AWS Shield vs Akamai App and API Protector comparison

Akamai and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. Akamai is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.7. Akamai holds a 4.4% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

AWS Shield and Akamai App and API Protector are competing products in the cybersecurity field, each offering protection against various online threats. AWS Shield has an edge in integrated protection within AWS services, while Akamai App and API Protector offers robust capabilities for web applications and APIs, making it a potentially superior choice for comprehensive application security despite any pricing differences.

Features: AWS Shield offers seamless integration with AWS infrastructure, providing DDoS protection that utilizes AWS's global network for high scalability. It focuses on infrastructure-level security with automatic detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks. Akamai App and API Protector provides advanced threat intelligence, adaptive security controls, and comprehensive application-layer protection beyond DDoS attacks. It excels in custom rules and offers robust bot management and WAF capabilities for enhanced threat detection.

Room for Improvement: AWS Shield could improve by expanding its application-layer security features beyond DDoS protection and providing more transparent reporting on security incidents. The UI could be further simplified for better user experience. Akamai App and API Protector may need to enhance its integration ease with non-Akamai infrastructures and provide more cost-effective solutions to compete favorably on pricing. Simplifying deployment processes could also be beneficial for users needing quicker configurations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS Shield is generally easier for AWS users due to its seamless integration with AWS cloud services and consistent customer service. Its deployment within the AWS ecosystem is straightforward. Akamai App and API Protector demands separate deployment efforts but benefits from Akamai's specialized cybersecurity expertise and responsive, dedicated support.

Pricing and ROI: AWS Shield is cost-effective for organizations using AWS services, thanks to low setup costs and integration. However, Akamai App and API Protector might have higher initial setup costs but provides significant ROI with its comprehensive security features, making it ideal for businesses prioritizing robust application and API protection.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Shield vs. Akamai App and API Protector Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Akamai App and API Protector

March 2026

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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

Cloudflare

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 16.2%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 4.4%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 3.9%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare	16.2%
AWS Shield	3.9%
Akamai App and API Protector	4.4%
Other	75.5%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal

General Manager at bKash Limited

Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility

From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.

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Gavin Pinho

Privacy & Risk Management Vice President, Information Security at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

Has provided strong protection against evolving threats but still needs support for configuration fine-tuning

The standout features of Akamai App and API Protector are rooted in it being the Web Application Firewall, where all traffic gets scanned, including the implementation of web firewall rules, and after this phase, traffic proceeds through the BMP, which is Bot Management. Akamai App and API Protector exceeds expectations in terms of AI capabilities, and it genuinely combines a plethora of advanced features. The area in which Akamai excels compared to other competitors with a WAF is in threat intelligence, as threats continually evolve, requiring ongoing updates to backend algorithms to effectively capture smart bots, and Akamai's commitment in that regard is backed by an excellent team, while other providers are still catching up.

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reviewer2767527

Lead Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Has enabled multi-layered threat mitigation but still lacks deeper visibility for advanced application attacks

AWS Shield has limited coverage as it only protects against common and high-volume network and transport layer attacks, such as SYN floods. It does not provide inherent protection against more sophisticated layer 7 attacks such as HTTP floods. In such cases, integration with WAF is necessary, which results in additional costs for customers. To protect layer 7, layer 4, and layer 3, customers must implement both solutions. The service also has difficulties with static detection thresholds, which may not be sensitive enough to detect smaller application-specific attacks. While AWS Shield is a key security service, AWS should enhance their expert support with 24/7 response for complex attacks, which is currently limited.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There is no service as mature as Cloudflare that is also as easy to use, reliable, and hosted from excellent infrastructure."

"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."

"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."

"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."

"It is a fast and secure DNS."

"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."

More Cloudflare pros

"Everything will be handled by Akamai's system before it reaches our infrastructure."

"It gives us a report of traffic. It gives us a report of the day-to-day URL traffic, and it also gives an individual report. If we reach out to Akamai, they give us the IPs as well."

"We are getting security for each and every API."

"All the solution's features are very good."

"The solution can scale extremely well."

