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Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Get automatic protection from vulnerabilities and the flexibility to create custom rules.

Available on all plans

The Cloudflare Web Application Firewall (Cloudflare WAF) checks incoming web and API requests and filters undesired traffic based on sets of rules called rulesets. The WAF uses the Rules language, a flexible expression syntax that lets you filter traffic by request properties such as IP address, URL path, headers, and body content.

Learn how to get started.


Features

Custom rules

Create your own custom rules to protect your website and your APIs from malicious incoming traffic. Use advanced features like WAF attack score and malicious uploads detection in your custom rules.

Rate limiting rules

Define rate limits for incoming requests matching an expression, and the action to take when those rate limits are reached.

Managed rules

Enable the pre-configured managed rulesets to get immediate protection. These rulesets are regularly updated, offering advanced zero-day vulnerability protections, and you can adjust their behavior.

Account-level configuration

Enterprise-only

Create and deploy rulesets to multiple Enterprise zones.

Security Events

Review mitigated requests (rule matches) using an intuitive interface. Tailor your security configurations based on sampled logs.

Security Analytics

Displays information about all incoming HTTP requests, including those not affected by security measures.

Availability

FeatureFreeProBusinessEnterprise
Attack scoreNoNoYes (one field)Yes
Leaked credentials detectionYes (one field)YesYesYes
Malicious uploads detectionNoNoNoPaid add-on
AI Security for AppsNoNoNoPaid add-on
Custom rulesYesYesYesYes
Rate limiting rulesYes (one rule)YesYesYes
Advanced Rate LimitingNoNoNoPaid add-on
WAF Managed RulesFree Managed Ruleset onlyYesYesYes
Sensitive Data Detection (SDD)NoNoNoYes
Account-level WAF configurationNoNoNoYes
Custom listsYesYesYesYes
Managed IP ListsNoNoNoYes
Email Address ObfuscationYesYesYesYes
Hotlink ProtectionYesYesYesYes
Replace insecure JS librariesYesYesYesYes
IP Access rulesYesYesYesYes
User Agent BlockingYesYesYesYes
Zone LockdownYesYesYesYes
Security Analytics (zone)YesYesYesYes
Security Analytics (account)NoNoYesYes
Security EventsYes (sampled logs only)YesYesYes
Security Events alertsNoNoYesYes
Advanced Security Events alertsNoNoNoYes

This is a summary of available features per Cloudflare plan. Refer to the documentation of individual features for more details.


DDoS Protection

Cloudflare DDoS protection secures websites, applications, and entire networks while ensuring the performance of legitimate traffic is not compromised.

Page Shield

Page Shield is a comprehensive client-side security solution to ensure the safety of your website visitors' browser environment.

Bots

Cloudflare bot solutions identify and mitigate automated traffic to protect your domain from bad bots.