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Akamai Bot Manager vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 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

Akamai Bot Manager
Ranking in Bot Management
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in Bot Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), API Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Bot Management category, the mindshare of Akamai Bot Manager is 10.8%, down from 18.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 15.7%, down from 17.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Bot Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform15.7%
Akamai Bot Manager10.8%
Other73.5%
Bot Management
 

Featured Reviews

Denis Burnaev - PeerSpot reviewer
SecOps Engineer at El Al
Uses real-time dashboards to manage bot traffic and has provided a reliable first layer of defense
Because we are an airline, we have various attacks on our website and application, and we really have to involve our experience and try to find attacks by ourselves. These days attacks are very sophisticated and they are trying to manipulate in the same way as humans, so the anomaly feature is not really helpful. Bots are very clever these days and they move through the website the way humans do. We are not really using it because again, the attacks are sophisticated. We need something that involves different AI models that can try to find similarity in all the data that we are getting from Akamai Bot Manager to understand where exactly we can find similarities between the ways bots are reacting on the website. The most valued feature these days is getting research on all the data as fast as possible and trying to find similarities to understand which bots are trying to manipulate or abuse my website. We are going toward AI solutions because it is the fastest, but it should be a very sophisticated model. Bots these days move the way humans do, so it's really hard to understand which of them is a bot and which is human. Bots can go through the challenges you are putting on the website, and it seems nothing can stop them.
ST
Senior Cybersecurity Consultant at Cyberoutcome Limited
Strong policies and bot defenses have secured critical APIs and have reduced attack noise
From my research regarding the IAM space that Imperva Application Security Platform is trying to look into, I believe they still need to do a lot of modeling and modification to make sure that also helps. There are several competitors in the IAM space, so Imperva would do well if they can do some basic modeling and modifications from my own personal research and my own experience in the IAM space. Alternatively, they could actually just focus on trying to be stronger in the web application space and the database activity monitoring space.The main reason it is not a perfect ten is regarding support. At times, having to reach the support team takes eight hours to ten hours maximum. There are times when clients could have urgent issues to attend to. The support team could do more by having a faster response rate.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Akamai Bot Manager has more advanced rules that allow it to detect and block bot scrapers."
"Akamai Bot Manager is helping us understand how many bots are accessing our websites or applications, and we can manage the dashboard to differentiate on a quick view and see how much good bots get access compared to bad bots trying to reach our website."
"Akamai Bot Manager has two valuable features: BMS (Bot Manager Standard) and BMP (Bot Manager Premier)."
"The best feature is the BNP. That is what Manager Premium does, protection of transactional endpoints."
"In terms of the security provided, the benefits from the use of the product are immediately visible."
"The most valuable features of Akamai Bot Manager are the seamless integration and accuracy with which it detects the bots that can make attacks."
"Akamai Bot Manager detection is very good, we do not have false positives, and it is very accurate compared to other solutions, which is one of the reasons why we chose Akamai Bot Manager over other solutions."
"Based on the telemetry, Akamai Bot Manager gives a rough estimate of all the hits and requests we get, which are suspected bots."
"The solution is cloud-based and offers us good uptime. It has combined web and API security. Therefore, with one license, you access both application security and also API security."
"The compliance is the most valuable aspect."
"Incapsula takes care of the CDN infrastructure and bandwidth volume, providing several enterprise "load balancing" features."
"Imperva Application Security Platform positively impacts us because we have a critical website, so by placing a WAF of Imperva's quality, it allows us to have visibility and granular control over the various attacks that can occur on the website."
"It is an effective threat mitigation tool."
"I have had a positive experience with Imperva Web Application Firewall's tech support so far. They are knowledgeable and respond on time."
"Incapsula’s DDoS Protection and Load Balancing really helped maximize our security."
"Final words : I was pretty much convinced by the Incapsula CDN, Overall it worked well without any glitches or breaking down the theme or stylesheet of my blog."
 

Cons

"There are other rules that are user-friendly, however, many of the things have a learning curve. This is not something you enter into lightly."
"We cannot block illegitimate web scrapers because Akamai Bot Manager does not provide detailed information about various origins and remote VPNs they come through."
"I feel that customer support has certain concerns where improvements are required."
"Akamai Bot Manager Premier has some additional functionalities, particularly for web telemetry, but they don't have it for app telemetry."
"Akamai Bot Manager can improve by having better SDK integration. SDK would be required to integrate with any mobile applications and if they are able to make that more seamless, it will help."
"In my opinion, the UI of Akamai Bot Manager is a bit unconventional and not as intuitive as one might expect."
"There are other rules that are user-friendly, however, many of the things have a learning curve."
"There is a clear need for improvement. Over the past year or so, we've observed an increase in the sophistication of attacks, with some occurring at the start of this year or even extending back one and a half years. Despite having ample resources, particularly with the advent of advanced AI, these entities can now execute basic bot attacks."
"The user interface could be better."
"The log analytics interface within Incapsula isn't really good. For example, if you have to get all logs from there, it's a very cumbersome process."
"The product's customization capabilities are a bit problematic, requiring support cases for backend modifications."
"The weakest point of Imperva is their first level of support, which should be improved."
"I would like the solution to improve its support response time."
"The price of this solution is a little bit high compared to competitors."
"It should be more user-friendly. Like other web solutions, it would be helpful to be able to easily do policy configuration and identification inside the application."
"The cost could be lower; our end clients need to have a high budget to purchase this solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You buy a license of the product based on a certain volume, but if you hit the volume and go above it, then you are charged additional for each GB you use. I think you need to pay 20,000 per month."
"Akamai Bot Manager requires a separate license that sits on top of Kona or Akamai Web Application Protector."
"Akamai Bot Manager is a very expensive solution."
"The price of Akamai Bot Manager could improve."
"We have to pay a bundled cost."
"Pricing could be more competitive."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is expensive."
"Everybody complains about the price of this solution."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."
"It is a very affordable solution."
"The solution's pricing is an issue."
"The solution's price is high for small companies."
"The pricing is somewhat expensive. It is actually a huge investment when compared to other countries."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Retailer
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai Bot Manager?
Akamai Bot Manager is not cheap. From what I know, Akamai Bot Manager is not so cheap.
What needs improvement with Akamai Bot Manager?
Because we are an airline, we have various attacks on our website and application, and we really have to involve our experience and try to find attacks by ourselves. These days attacks are very sop...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Bot Manager?
I'm working at an airline company, so Akamai Bot Manager has been used in our company for approximately 20 years.
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise. For example, the initiation of an attack on the endpoint level cou...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Luisa Via Roma, Gymgrossisten, Rakuten, U.S. News & World Report, Japan Airlines
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Bot Manager vs. Imperva Application Security Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.