"Traffic filtering and WAF are valuable."

"The most valuable feature is the custom rules feature. This is because many of our customers require a lot of custom rules. Because it's a very customized project for our customers, I think they have the best of everything already."

"The product is user-friendly."

More Akamai App and API Protector pros

"I recommend AWS Shield because it has proven helpful in tracking DDoS attacks within both my past and present environments, and without AWS Shield, a business could face potential losses, as this tool helps in identifying and mitigating fake traffic that disrupts applications, ultimately supporting business continuity."

"The automatic detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks in the product operates in real-time and provides satisfactory results."

"The product has a good mechanism to analyze trends and trigger events."

"The solution operates smoothly at its baseline level, and we do not encounter any issues at that level."

"The solution's ease of use is the most valuable feature."

"I am impressed with the product's multiple features like security."

"The product is easy to use."

"AWS Shield is aligned with the web application firewall (WAF), and they work seamlessly together, primarily working with Elastic Load Balancer, CloudFront, and Route 53 for CDN and DNS services protection."

More AWS Shield pros

Cons

"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."

"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."

"There are some issues with the CDN services."

"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."

"For the services I am using, it is a bit expensive."

"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything."

"The one feature that is paid is the custom nameservers instead of using the default ones, I want to use a custom one."

"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."

More Cloudflare cons

"The pricing could be reduced a bit."

"If we talk about application layer attacks, including WAF, CloudFlare is leading. Akamai can focus a bit more on the application layer attacks and how to protect them."

"The interface is a little bit clunky and can be improved."

"In terms of precedence of Akamai rules, the last one is implemented. That is the one that is operational. If two rules contradict, the last one is implemented. We had a clash, but it was really tough to find that out. I would like to have a rulebook because, in their architecture documentation, it is not mentioned anywhere that if two rules clash, the last one works, and if it does not work, then what to do. This is something we were debating today with their tech support. With AWS, we get documents for the issues so that they do not occur in the future. Akamai's support and knowledge base needs to be improved."

"Could integrate more features for each security."

"One area where Akamai can improve is the captcha part. Cloudflare provides a captcha if there are a certain number of threats. For example, I can assign that if there are 10 requests within a second from a single IP, it should send a captcha to the user. The user should fill in the captcha, and only after that, the user should be able to access our website. This captcha feature should be built into Bot Manager. I love this captcha feature of Cloudflare."

"Customer support has room for improvement."

"There are some issues with pushing configurations across a network. It still takes about 20 minutes and that means to retract it's another 20 minutes."

More Akamai App and API Protector cons

"There is an area for improvement regarding health checks. AWS Shield does not come with its own health check functionality."

"The management of it is a bit hard. If you don't engineer it on the front side, it is hard to go back in and change it."

"The product needs to improve its logs and reports to make it read better."

"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced."

"AWS Shield Standard requires improvement, particularly regarding its dashboard since it currently provides limited coverage against comprehensive DDoS attacks."

"The product should give users more flexibility to customize their security policies according to their requirements."

"The management of it is a bit hard. If you don't engineer it on the front side, it is hard to go back in and change it. It could be improved in terms of architecture requirements and then ongoing support requirements as a secondary component to it. People tend to set up things like this, and they just expect it to work without the care and feeding that needs to go back into it either from an application team or a network environment team."

"The time taken to detect anomalies must be reduced."

More AWS Shield cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The product’s price is high."

"The price they are offering is quite reasonable for premium customers, but it's very expensive if you're a small and medium-sized enterprises."

"Its price is slightly high. Every company has a justification for the high price. Overall, it feels worth the money based on how the service has been structured, but we do negotiate it."

"One reason not all people use Akamai is that it is a little bit more expensive than some other providers."

"If you want quality, you have to pay the price. Its price is fair. Their account managers are also very helpful. They help you a lot with pricing even though they are working with Akamai."

"Akamai is very expensive."

"Price-wise, I would say Akamai's pricing is competitive."

"It's more expensive than others, but the ROI is good for large-scale infrastructure."

