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

Akamai App and API Protector vs Imperva DDoS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 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
6.3
Imperva DDoS ROI is complex, influenced by compliance, mitigation, cost savings, and service availability, enhancing financial efficiencies.
They know how much money they are losing while the system is down, so by increasing the possibility of not having a down website or web application, return on investment can be calculated easily.
 

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
7.2
Imperva DDoS support receives mixed reviews but is praised for fast resolutions, 24/7 availability, and improved quality.
I would rate the technical support of Imperva DDoS as ten.
 

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
7.9
Imperva DDoS efficiently scales in cloud environments, though licensing costs and transitions from on-premise can pose challenges.
99% of customers are using the cloud version of Imperva DDoS protection, so they just purchase the new license and scale as needed.
 

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
7.8
Imperva DDoS is highly stable with few incidents, rated 8-9 for performance despite occasional cloud-related content delivery issues.
The stability of Imperva DDoS is very good, as it seems they have a lot of servers around the world.
 

Room For Improvement

Akamai App and API Protector needs enhancements in flexibility, UI, customer support, documentation, and advanced protection features.
Imperva DDoS needs interface improvements, reliable support, pricing transparency, enhanced features, and better global integration for reduced latency.
Maybe Imperva DDoS could use endpoints to get information about the attacks before they commence from the endpoint level or establish cooperation with endpoint vendors to share this information.
 

Setup Cost

Akamai App and API Protector is expensive yet considered worth the cost by large enterprises for its quality services.
Enterprise users find Imperva DDoS competitive, with zero setup costs; prices range $200-$10,000/month, offering valuable protection.
I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap and ten is very expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Akamai App and API Protector delivers scalable security, ease of use, and cost-effective protection with advanced features like DDoS defense.
Imperva DDoS provides robust, cloud-based security with ease of use, real-time monitoring, and comprehensive protection against attacks.
I have utilized Imperva's Intelligent Traffic Filtering feature. This feature helps me understand how the attack is progressing and what is happening inside the requests to our website.
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai App and API Protector
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
8th
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (10th)
Imperva DDoS
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
21st
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
CDN (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 4.2%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva DDoS is 6.4%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

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.
DerrickAkankwasa - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide DDoS protection and better security at effective rate
It is expanding its number of data centers for scrubbing traffic. Currently, there is only one POP for cleaning in South Africa. They might add another POP in North Africa, possibly in Nigeria or Egypt. Latency concerns customers, especially in regions like East and West Africa, where traffic has to travel to South Africa before returning. Increasing the number of POPs across the continent would help address these latency issues and improve overall service. While the platform is already quite strong, there’s always room for improvement, especially in keeping up with emerging trends and new types of attacks. Enhancing security capabilities could be beneficial. Integrating more advanced AI features could significantly improve its effectiveness and help customers leverage these tools more effectively. It would be great to see more focus on AI integration to handle and analyze data more efficiently.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection solutions are best for your needs.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

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 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 is rated a ten on a scale where ten is very expensive. The solution is only cloud-based and does not provide on-premises services.
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
Pricing can be improved, as it is quite expensive. Additionally, support response times for emails can sometimes be delayed, which is an area that could use improvement.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. Imperva DDoS and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.