than vendor sites. Fastly.com is the lone vendor domain among the top cited sources, alongside gartner.com, g2.com, aimultiple.com, and openappsec.io. YouTube also appears as a cited source, suggesting AI is drawing on video content for WAF explanations. The average citation rate across all 20 brands is just 3.8%, confirming that vendor-owned domains are largely excluded from the AI's source layer despite frequent brand mentions.

Movers & shakers since last refresh

Biggest visibility risers

Cloudflare 0% → 100% · rank #0 → #1
+100pp
Imperva 0% → 88% · rank #0 → #2
+88pp
AWS WAF 0% → 88% · rank #0 → #3
+88pp

The ranking

#	Brand	Visibility	Citation	Top engine
1	Cloudflare cloudflare.com	100%	0%	Google AI Overviews
Cloudflare leads at 100% visibility — 73.8 points above the category average — but earns 0% citations, meaning it is named in every Overview yet never sourced.
2	Imperva imperva.com	88%	0%	Google AI Overviews
Imperva ties AWS WAF at 87.5% visibility and a 61.2 composite score, but like AWS WAF carries zero citations, offering no referral-traffic advantage despite strong AI mentions.
3	AWS WAF aws.amazon.com	88%	0%	Google AI Overviews
AWS WAF matches Imperva exactly at 87.5% visibility and 0% citations, notable given Amazon's domain authority, suggesting AI treats aws.amazon.com as a vendor source, not an editorial one.
4	Akamai akamai.com	75%	0%	Google AI Overviews
Akamai at 75% visibility and a 52.5 composite score sits 12.5 points below AWS WAF, and also holds 0% citations, continuing the named-but-not-sourced pattern among top WAF incumbents.
5	Fastly fastly.com	50%	38%	Google AI Overviews
Fastly is the only top-five brand with citations (37.5%), despite ranking lowest in the tier at 50% visibility, making it the sole top vendor whose domain the AI actively references as a source.
6	Azure Web Application Firewall azure.microsoft.com	25%	12%	Google AI Overviews
7	F5 f5.com	25%	0%	Google AI Overviews
8	Sucuri sucuri.net	25%	0%	Google AI Overviews
9	Fortinet fortinet.com	12%	12%	Google AI Overviews
10	Radware radware.com	12%	12%	Google AI Overviews
11	Google Cloud Armor cloud.google.com	12%	0%	Google AI Overviews
12	Reblaze reblaze.com	12%	0%	Google AI Overviews
13	Barracuda barracuda.com	0%	0%	Google AI Overviews
14	StackPath stackpath.com	0%	0%	Google AI Overviews
15	Indusface indusface.com	0%	0%	Google AI Overviews
16	Citrix citrix.com	0%	0%	Google AI Overviews
17	Qualys qualys.com	0%	0%	Google AI Overviews
18	Wallarm wallarm.com	0%	0%	Google AI Overviews
19	Penta Security pentasecurity.com	0%	0%	Google AI Overviews
20	Edgio edg.io	0%	0%	Google AI Overviews

Sources AI engines trust in this category

Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on web application firewalls, these are the domains Google AI Overviews cited most often. If you're not on this list — or if your competitors are — that's a concrete PR / linkbuilding target.

fastly.comgartner.comopenappsec.iog2.comyoutube.comcheckpoint.comafplanet.comaimultiple.com

How to read this ranking

Four things worth knowing before you act on the numbers above. These are the same definitions across every industry page — for category-specific observations, see the What we observed section above (where available) and the per-brand insights inline in the ranking.

Visibility = being named

A brand's visibility % is the share of AI answers that mention it by name in the response prose. This is who AI engines actively recommend to the buyer.

Citation rate = being trusted

Citation rate is the share of AI answers that include the brand's domain as a clickable source link. This is what the AI treats as authoritative evidence — different from being named.

Top engine differs by brand

The "top engine" column shows which AI surface each brand performs best on. Big gaps between a brand's score across engines usually points to specific content or schema gaps.

Rankings move month to month

AI engines re-crawl and re-rank on shorter cycles than classical search. We re-audit every brand on this list at least every 30 days and refresh this page automatically.

Get your own web application firewalls brand audited

The brands above were curated from public market-leader lists. Want the same measurement against your own brand — including the queries you appear on, which competitors get named instead, and a prioritised fix list? Run a free preview.

Audit your web application firewalls brand → Browse all rankings Methodology →

Frequently asked about web application firewalls AI visibility

Who leads AI visibility in the Web Application Firewalls category?

Cloudflare leads with 100% AI visibility, a composite score of 70.0, and a 12.5-point gap over the next closest brands, Imperva and AWS WAF, both at 87.5%.

Which WAF brands are most cited as sources in AI Overviews?

Fastly is the only top-five WAF vendor whose domain appears in the top cited sources list, with a 37.5% citation rate; all other top brands hold 0% citations.

What third-party sources does AI anchor on for WAF category research?

The top cited sources include gartner.com, g2.com, aimultiple.com, openappsec.io, and youtube.com, indicating AI Overviews heavily favour analyst, review, and video content over vendor pages.

Is there a meaningful visibility gap between the top WAF brands and the rest of the category?

Yes — the top four brands range from 75–100% visibility against a category average of just 26.2%, with brands from rank 6 downward dropping sharply to 25% visibility or below.

Can a WAF brand be highly visible in AI Overviews without being cited as a source?

The data confirms this clearly: Cloudflare, Imperva, AWS WAF, and Akamai all appear in the majority of AI Overviews at 0% citation, showing AI names them without linking their domains.

How does Azure Web Application Firewall compare to other cloud-native WAF products in AI visibility?

Azure WAF ranks 6th at just 25% visibility and a 21.2 composite score, significantly behind AWS WAF's 87.5% visibility despite both being hyperscaler-native products.