More Akamai App and API Protector pricing and cost advice

"The cost depends on traffic each month, so on average, it costs us between US$200 and US$300 per month."

"We pay $3000 per month for the solution."

"It depends on your subscription level and the volume that you're spending with AWS. So, it is very relative to the consumption alignment in your subscription level. It is a well-constructed, scalable pricing option, but it is relative to how much you're spending on AWS. Because the more you spend, typically, the more you get off on services like this. I find it to be comparable to other solutions."

"The tool's pricing is good."

"The tool is cheap."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	26

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	18

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...

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Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?

Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...

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What do you like most about Cloudflare?

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai Web Application Protector?

The price is higher than others. It could be about 80% to 70% more expensive than other tools. So, it’s not just a sl...

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What needs improvement with Akamai Web Application Protector?

There are no significant areas for improvement on the WAF side or for Akamai App and API Protector solution; they are...

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What is your primary use case for Akamai Web Application Protector?

The main use case for Akamai App and API Protector is serving as the WAF, Web Application Firewall.

See all answers

What do you like most about AWS Shield?

We have integrated the tool with Active Directory. The most important feature is that it's transparent and doesn't de...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Shield?

The pricing structure for AWS Shield is fair, yet it depends on the specific protections chosen. Enabling Shield Adva...

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What needs improvement with AWS Shield?

Services always benefit from improvements, including AWS Shield. With respect to the Web Application Firewall, curren...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 43% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

Prolexic vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 4% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 3% of the time

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Azure DDoS Protection vs AWS Shield

Compared 15% of the time

Cloudflare One vs AWS Shield

Compared 14% of the time

Radware DDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 10% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs AWS Shield

Compared 6% of the time

Prolexic vs AWS Shield

Compared 6% of the time

More AWS Shield Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

March 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector

March 2026

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield

March 2026

Download AWS Shield product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

Akamai App and API Protector provides website security by preventing DDoS attacks, acting as an application firewall, managing content delivery, and monitoring APIs. It adapts to threat profiles and is used for fast media delivery and identifying malicious activities.

Akamai App and API Protector offers strong protection, adaptable security features, and efficient traffic management. Its WAF blocks IP addresses and country-specific threats while preventing SQL injections. Companies utilize it for scalable CDN services and comprehensive traffic analysis. Known for its cost-effectiveness and user-friendly dashboard, this protector stands out for its customizable rules and technical support. Users also highlight the ease of integration and detailed attack insights available through its advanced dashboard.

What are the key features of Akamai App and API Protector?

DDoS Protection: Strong defense against Distributed Denial of Service attacks.
Scalable CDN: Manages content delivery efficiently under high traffic loads.
WAF Capabilities: Blocks specific IPs and countries, prevents SQL injections.
Traffic Filtering: Analyzes and controls incoming requests to maintain security.
Adaptive Stream Delivery: Adjusts content delivery to meet bandwidth needs.

What benefits should users expect?

Cost-Effectiveness: Provides robust security tools at a competitive price.
Enhanced Security: Comprehensive protection against cyber threats.
Scalability: Easily handles increasing traffic and data loads.
Ease of Integration: Simple integration with existing systems.
Insightful Analytics: Offers data-driven insights into traffic and attack patterns.

In media, Akamai App and API Protector ensures smooth streaming by handling high bandwidth demands. E-commerce companies use it to guard against fraud and data breaches. Financial sectors rely on its ability to protect sensitive transactions. Implementations in healthcare focus on safeguarding patient data while maintaining compliance with regulations.

Akamai

AWS Shield is a managed Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection service that safeguards applications running on AWS. AWS Shield provides always-on detection and automatic inline mitigations that minimize application downtime and latency, so there is no need to engage AWS Support to benefit from DDoS protection.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet

netflix, dow jones, mapbox, pearson, rovio, youview, moviestar planet, asurion, payplug, hour of code

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Akamai App and API Protector

March 2026

Free Report: AWS Shield vs. Akamai App and API Protector

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Shield vs. Akamai App and API Protector and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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We monitor all Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.