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Akamai Ion vs Fortinet FortiADC comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 Ion
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortinet FortiADC
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Akamai Ion is 1.3%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiADC is 9.8%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiADC9.8%
Akamai Ion1.3%
Other88.9%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

HarshBhardiya - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable bot management with valuable traffic analytics and good delivery configuration
We are using Akamai Ion primarily for CDN services. It is more about delivery configuration, and for security, we use Akamai WAF security controls and Botman Akamai Ion helps protect us from DOS, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and scraping tools. Real-time analytics are very helpful for…
GANESAN K - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited
Has supported load balancing for medical applications and could benefit from more custom configuration options
Some customers need custom management for handling their applications across the servers. Instead of having a predefined solution, if we had space for custom-based algorithms to load balance the traffic, it would be better. We have faced such cases with A10, where we can leverage many custom scripts and do much more. Even though A10 primarily focuses on SMBs, they have also ventured into the enterprise market. Fortinet has been a pioneer for enterprise solutions, such as firewalls, SASE, ZTNA, and SD-WAN solutions, and they are in a leader quadrant. Therefore, they should have more options. From a pricing perspective, it is expensive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is bot management."
"Akamai is easy to use and very effective."
"Because ADC is the intermediary between the servers and the end-user application, it gives thorough information about the traffic, what the problem is."
"I use load balancing technology like Round Robin or low weight to maintain session-based connections. This ensures that clients can connect to their applications without interruption."
"Simple to use and easy to integrate."
"TSL and SSL offloading are both very good features."
"Key features include SSL Offloading, VM availability, and L7 load balancing."
"The most valuable feature is the SSL offloading capacity."
"We can do patches offline without causing customers outages. The web application firewall features, especially those related to the OWASP Top Ten, provide automated protections. This allows more flexibility in patching the backend applications. Additionally, it offers visibility into the requests being made to the applications, and you can't protect what you can't see."
"The solution provides high-level services such as availability, redundancy, and load balancing between servers."
 

Cons

"Log management should display data for more than two months."
"The product must provide more flexibility."
"I had a terrible experience with Fortinet support. I only used support once when I bought the solution. I got no response for two days. However, I believe that it's no longer the case. Fortinet solutions have problems when they're launched. For example, we had issues with Fortinet's authenticator when it came out. We also had trouble with FortiNAC in the beginning."
"If I need design help, they do not assist; they say it is a design issue they cannot support, and I must approach the system integrator."
"Issues with SSL and encrypted traffic."
"The solution needs to integrate sFlow. sFlow provides better visualization of the bandwidth and types of traffic passing through the device. When used in the traffic path, this information can be really useful."
"Setup could be easier. The company's homework is to redesign those menus to configure with the smallest number of steps."
"Some customers need custom management for handling their applications across the servers. Instead of having a predefined solution, if we had space for custom-based algorithms to load balance the traffic, it would be better."
"Fortinet FortiADC should include an advanced-level SD-WAN."
"There is a mismatch between the number of features they are offering and the device capacity on how much it can handle."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is expensive."
"Our basic license excludes features such as antivirus and IDS. Due to license limitations, some functionalities are not configured."
"The solution is less expensive than F5 or Imperva and is the most reasonably priced option available."
"The product has affordable pricing."
"The solution could be more cost-effective."
"The solution's pricing is an issue and should be improved."
"The price is competitive"
"I rate Fortinet FortiADC's pricing one out of ten. It is fixed."
"Compared to F5, FortiADC pricing is better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai Ion?
Akamai is easy to use and very effective.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai Ion?
The billing cycle is monthly, however, payment is done yearly. While expensive, it provides value for the services offered.
What needs improvement with Akamai Ion?
Log management should display data for more than two months. The traffic report needs to be more flexible. The response time of technical support should be improved.
Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?
For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.
Do you recommend Fortinet FortiADC?
I recommend Fortinet FortiADC. My experience with Fortinet has been very positive. Our company has been using it for around five years. We mainly use FortiADC for the load balancing of application ...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiADC?
The user interface is very easy and integrates with Sandbox easily.
 

Also Known As

No data available
FortiADC Application Delivery Controller, FortiADC
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Eurail, Boston Scientific
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Ion vs. Fortinet FortiADC and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.