Blackwall
by Blackwall (formerly BotGuard)
Bot, AI-agent and L7 attack protection that hosting and cloud providers run in their own infrastructure and resell under their brand
Blackwall, formerly BotGuard, is a web traffic security platform sold through hosting, cloud and managed service providers. It filters malicious bots, application-layer DDoS and exploit traffic, and separates legitimate AI agents from abusive ones, so providers can offer protection to their customers without handing the relationship to a CDN.
Blackwall is an Estonian web traffic security company founded in 2019 by Nikita Rozenberg (CEO) and Denis Prochko, after automated traffic overwhelmed a recipe site Prochko ran. It operated as BotGuard until its March 2025 Series B of 45 million euros led by Dawn Capital. On October 20, 2026 it announced a $100M Series C led by AVP at a $2.2 billion valuation, with Dawn Capital, MMC Ventures and Tera Ventures following on; TechCrunch put the valuation at four times its 2025 round. Blackwall sells through a channel: web hosting, managed service and cloud providers deploy it inside their own infrastructure and resell it, often white-labelled, sharing revenue with Blackwall. The product set covers traffic analytics, bot mitigation, L7 DDoS protection, a web application firewall, custom rules, content caching and load balancing. Detection uses digital and HTTP/2 fingerprinting to identify the software behind a request, and TechCrunch reports Blackwall runs its own AI models at customer endpoints to judge request intent, including telling legitimate AI agents from malicious automation. Integration paths include Nginx and Apache modules, cPanel/WHM, Plesk, WHMCS and ISPmanager, a WordPress plugin, a Kubernetes ingress controller, a partner API, and GateKeeper, a self-hosted reverse proxy on Debian 12. Deployments start in a no-blocking monitoring mode, and an AI Advisor recommends rules to enable one at a time. Blackwall says it filters billions of requests a day; its 2025 figure was more than 2.3 million websites protected. It does not publish revenue, customer counts or list prices, and competes with Cloudflare, Akamai, Imperva, DataDome and Netacea.
Product and security leaders at hosting, cloud and managed service providers who want to sell bot and AI-agent traffic protection under their own brand.
A white-label security product that runs in your own infrastructure and earns add-on revenue, while the customer relationship stays with you rather than a CDN.
At a Glance
- Category
- Governance & Security
- Pricing
- Freemium, Contact for pricing
- Target Market
- Hosting Providers, Managed Service Providers, Cloud Providers, CISOs
- Deployment
- Hybrid, Self-hosted
- Founded
- 2019
- Headquarters
- Estonia
- Customers
- More than 2.3 million websites protected (company figure, March 2025)
Key Features
- ✓Bot mitigation with fingerprinting
Digital and HTTP/2 fingerprinting identifies the software behind each request, blocking scrapers and attack bots while search engines keep indexing.
- ✓AI-agent traffic management
Per TechCrunch, Blackwall runs its own AI models at endpoints to judge request intent and separate legitimate AI agents from malicious automation.
- ✓L7 DDoS protection and WAF
Application-layer attack filtering, a web application firewall and custom rules sit in front of customer sites, adding only a few milliseconds of latency.
- ✓Hosting panel integrations
Modules for cPanel/WHM, Plesk, WHMCS and ISPmanager, plus Nginx and Apache integration, let providers activate protection without customer code changes.
- ✓White-label channel model
Providers package Blackwall into their own tiers, set their own prices and keep the customer relationship, with revenue shared back to Blackwall.
- ✓AI Advisor and monitoring mode
New sites start in no-blocking mode and an AI Advisor recommends rules to switch on one at a time, which limits false positives at rollout.
Capabilities
Use Cases
- •Premium security add-on for hosting plans
A hosting company bundles Blackwall into a higher plan tier, setting its own price and earning add-on revenue from its existing customer base.
- •Controlling AI crawler and agent load
A provider filters abusive AI scrapers and agents across thousands of customer sites while allowing legitimate agents and search crawlers through.
- •MSP multi-tenant protection
A managed service provider protects client sites from sub-accounts and forwards monthly per-domain PDF threat reports to each client.
- •Self-hosted reverse proxy
An operator deploys GateKeeper on Debian 12 in its own data centre, keeping traffic inside its network instead of routing it through an external CDN.
Ideal For
Best For
- ✓Shared and managed hosting providers adding a paid security tier to cPanel, Plesk or WHMCS plans
- ✓MSPs that need multi-tenant bot and L7 protection with sub-accounts and monthly per-domain reports
- ✓Providers seeing load from AI crawlers and agents on customer sites who want to separate legitimate agents from abusive ones
- ✓Hosting businesses that do not want to send customer traffic through an external CDN
- ✓Kubernetes-based platforms that need bot filtering at the ingress layer
Not Ideal For
- ✗Single enterprises buying protection for their own sites, since Blackwall sells mainly through hosting and service-provider partners
- ✗Teams that need volumetric DDoS mitigation: Blackwall's own FAQ says it resists application-layer attacks but not volumetric ones, so pair it with network-level protection
- ✗Buyers whose procurement requires published SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification, which Blackwall's site and docs do not list
Deployment
Market & Ratings
More than 2.3 million websites protected (company figure, March 2025)
Market Analysis
Pros
- ✓Channel model lets providers earn revenue on security without giving up the customer to a CDN
- ✓Broad integration surface across hosting panels, web servers, WordPress and Kubernetes
- ✓Monitoring-first rollout and an AI Advisor reduce the risk of blocking real visitors on day one
- ✓Well funded after a $100M Series C, with expansion planned across 12 regions
Cons
- ✗No volumetric DDoS protection, per Blackwall's own FAQ; it covers application-layer attacks only
- ✗Antivirus MITM proxies (Kaspersky, ESET, Avast) can change browser fingerprints and get real visitors flagged, according to the FAQ
- ✗No published pricing or security certifications, and documentation is mid-migration from the old botguard.net site
- ✗No independent user reviews: the G2 BotGuard profile has zero reviews, and the dashboard is English-only
Pricing
Free visibility tier
$0
- ✓Shows site traffic and threats
- ✓Protection features are paid
Provider partner programme
Contact for pricing
- ✓White-label resale
- ✓Revenue share with Blackwall
- ✓API provisioning
- ✓Hosting panel modules
Blackwall publishes no list prices. Providers buy through a partner programme, set their own end-customer prices and share revenue with Blackwall; one reseller, Realtime Register, describes the model as pay-as-you-go with no minimum commitment. TechCrunch reports a free tier that shows traffic and threats, with protection paid. White-labelling requires a separate agreement.
Security & Compliance
Sources
This page was written from 8 sources, 7 on domains other than blackwall.com.
- 1.blackwall.com — blackwall.comvendor
- 2.docs.blackwall.com — docs.blackwall.com
- 3.docs.blackwall.com — faqs
- 4.techcrunch.com — blackwall quadruples valuation to 2 2b as websites wrangle a
- 5.tech.eu — blackwall hits 2 2b valuation with 100m series c just weeks
- 6.thenextweb.com — blackwall 100m series c 2 2 billion valuation
- 7.pulse2.com — blackwall e45 million series b raised for ai enabled securit
- 8.realtimeregister.com — blackwall
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