AI Visibility Rankings · Security

Web application firewalls: AI search visibility ranking (2026)

By monitoraeo Last updated July 06, 2026 Refreshed every 30 days

How AI search engines rank web application firewalls by visibility and citations. 20 brands measured monthly across Google AI Mode: which brands the AI names in answers, which domains it cites as sources, and how the leaders compare. Security services used to protect web applications from exploits, bots, DDoS, and application-layer attacks in production environments. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →

11%

Avg visibility across category

12%

Avg citation rate

20/20

Brands successfully audited

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When AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini answer questions about web application firewalls, Fortinet comes up most often, appearing in 37.5% of tracked responses across the category. Fastly and Akamai round out the top three, making them the names buyers will encounter most when researching this space through AI-assisted searches.

The sources AI engines pull from most heavily include youtube.com, fastly.com, indusface.com, openappsec.io, and google.com. That mix of a vendor's own domain (Fastly), a known WAF testing and managed-security site (Indusface), and an open-source WAF project (openappsec.io) tells you the rankings reflect a combination of vendor content authority and third-party technical coverage, not just analyst reports or traditional review aggregators.

For a buyer using this page, the practical takeaway is to cross-check any shortlisted brand against the sources AI engines trust most. A brand that ranks well here has strong third-party technical coverage and recent citations from credible WAF-focused domains. If a vendor you are considering is absent or low on the list, look for whether it lacks independent reviews, recent documentation, or coverage on the specific subcategory features you need.

At a glance

Category leader Fortinet 38% visibility · named in 3 of 8 AI answers

Most cited brand Fastly 50% citation rate · the AI's most-trusted source brand in web application firewalls

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

Visibility spread 38pp Gap between top and bottom of the ranking · 12 brands at 0% (invisible to the AI)

What we observed in this category

Fortinet leads the Web Application Firewalls category with a composite score of 37.5, matching its visibility and citation percentages exactly, which signals a rare alignment between named mentions and trusted references. Fastly sits second at 32.5 composite despite lower visibility (25.0%) than Fortinet, because its citation rate of 50.0% is the highest in the category. That gap between first and second matters because Fortinet's visibility has actually dropped 12.5 points from the prior period, meaning Fastly is closing the lead on the metric that most influences AI trust signals.

The most striking divergence between visibility and citation appears at ranks three and nine. Akamai holds 37.5% visibility, equal to Fortinet, yet carries a 0.0% citation rate, meaning the AI mentions it frequently but never anchors responses on its own content. Indusface is the mirror image, scoring 0.0% visibility but a 37.5% citation rate, placing it among the most-cited sources despite near-zero named presence. Cloudflare and AWS WAF share this zero-citation pattern with Akamai, confirming that high-visibility brands in this category are not automatically treated as credible sources.

All ten ranked brands share the same top engine, Google AI Mode, indicating this category's AI visibility landscape is driven almost entirely by a single engine rather than a distributed mix. The top cited sources list includes youtube.com, aimultiple.com, and openappsec.io alongside brand domains, suggesting Google AI Mode is anchoring on third-party review and educational content rather than vendor sites alone. Fastly and Fortinet are the only brands whose own domains appear in that cited sources list, reinforcing why their citation rates outpace the category average of 11.9%.

Movers & shakers since last refresh

Biggest visibility risers

Akamai 0% → 38% · rank #12 → #3
+38pp
Fastly 0% → 25% · rank #3 → #2
+25pp
Imperva 0% → 25% · rank #8 → #5
+25pp

Biggest visibility fallers

F5 25% → 0% · rank #4 → #11
-25pp
Fortinet 50% → 38% · rank #1 → #1
-12pp

The ranking

#	Brand	Visibility	Citation	Top engine
1	Fortinet fortinet.com	38%	38%	Google AI Mode
Fortinet leads with a composite score of 37.5, sitting 26.9 points above the category average visibility of 10.6%, though its visibility has fallen 12.5 points from the prior period.
2	Fastly fastly.com	25%	50%	Google AI Mode
Fastly's citation rate of 50.0% is the highest in the category and more than four times the average of 11.9%, compensating for visibility that matches peers at 25.0%.
3	Akamai akamai.com	38%	0%	Google AI Mode
Akamai jumped nine rank positions from 12th to 3rd with a visibility delta of 37.5 points, but its 0.0% citation rate means none of its own content is being sourced.
4	Barracuda barracuda.com	25%	25%	Google AI Mode
Barracuda shows balanced visibility and citation both at 25.0%, making it one of only two brands in the top five where named mentions and source trust are directly proportional.
5	Imperva imperva.com	25%	12%	Google AI Mode
Imperva rose three ranks with a visibility delta of 25.0 points, but its citation rate dropped 25.0 points simultaneously, creating a widening gap between presence and trust.
6	Cloudflare cloudflare.com	25%	0%	Google AI Mode
7	AWS WAF aws.amazon.com	25%	0%	Google AI Mode
8	Sucuri sucuri.net	12%	12%	Google AI Mode
9	Indusface indusface.com	0%	38%	Google AI Mode
10	Radware radware.com	0%	25%	Google AI Mode
11	F5 f5.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
12	Azure Web Application Firewall azure.microsoft.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
13	Wallarm wallarm.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
14	Penta Security pentasecurity.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
15	Edgio edg.io	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
16	Google Cloud Armor cloud.google.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
17	Reblaze reblaze.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
18	StackPath stackpath.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
19	Citrix citrix.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
20	Qualys qualys.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode

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 Mode cited most often. If you're not on this list — or if your competitors are — that's a concrete PR / linkbuilding target.

youtube.comfastly.comindusface.comopenappsec.iogoogle.comaimultiple.comprophaze.comfortinet.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. More on visibility →

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. More on citation rate →

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. How AI engines pick sources →

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. How AI search ranking works →

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?

Fortinet leads with a composite score of 37.5 and a visibility rate of 37.5%, well above the category average of 10.6%. It is also one of only two brands whose domain appears in the top cited sources list.

Which brand has the highest citation rate in this category?

Fastly holds the highest citation rate at 50.0%, more than four times the category average of 11.9%, and its domain appears directly in the top cited sources list for the category.

What sources does Google AI Mode cite most for Web Application Firewalls research?

The top cited sources include youtube.com, fastly.com, indusface.com, openappsec.io, google.com, aimultiple.com, prophaze.com, and fortinet.com, indicating a mix of third-party review sites, video content, and select vendor domains.

Which brands are mentioned frequently but never cited as sources?

Akamai, Cloudflare, and AWS WAF all have visibility rates of 25.0% or higher but carry a 0.0% citation rate, meaning Google AI Mode names them without drawing on their own content.

Are there any brands with strong citation rates but low visibility?

Indusface has a citation rate of 37.5%, the second highest in the category, yet its visibility sits at 0.0%, and Radware similarly holds a 25.0% citation rate with zero visibility.

Which previously strong brands have lost AI visibility in this category?

F5 dropped seven rank positions from 4th to 11th, losing all 25.0 visibility points it previously held. Fortinet also fell 12.5 visibility points from 50.0% to 37.5%, though it retains the top composite rank.