Akamai App and API Protector vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service comparison

Akamai and Barracuda Networks are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Akamai is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.8, while Barracuda Networks is ranked #33 with an average rating of 6.0. Akamai holds a 3.7% mindshare in WAF, compared to Barracuda Networks’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of Barracuda Networks users who would recommend it.

Akamai App and API Protector

Read 28 Akamai App and API Protector reviews

2,899 Views
1,304 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Read 5 Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service reviews

491 Views
297 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

Akamai App and API Protector

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and Akamai App and API Protector are security solutions for web applications and APIs. Akamai has the upper hand with its advanced feature set, offering comprehensive protection and analytics, despite Barracuda's competitive pricing and strong support.

Features: Barracuda offers automated threat updates, DDoS protection, and ease of use. Akamai provides zero-trust security, sophisticated analytics, and detailed threat detection.

Room for Improvement: Barracuda could enhance its analytics capabilities, scalability, and integration options. Akamai may improve deployment simplicity, pricing flexibility, and user interface for smaller teams.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Barracuda excels in straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Akamai provides extensive documentation and support, with a more complex deployment process but significant scalability options.

Pricing and ROI: Barracuda offers competitive pricing with potentially quicker ROI for smaller enterprises. Akamai requires higher initial costs but promises greater long-term ROI for larger businesses due to its extensive features and scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai App and API Protector vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 860,632 peers since 2012

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 App and API Protector

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Cloud and Data Center Security (10th)

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

33rd

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 3.7%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Deepesh Singh

Senior Engineering Manager Cybersecurity at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

Read full review

Hadar Eshel

Co-Founder and CEO at Cloudway

Easy to install platform with valuable policy management features

We use the product for securing email systems, protecting websites, and safeguarding web-based applications and portals One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strategy. Additionally, it could operate in a local data center.…

Read full review

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 the DDoS protection, which is the main reason we got it."

"The product has a good user interface."

"The solution easily identifies, delays, or allows business traffic."

"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."

"The solution can scale extremely well."

"I have contacted the support team of Akamai... I am happy with their responses and answers to my problems."

"The product is user-friendly."

"Adaptive stream delivery and WAF protection are valuable."

More Akamai App and API Protector pros

"The solution can be used for threat prevention or as a cloud-to-cloud backup system"

"The most valuable features of the solution are it is plug and play, has automated policies, a simple configuration, and is easy to create rules."

"I like its ability to identify known attacks, including DDOS attacks. It's valuable because software must be able to stop known attacks. Application attacks are evolving all the time. When it comes to software-as-a-service, we need to have software that knows about all the latest attacks. It should also protect against major unknown attacks."

"The product's bot protection feature is valuable for our company."

"It provides an ease of policy management."

Cons

"In terms of precedence of Akamai rules, the last one is implemented. That is the one that is operational. If two rules contradict, the last one is implemented. We had a clash, but it was really tough to find that out. I would like to have a rulebook because, in their architecture documentation, it is not mentioned anywhere that if two rules clash, the last one works, and if it does not work, then what to do. This is something we were debating today with their tech support. With AWS, we get documents for the issues so that they do not occur in the future. Akamai's support and knowledge base needs to be improved."

"It could have better analytics and reporting visibility in the OEM console."

"It would be nice if Akamai Web Application Protector's price is lowered and made cheaper."

"Akamai needs to focus on quickly responding to risks, even those that may potentially be of zero threat..Maybe some of the documentation is a little confusing. They have a lot of different places where you can go to get information, and some of the information is quite out of date."

"The pricing could be reduced a bit."

"The WAF features definitely have a lot of room for improvement. A lot of the WAF is really basic. For some products or some of our solutions, we need to run a second layer of more advanced WAF. If it had better layer seven protection then we would not need a second WAF."

"They are already very flexible, but room for improvement is there. Reports generation could be better and should be improved."

"Support and the pricing need to improve."

More Akamai App and API Protector cons

"The solution can improve by bundling Security Operation Center (SOC) with the WAF-as-a-Service, it would provide a lot more value to customers."

