AWS WAF vs ModSecurity
Zero of fourteen models named AWS WAF first on the direct prompt; zero named ModSecurity. AWS WAF was named by fourteen of the fourteen models and ModSecurity by ten and AWS WAF carries 56 labels and ModSecurity 20, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in four categories this edition.
Named in one category this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the web application firewalls page.
By framing
AWS WAFFirst choices, of fourteen modelsModSecurity
Across every category in the November 2026 Edition, AWS WAF and ModSecurity were named in the same answer thirty-eight times, of the 198 answers naming AWS WAF and the 48 naming ModSecurity. In those answers ModSecurity took the first choice one time and AWS WAF zero.
Every model, every framing
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | | |||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | |||
| Grok 4.20 | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | | |||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | |||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | |||
| Kimi K2 | | | | |||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | |||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | ||||
| GPT-6 Luna | | | | | | |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | |
AWS WAF ModSecurity first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, AWS WAF on the left and ModSecurity on the right.The direct prompt
Neither was the first choice, one was named
12 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
2 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
AWS WAF0%#3 of 9ModSecurity0%#6 of 9AWS WAF2%#3 of 12ModSecurity2%#6 of 12AWS WAF0%#8 of 9ModSecurity0%#– of 9What the models said about AWS WAF
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Five of six in this category shown.
“Out-of-the-box cloud WAF rules (e.g., basic default AWS WAF or Azure WAF rules) without fine-tuning either block legitimate traffic or miss application-specific flaws.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“avoid high licensing costs (often $5K–$50K+/year for commercial tools like Cloudflare Enterprise, AWS WAF, or Imperva)” Grok 4.20 · budget prompt · soft negative
“Cloudflare or AWS WAF tend to offer the best value with solid protection” Claude Haiku 4.5 · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“If your company's infrastructure is already hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), using AWS WAF is likely the most cost-effective path.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · budget prompt · alternative
“Strong integration with CloudFront and other AWS services; cost-efficient if the application is already deeply invested in AWS.” Perplexity Sonar · direct prompt · alternative
What the models said about ModSecurity
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Do not install this unless you are prepared to spend weeks maintaining the OWASP Core Rule Set (CRS). An unpatched open-source WAF is often less secure” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · hard negative
“Deploying legacy self-hosted open-source WAF engines (like unmaintained ModSecurity v2/v3 builds) without active maintenance or rule updates.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · negative prompt · hard negative
“Avoid purely open-source options like ModSecurity unless you have dedicated security staff” Grok 4.20 · paraphrase prompt · hard negative
“Top Recommendation: ModSecurity (with OWASP Core Rule Set)” Grok 4.20 · budget prompt · first choice
“don't reject ModSecurity simply because it's older: its project says it is now under OWASP stewardship and actively maintained” GPT-6 Luna · negative prompt · alternative
“ModSecurity or Coraza offer powerful, free protection with complete customization” Kimi K2 · budget prompt · alternative
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.