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Akamai API Security vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai API Security
Average Rating
6.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
API Security (1st)
Imperva Application Securit...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
133
Ranking in other categories
CDN (7th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (20th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (6th)
 

Featured Reviews

Deepesh  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Excellent API authentication support but needs better analytics and reporting
I conducted a proof of concept for four months to identify PII and financial information exposed through APIs. Primarily, the API part is effective. I have been using Akamai AppMyWAF. The tool's API authentication, tokenization, and enhanced scalability and performance are valuable features. Akamai's support is impeccable, and its plug-and-play features are helpful.
Bhupesh-Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced network security with effective threat filtering and good bot managing features
We use Imperva DDoS protection to safeguard our network from multiple attacks. It is especially useful to protect websites or applications by redirecting traffic to eliminate threats Imperva DDoS increases our uptime to 99.99% by filtering and managing traffic to ensure only genuine traffic…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The API part is effective."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its integration with API gateways, WAP and with part of their SDLC."
"API throttling is the most valuable feature of Akamai API Security."
"Technical support was very helpful."
"There are quite a few useful Imperva Incapsula features. For example, one of them is the reports. The graphics are very good and it's easy to configure. The whole process is very fast and reliable too. They have good tech support as well."
"On the site security, I can see which countries have incidents, whether it was a robot attack, a real human user, or non-human user."
"It's very pretty easy to onboard the URL."
"The technical support is excellent."
"Scalability is pretty easy on the base platform. You just add another, and you're ready to go."
"They're quite easy to install and quite easy to set up. Clients really like that. Especially when you're dealing with the cloud, it's really easy."
"The features I have found most valuable with Imperva Web Application Firewall are account takeover protection, advanced bot protection, and API security."
 

Cons

"I think it would be good if they can integrate more with API gateways as this is currently limited."
"The challenge I found was with contextualization and how analytics are generated."
"It would be beneficial to use machine learning and API throttling together to identify how the APIs are called and whether it's coming from the right person or the wrong person."
"The user interface could be better."
"In the past, I have bugs on the WAF. I've contacted Imperva about them. Future releases should be less buggy."
"I would like to see automated reporting to improve visibility."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the console by making it easier to use."
"I am looking for more data enrichment. We should have the ability to add our own custom data to the system, to the live traffic."
"It should be more user-friendly. Like other web solutions, it would be helpful to be able to easily do policy configuration and identification inside the application. Understanding the in-depth configuration of a policy is somewhat difficult for an engineer, and they can improve that."
"It would be useful if the solution used more intelligence in attack protection. For example, firewalls are to be dependent on the configuration, but if they could have some data science around it the solution would be even better. The profiling of the traffic, and making decisions surrounding that should be intelligence-based, instead of being based on the configuration of the firewall itself."
"If they can bring in generative AI features, that would be useful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a limit to the number of APIs we can use inside a bundle, and we have to pay extra if we exceed that limit."
"The price of this solution is a little bit high compared to competitors."
"For enterprise contracts you will be in touch with a dedicated account manager who will guide you regarding licensing."
"Imperva’s pricing is a bit higher in the market since it offers a full-blown WAF."
"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."
"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"I rate the product price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
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Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business83
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai API Security?
API throttling is the most valuable feature of Akamai API Security.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai API Security?
I mentioned that support from Akamai is expensive yet it is worth it.
What needs improvement with Akamai API Security?
The challenge I found was with contextualization and how analytics are generated. Reports were sent in a raw format without proper analytics. There was no mechanism to identify which APIs will alwa...
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
What do you like most about Imperva Incapsula?
We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
 

Also Known As

Noname Security
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
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