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Akamai App and API Protector vs Azure DDoS Protection comparison

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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
6.5
Cloudflare enhanced speed, security, and data protection, providing significant ROI and improved operations and client satisfaction for businesses.
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
7.2
Azure DDoS Protection offers cost-effective security for public IPs, benefiting users with ROI despite varying enterprise costs.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Cloudflare's customer service is efficient for paying users, but responses can vary in speed and effectiveness for others.
Sentiment score
7.7
Customer service is excellent, while technical support has mixed reviews with praise for expertise but needs improved availability.
Sentiment score
6.3
Educational institutions commend Azure DDoS Protection's swift support, while others experience slower response times affecting satisfaction.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.
The key factor is the language in which the support is offered, which, in this case, is in Thai.
The response time is very slow, especially when multiple teams are required to collaborate on a case.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Cloudflare is praised for seamless scalability, managing enterprise-level traffic efficiently and earning high customer satisfaction during peak events.
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
6.9
Azure DDoS Protection excels in scalability and reliability, ideal for large enterprises, enhancing security in extensive environments.
It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.
The tool offers very good performance, even during high-traffic periods.
I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare is widely regarded as stable and reliable, with improvements noted in uptime and performance on higher plans.
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
7.6
Azure DDoS Protection is highly stable, rated 8/10, with minimal configuration issues and no downtime or false positives reported.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare requires improvements in analytics, CDN speed, API, technical support, DNS management, documentation, pricing clarity, and international and reseller support.
Akamai App and API Protector needs enhancements in flexibility, UI, customer support, documentation, and advanced protection features.
Azure DDoS Protection requires improved interface consistency, reporting, configuration simplicity, bandwidth optimization, enhanced services, and AI-driven auto-remediation.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version.
It would be beneficial to have more detailed insights available directly on the dashboard.
I have noticed some false positives with the Web Application Firewall yet not with DDoS Protection.
I suggest adding more services and additional services, which would be beneficial.
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers cost-effective, scalable plans with no setup fees, starting from free for small businesses to enterprise-level solutions.
Akamai App and API Protector is expensive yet considered worth the cost by large enterprises for its quality services.
Azure DDoS Protection offers expensive but comprehensive protection with trial, special pricing for education, and no extra fees for some uses.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
I find it to be cheap.
I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high.
If used with Front Door or Web Application Firewall, DDoS Protection is included without additional cost.
The pricing is somewhat costly, usually around $3,000 to $4,000 per month.
Compared to competitors, it is good.
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare enhances security, speed, and SEO with easy-to-use features like CDN, SSL, DDoS protection, and centralized management.
Akamai App and API Protector delivers scalable security, ease of use, and cost-effective protection with advanced features like DDoS defense.
Azure DDoS Protection offers seamless integration, robust security, and scalability, despite higher costs, providing significant ROI for vulnerable environments.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
Techniques like minification and image compression reduce the size of assets, leading to better performance and faster user load times.
The solution has been able to compare it to the market, and I think the product has taken great strides in automating quite a bit of things, and they use a lot of AI.
The security architecture with Azure DDoS Protection is critical for safeguarding our financial organization's infrastructure.
The ability to do research and development quickly without waiting for infrastructure is a plus.
The integration of various tools with Azure Firewall, like DDoS Protection, Web Application Firewall, and Azure Front Door, is quite effective.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
Akamai App and API Protector
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
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th), Cloud and Data Center Security (10th)
Azure DDoS Protection
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (23rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 19.6%, up from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 4.3%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure DDoS Protection is 3.9%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
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.
Venkat Raju Mallipudi - PeerSpot reviewer
Acts as an additional layer of protection, provides endpoint security but not very easy to configure
It's not very easy to configure, in my view. We have to do some work behind the scenes. It's not very simple. We have to do it very carefully, and we need to monitor this enablement as well. But apart from that, I didn't see any kind of challenges. So, in my opinion, configuration is the main trouble for them. It is something that can be done to be better. Not just configuration. You need an expert who knows the ins and outs of these security solutions. In my experience, people struggle with configuration. While configuring, we get this error, we get that error, and then we try to fix those issues. I have seen those. It's not straightforward.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
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 sl...
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 Azure DDoS Protection?
Azure DDoS Protection offers superior protection against denial-of-service attacks.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure DDoS Protection?
The pricing is somewhat costly, usually around $3,000 to $4,000 per month. Managing this expense is tough, especially...
What needs improvement with Azure DDoS Protection?
The dashboard lacks insights and user-friendliness, as most data is logged into metrics like Log Analytics workspaces...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
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Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. Azure DDoS Protection and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.