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Akamai App and API Protector vs IBM Cloud Pak for Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 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) (9th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th)
IBM Cloud Pak for Security
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
21st
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 IBM Cloud Pak for Security is 0.1%, down from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Bharat Chandra - PeerSpot reviewer
Exceptional support, protects our sites, and provides visibility into traffic
We did a PoC of Akamai and Cloudflare. 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. Other things are good in Akamai. That is why we are using Akamai. Only the captcha part should be implemented.
reviewer1907040 - PeerSpot reviewer
Great user-friendly interface; provides many functionalities and many free applications
The interface is good and very user-friendly, it's easy for our customers to use. Cloud Pak provides a lot of functionalities and many free applications available from the online shop which can be deployed to your system. It allows for an increase in functionalities even if you've bought the smallest installation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has a good user interface."
"I can attest to its benefits in terms of understanding and mitigating threats...The solution's technical support team seems to be pretty responsive."
"The solution easily identifies, delays, or allows business traffic."
"They have a fantastic tool for analyzing and viewing your traffic."
"Traffic filtering and WAF are valuable."
"The features are powerful and better than F5."
"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."
"Everything will be handled by Akamai's system before it reaches our infrastructure."
"The interface is good and very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"The solution could offer even more integrations."
"It would be nice if Akamai Web Application Protector's price is lowered and made cheaper."
"The pricing could be reduced a bit."
"Akamai App and API Protector is very new to me, so I do not have any insights on improvement areas for the product. However, when we ask for some help, it can take some time. We understand that the job is done by professionals, but if that time can be reduced, it would be great."
"Could integrate more features for each security."
"Customer support has room for improvement."
"It's fine for a simple tool, but as I recall, if you encounter a lot of bots, scrapers, and other things, you'll need this tool bot and this other thing they offer called Bot Manager."
"The WAF features definitely have a lot of room for improvement. A lot of the WAF is really basic. For some products or some of our solutions, we need to run a second layer of more advanced WAF. If it had better layer seven protection then we would not need a second WAF."
"Lacks sufficient technical support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."
"Based on the billing discussions in the DevOps team, Akamai's cost does not seem to be a major thing. However, LOE is an issue. When it comes to support, we know that even all the competitors do this. For a 30-minute issue, they give us a LOE of one or two hours. That is a basic practice, but that is something we worry about."
"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."
"The solution is not expensive."
"Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."
"There is no license at all for Akamai. They are going to charge us only for the usage."
"Akamai is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai, Illumio, VMware and others in Cloud and Data Center Security. Updated: April 2025.
852,764 professionals have used our research since 2012.