Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Akamai App and API Protector vs Cisco ACI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 14, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.8
Akamai App and API Protector offers superior traffic management, security, and cost savings for large infrastructures, despite higher costs.
Sentiment score
6.7
Cisco ACI enhances efficiency with cost savings and stable performance, though some face challenges and unutilized features.
Efficient utilization leads to cost savings and efficiency gains.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.7
Customer service is excellent, while technical support has mixed reviews with praise for expertise but needs improved availability.
Sentiment score
7.1
Cisco ACI's customer support is mixed, with responsive staff but inconsistent expertise and room for improvement in newer versions.
The technical support from Cisco is satisfactory.
When issues occur, the TAC is not able to provide much support, leading to difficulties in finding RCAs.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Akamai App and API Protector excels in scalability, seamlessly handling extensive user demands and large-scale deployments with stability.
Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco ACI excels in scalability and flexibility, supporting integration across environments with strong automation and plug-and-play features.
Expanding your network or your data center with Cisco ACI is not an issue; scalability is a good feature.
The scalability of Cisco ACI supports our organization's growth effectively.
The solution offers high performance and scalability with connectivity options up to 100 GS.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Akamai App and API Protector is highly stable and reliable, with no reported outages or issues over years of use.
Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco ACI is now stable and reliable, with high availability, effective support, and improvements enhancing performance for data centers.
For stability, Cisco ACI rates a nine or 9.5 because I've seen three customers using Cisco ACI and once deployed, the solution is very stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Akamai App and API Protector needs enhancements in flexibility, UI, customer support, documentation, and advanced protection features.
Cisco ACI users seek improved usability, integration, documentation, deployment, automation, security, and support for a more efficient experience.
Their lack of on-ground offices can result in business losses.
 

Setup Cost

Akamai App and API Protector is expensive yet considered worth the cost by large enterprises for its quality services.
Cisco ACI's high costs are justified by its quality and capabilities, making it a valued investment for large enterprises.
In general, Cisco ACI is on the higher side; it's not a cheap solution.
Cisco's pricing tends to be on the higher end compared to other vendors.
 

Valuable Features

Akamai App and API Protector delivers scalable security, ease of use, and cost-effective protection with advanced features like DDoS defense.
Cisco ACI centralizes management, enhances security, scalability, and automation, simplifying network operations, improving efficiency, and integrating with VMware.
Cisco ACI provides substantial capability; you can design your network accordingly and it's part of the SDN family, providing many benefits to the organization, especially when moving from traditional network infrastructure.
It is essential for growing our data center connectivity and enablement for our customers.
Its features, like easy application deployment, short deployment time for new applications or software, and eliminating the hassle of STP, are appreciated.
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai App and API Protector
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th)
Cisco ACI
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco ACI is 5.5%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Deepesh  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Bot Manager and different features to manage threats
As a product, it has good capabilities, including professional support. However, it's risky for us to rely on AI for real-time traffic management. We use in-house analytics but avoid automatic actions due to their high impact. For example, I live in a developing country. Everyone has different types of phones, apps, and everything else. So, if someone is using a legacy phone, that is still a use case here. If AI decides that this is an end-of-life phone or end-of-life Android operating system, it starts blocking that traffic. We may potentially lose millions or probably thousands and hundreds of thousands of hits per second. Everything is all about how well we serve payments because we're into payments. So, AI is used for analytics but not for real-time decisions. We can't afford to block traffic based on AI models due to the variety of devices and operating systems our users have.
Rahul Khandelwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables streamlined data center management with automation and application-centric design
The main features of Cisco ACI that I really appreciate are the application-centric and network-centric designs, allowing you to create your network according to your application. That's helpful, and it's good for one-time implementation. The automation capabilities are really helpful. We deployed one data center using Terraform, and after deployment, many automation features are available, which can be very helpful. Based on my experience, Cisco ACI provides substantial capability; you can design your network accordingly and it's part of the SDN family, providing many benefits to the organization, especially when moving from traditional network infrastructure. Many organizations are actually using the old traditional Nexus infrastructure or some old data center devices. It gives you significant control and one-time implementation capabilities, and it also provides better performance and security. Functionality-wise, Cisco ACI provides integration using automation. We implemented it through Terraform, which was easy. Those features are available, so I don't think any new features are needed right now; something new could come up, but they have implemented many improvements over the years.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud and Data Center Security solutions are best for your needs.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 slight difference.
What needs improvement with Akamai Web Application Protector?
It could have better analytics and reporting visibility in the OEM console.
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few. -Cisco ACI have physical network gear (9K Switches) where the Code runs in ACI Policy Mode & the UCS server wh...
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so when you change one interface, changes are automatically reflected on every switch...
What do you like most about Cisco ACI?
The flexibility of adding new components with minimal impact on existing services running in the data center is a key benefit of this ACI-based solution.
 

Also Known As

Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. Cisco ACI and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.