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

Akamai App and API Protector vs Barracuda Web Application Firewall comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
Akamai App and API Protector
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Cloud and Data Center Security (10th)
Barracuda Web Application F...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (17th)
 

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.
Bharat Chandra - PeerSpot reviewer
Exceptional support, protects our sites, and provides visibility into traffic
We did a PoC of Akamai and Cloudflare. One area where Akamai can improve is the captcha part. Cloudflare provides a captcha if there are a certain number of threats. For example, I can assign that if there are 10 requests within a second from a single IP, it should send a captcha to the user. The user should fill in the captcha, and only after that, the user should be able to access our website. This captcha feature should be built into Bot Manager. I love this captcha feature of Cloudflare. Other things are good in Akamai. That is why we are using Akamai. Only the captcha part should be implemented.
Anne-Aimee Wollerich - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing bot traffic effectively enhances usability for non-technical users
Barracuda Web Application Firewall lacks some of the more specified and structured features offered by solutions like Tenable. Although Tenable is more expensive and less easily deployable, its features are more deepened and chiseled, particularly for IT personnel. For example, Tenable provides more comprehensive dark web scanning capabilities, which Barracuda could improve upon.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."
"Centralized, full-featured DNS."
"Cloudflare has many features."
"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."
"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."
"The technical support is good."
"I like that the charges are all based on usage and labor costs. For the time that we spend onboarding almost 252020 FQDN, Akamai charges us only for the traffic usage, but it's only charging us for the labor costs for onboarding."
"Traffic filtering and WAF are valuable."
"It enables us to move faster with new products because we have this layer of protection set up in our infrastructure."
"We are getting security for each and every API."
"The solution easily identifies, delays, or allows business traffic."
"The product has a good user interface."
"The dashboard is the most interesting feature of the Akamai portal where you can have a detailed analysis of all the attacks that are happening. You can drill down an issue and see exactly what is happening, who are the bad guys attacking your website, and how Akamai is protecting the website. That is the most valuable feature."
"The features are powerful and better than F5."
"The solution offers multiple security features. There are machine learning features and great URL encryption. It also offers multi-protocol support against DDoS attacks."
"This product gives us visibility into what is going on in two servers, including connections and sessions, real-time alerts, very good reporting, and KPIs. It makes managing security of a critical server very easy, with a friendly GUI."
"Some of the most valuable features are the ease of deployment, the Barracuda support, the easy-to-use console, and the granularity of the reports."
"The customer service and support from Barracuda have been excellent."
"Its recommendation about the probabilities on the website is great. It also has free probability managers for the website, which is really helpful. The protection engine, signature-based protection behavior, and analysis features are also great. It also has an ATP module for sandbox scanning and behavior analysis for file uploads."
"The initial setup is easy."
"You don't need help from Barracuda to help with the deployment. The deployment is easy."
"Has a good dashboard."
 

Cons

"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."
"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."
"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"The pricing could be improved."
"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."
"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."
"If we talk about application layer attacks, including WAF, CloudFlare is leading. Akamai can focus a bit more on the application layer attacks and how to protect them."
"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."
"One area where Akamai can improve is the captcha part. Cloudflare provides a captcha if there are a certain number of threats. For example, I can assign that if there are 10 requests within a second from a single IP, it should send a captcha to the user. The user should fill in the captcha, and only after that, the user should be able to access our website. This captcha feature should be built into Bot Manager. I love this captcha feature of Cloudflare."
"One thing I asked them is to integrate the API discovery product that they have and push that data into Akamai App and API Protector so that we do not have two types of reviews to identify the type of traffic. We already know the APIs that are frequently getting used, so analysis becomes easier. We can integrate both products and use them."
"It could have better analytics and reporting visibility in the OEM console."
"Support and the pricing need to improve."
"Akamai App and API Protector is very new to me, so I do not have any insights on improvement areas for the product. However, when we ask for some help, it can take some time. We understand that the job is done by professionals, but if that time can be reduced, it would be great."
"The interface is a little bit clunky and can be improved."
"Sometimes when we put it in action, we have some blogs that appear as false positives. I think that it's improving. Barracuda should minimize false positives."
"They should improve their features, so they easily compare to the competition."
"This product could easily progress to be among the industry leaders. I think they need to improve enterprise level automation. It integrates with a small number of vulnerability scanners, so report results should be imported manually; same for SIEM integration."
"It would be better if their updates would be released annually."
"Barracuda Web Application Firewall lacks some of the more specified and structured features offered by solutions like Tenable."
"I would suggest that someone implementing this product is knowledgeable in the IT field, and with the network needs. It is complex."
"As most people are aware, the implementation is not easy."
"There are false positives that I am receiving when compared to other WAFs. The issues with false positives affect client transactions, leading to complaints about blocked transactions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A free version of the solution is available."
"We are using the free version."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"The product is expensive, but it is worth the money."
"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."
"One reason not all people use Akamai is that it is a little bit more expensive than some other providers."
"The solution is not expensive."
"The product’s price is high."
"It's more expensive than others, but the ROI is good for large-scale infrastructure."
"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."
"If you want quality, you have to pay the price. Its price is fair. Their account managers are also very helpful. They help you a lot with pricing even though they are working with Akamai."
"The product pricing was competitive for the value it offers regarding security features."
"Our licensing fees are paid annually and the cost is between €600 and €800 (approximately $665.00 to $885.00 USD)."
"The product is inexpensive."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"While I would have to check on the price of the solution, I feel it to be okay and it matches the market price."
"Barracuda costs us $8,000 per year. Barracuda costs $20,000 for a full subscription, when you try to protect multi-site infrastructure, in different geographical zones and for different data centers. If you have only one site, Barracuda will be cheaper."
"Cost is a bit on the higher side. Big companies can afford it."
"The pricing is less compared to other web applications."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Performing Arts
5%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise11
 

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 Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
It significantly improved our overall web security posture, addressing intrusions and enhancing control over web URLs...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
Our primary use case was to track the traffic on websites or webshops to identify potential malicious actors, such as...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Web Application Firewall?
The pricing for Barracuda is quite high compared to other OEMs. Each transaction requires my purchase team to negotia...
 

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
Oracle, CBS, Pioneer, Hyundai, Publix, Barnes Noble, Calzedonia, Nordstrom, Samsung, Nascar
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. Barracuda Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.