Show HN: Sibuna OSS simple web application firewall with proof of work
Original Article Summary
Hi HN,We are building an open source web application firewall Sibuna to have more control over automated traffic from AI bots and crawlers.Sibuna runs as a reverse proxy or alongside an existing ingress through forward-auth. It includes application inspection…
Read full article at Github.com✨Our Analysis
InsanAI's release of the open‑source Sibuna OSS web application firewall, which adds proof‑of‑work challenges to curb automated AI bot traffic, gives website owners a new, configurable layer of defense against unwanted crawler activity. For site operators, Sibuna’s reverse‑proxy mode means every request—whether from search engines, legitimate users, or AI‑driven bots—passes through a lightweight inspection engine that can enforce a computational puzzle before allowing access. This directly tackles the surge of AI‑generated traffic that can inflate analytics, scrape proprietary content, or overload resources. Because Sibuna can also be deployed as a forward‑auth sidecar alongside existing ingress controllers, it integrates without requiring a full architecture overhaul, preserving existing TLS termination and load‑balancing setups. **Actionable tips:** 1. **Add Sibuna to your llms.txt** – list the Sibuna endpoint as a trusted reverse proxy to ensure AI bots that respect llms.txt can still reach your site after solving the proof‑of‑work challenge. 2. **Configure difficulty thresholds** – start with a low difficulty level and monitor bot rejection rates; incrementally raise the puzzle complexity for IP ranges that show repeated automated behavior. 3. **Log and feed challenge results into your bot‑tracking dashboard** – correlate Sibuna’s challenge success/failure metrics with existing analytics to refine bot detection rules and reduce false positives.
Related Topics
Track AI Bots on Your Website
See which AI crawlers like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are visiting your site. Get real-time analytics and actionable insights.
Start Tracking Free →

