No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Akamai App and API Protector vs Uplynk comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

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 Web Application ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Akamai App and API Protector
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
23rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (10th), Cloud and Data Center Security (16th)
Uplynk
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
28th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Data Replication (8th), CDN (8th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 3.8%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 2.9%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Uplynk is 1.3%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall3.8%
Akamai App and API Protector2.9%
Uplynk1.3%
Other92.0%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
CTO at PlayNirvana
Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.
Gavin Pinho - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
AliKhalil - PeerSpot reviewer
manager at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Reliable live streaming has increased our continuous viewership and maintained audience trust
Uplynk is deployed in my organization on-premises and is fully on-site. Uplynk supports our business continuity or disaster recovery plans because it's really well protected and it doesn't lag or crash when there's a spike in all areas. Uplynk helps us comply with regulatory requirements in our industry by keeping us live. Uplynk integrates really well with other systems or tools we use. You need a whole team to really run Uplynk because there are so many moving pieces, the code, the app, and other components. My experience with Uplynk's analytics or reporting capabilities is that they are especially helpful to update the teams and our stakeholders. I would describe Uplynk's flexibility or customization options as really easy, really customizable, and it integrates in many areas. Uplynk helps me deliver content to different devices or platforms by allowing us to upload on and stay live on tablets, computers, and televisions. It allows us to stay live to get those viewerships. Uplynk is a software that saves time, but you need a solid team to run Uplynk to ensure viewership and everything is moving because there are many pieces to keep. I advise others looking into using Uplynk that it takes many different areas: coding, integration, APIs, and all that. It takes a team to run it, and you need to be a big company. If you're streaming and doing all that at a big scale, use it. If you're on a smaller scale, Uplynk is going to be really hard for you to manage. It's not something that's simple; just use the ones that are basic out there if you're an influencer and things like that. I would rate this product a nine overall.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Very glad the WAF rulesets works out of box, and requires very little tuning or maintenance."
"We like that there's load balancing, firewall capabilities, DDoS protection, et cetera, all covered by Cloudflare."
"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."
"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."
"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."
"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."
"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."
"The Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's most valuable feature is its ease of configuration."
"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."
"Akamai is a very reliable provider and a very safe bet that will suit most environments' needs."
"Everything will be handled by Akamai's system before it reaches our infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature is the DDoS protection, which is the main reason we got it."
"Akamai Web Application Protector is exceptionally stable; after all, it is Akami."
"Features like scalability and uptime are most effective."
"Traffic filtering and WAF are valuable."
"They have a fantastic tool for analyzing and viewing your traffic."
"It's super easy to use and integrate with."
"Without EdgeCast, our website was taking 10 to 15 seconds to load; with EdgeCast, it loads under five seconds and it's a good product."
"The customer support and service responsiveness were excellent."
"The product is easy to use and easy to implement."
"Uplynk has positively impacted our organization by bringing us more viewership, as it does not glitch and stays stable during spikes in viewership, leading to approximately a 15 to 20 percent increase in viewership because there's no lag and nothing fails."
"The Rules Engine V4 is the most valuable feature."
"I recommend this solution because, for me, it's one of the most efficient and performant CDN operators."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the Uplynk platform for streaming purposes."
 

Cons

"WAF doesn't directly affect bandwidth costs. It saves costs on protection. However, with the correct setup, it's difficult to determine if it saves costs overall due to the fixed enterprise plan fee."
"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."
"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."
"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."
"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."
"Support can be challenging at times."
"We don't even use Cloudflare Bot Management because it's too expensive; you need to pay per request, and it's much cheaper to get one or two additional machines."
"The product really isn't very user-friendly."
"The pricing could be reduced a bit."
"It would be nice if Akamai Web Application Protector's price is lowered and made cheaper."
"They should allow for multiple security configurations in one account which will enhance the scalability."
"The custom rules must be improved."
"They are already very flexible, but room for improvement is there. Reports generation could be better and should be improved."
"It could have better analytics and reporting visibility in the OEM console."
"I do not see any area for improvement. Akamai is already maintaining its own databases for the security concerns, vulnerabilities, and attacks that are there. If anything, they should have a solution in the infrastructure security area as well. They should not be only in cloud cybersecurity; they should also be in infrastructure security."
"The tool needs to resolve its lack of innovation."
"We could not create more than 15 custom rules."
"The web interface of the Verizon Edgecast portal is very old. It's not user-friendly, slow, and it is missing some valuable features like the ability to make bulk changes."
"The pricing was initially very expensive."
"To improve Uplynk, it should be made more user-friendly, as it takes a lot of moving pieces to make it work."
"In the next release, I would like to see more global endpoints for their CDN and a lower price."
"The comparable features that we are looking at fits into Cloudflare's free version, as opposed to Verizon EdgeCast, which we are paying for."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"It is not too pricey."
"It's more expensive than others, but the ROI is good for large-scale infrastructure."
"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."
"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."
"The product is expensive, but it is worth the money."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product’s price is high."
"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."
"Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."
"When I modeled it out, we are spending somewhere between $600 to $800 a month with Verizon EdgeCast."
"The product is cheaper compared to other solutions."
"Be careful about the options because to have all the features can be very expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Performing Arts
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
17%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...
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...
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.
What advice do you have for others considering Akamai Web Application Protector?
The primary way Akamai App and API Protector helps manage evolving cyber threats is by considering the impact on reve...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Edgio Global CDN?
I wasn't a part of the pricing, setup cost, and licensing discussions, but from what I heard from my colleagues, they...
What needs improvement with Edgio Global CDN?
To improve Uplynk, it should be made more user-friendly, as it takes a lot of moving pieces to make it work. Uplynk i...
What is your primary use case for Edgio Global CDN?
My main use case for Uplynk is live channels around the clock. Since we're in the television business, we're constant...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
Edgio, Limelight Content Delivery, Limelight Orchestrate Delivery, Limelight Origin Storage, Global CDN, Verizon EdgeCast
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
TD Ameritrade, Plus500, Solvay Bank, Yahoo, Deckers Brands, and Coach
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. Uplynk and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.