"It's a very specific solution that is only requested for a customer's web code or their global IT policy."

"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strategy."

"We found it a bit slow when accessing it through the web browser. The URL also exposed the user name and the hashed password. When I log into my Barracuda WAF user portal, I could see the username and the hashed password on the URL itself. So, it is not very secure, and it is important to take that off."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, I would say Akamai's pricing is competitive."

"There is no license at all for Akamai. They are going to charge us only for the usage."

"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 solution is expensive."

"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."

"Akamai is very expensive."

"One reason not all people use Akamai is that it is a little bit more expensive than some other providers."

"It's more expensive than others, but the ROI is good for large-scale infrastructure."

More Akamai App and API Protector pricing and cost advice

"It's very difficult for me to give an estimate of the cost. All I know is that we sell the box itself as a service."

"The product is expensive but it offers flexible pricing. It could be affordable."

"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high. There are no additional costs to be paid apart from the standard licensing fees attached to the solution."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Government

14%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai Web Application Protector?

The product is user-friendly.

See all answers

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 slight difference.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Akamai Web Application Protector?

It could have better analytics and reporting visibility in the OEM console.

See all answers

What do you like most about Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

It provides an ease of policy management.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

One significant area for improvement in Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service lies in its market positioning and pricing strategy. Additionally, it could operate in a local data center. This limitation hinder...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service?

We use the product for securing email systems, protecting websites, and safeguarding web-based applications and portals.

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 11% of the time

AWS WAF vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 11% of the time

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 9% of the time

Cloudflare vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 8% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 7% of the time

More Akamai App and API Protector Competitors

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 73% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 15% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 12% of the time

More Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector

July 2025

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

June 2025

Download Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service product report

Also Known As

Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender

Barracuda WAF as a Service

Overview

Akamai App and API Protector provides website security by preventing DDoS attacks, acting as an application firewall, managing content delivery, and monitoring APIs. It adapts to threat profiles and is used for fast media delivery and identifying malicious activities.

Akamai App and API Protector offers strong protection, adaptable security features, and efficient traffic management. Its WAF blocks IP addresses and country-specific threats while preventing SQL injections. Companies utilize it for scalable CDN services and comprehensive traffic analysis. Known for its cost-effectiveness and user-friendly dashboard, this protector stands out for its customizable rules and technical support. Users also highlight the ease of integration and detailed attack insights available through its advanced dashboard.

What are the key features of Akamai App and API Protector?

DDoS Protection: Strong defense against Distributed Denial of Service attacks.
Scalable CDN: Manages content delivery efficiently under high traffic loads.
WAF Capabilities: Blocks specific IPs and countries, prevents SQL injections.
Traffic Filtering: Analyzes and controls incoming requests to maintain security.
Adaptive Stream Delivery: Adjusts content delivery to meet bandwidth needs.

What benefits should users expect?

Cost-Effectiveness: Provides robust security tools at a competitive price.
Enhanced Security: Comprehensive protection against cyber threats.
Scalability: Easily handles increasing traffic and data loads.
Ease of Integration: Simple integration with existing systems.
Insightful Analytics: Offers data-driven insights into traffic and attack patterns.

In media, Akamai App and API Protector ensures smooth streaming by handling high bandwidth demands. E-commerce companies use it to guard against fraud and data breaches. Financial sectors rely on its ability to protect sensitive transactions. Implementations in healthcare focus on safeguarding patient data while maintaining compliance with regulations.

Akamai

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is a comprehensive solution designed to provide application security, DDoS protection, SSL authentication, protocol support, and application delivery. It is a plug-and-play solution with automated policies, simple configuration, and easy rule creation.

The solution can be used for threat prevention or as a cloud-to-cloud backup system based on email protection with cloud security. It is also a web application firewall and covers major protection and threat management functions. With Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service, customers can ensure the security of their web code and comply with global IT policies.

Barracuda Networks

Sample Customers

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet

Salvation Army

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

June 2025

Free Report: Akamai App and API Protector vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Akamai App and API Protector vs. Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service report.

See our list of best Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendors.

We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.