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 #16 with an average rating of 8.0, while Barracuda Networks is ranked #19 with an average rating of 10.0. Akamai holds a 3.0% mindshare in WAF, compared to Barracuda Networks’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Barracuda Networks users who would recommend it.

Akamai App and API Protector

Read 29 Akamai App and API Protector reviews

4,499 Views
2,654 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Read 6 Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service reviews

689 Views
689 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Akamai App and API Protector

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

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

December 2025

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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)

16th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), Cloud and Data Center Security (12th)

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

19th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 3.0%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Akamai App and API Protector	3.0%
Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service	0.8%
Other	96.2%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Gavin Pinho

Privacy & Risk Management Vice President, Information Security at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

Has provided strong protection against evolving threats but still needs support for configuration fine-tuning

The standout features of Akamai App and API Protector are rooted in it being the Web Application Firewall, where all traffic gets scanned, including the implementation of web firewall rules, and after this phase, traffic proceeds through the BMP, which is Bot Management. Akamai App and API Protector exceeds expectations in terms of AI capabilities, and it genuinely combines a plethora of advanced features. The area in which Akamai excels compared to other competitors with a WAF is in threat intelligence, as threats continually evolve, requiring ongoing updates to backend algorithms to effectively capture smart bots, and Akamai's commitment in that regard is backed by an excellent team, while other providers are still catching up.

Read full review

Tarandeep Kaur

DevOps Manager at Flash.co

Security management has reduced ransomware risk and now protects cloud workloads efficiently

The best features that Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service offers are an intuitive centralized dashboard, allowing us to manage policies, Internet protocol servers, antiviruses, anti-DDoS attacks, and traffic shaping across multiple sites. This feature enables seamless scaling of our environments, especially as we work within Amazon Web Services. Additionally, real-time threat intelligence helps us to detect threats in real-time. Another major feature I love is application control and VPN support, providing granular visibility and protection without needing separate appliances. The centralized dashboard is helping us streamline visibility across our admin panels and provides site-to-site visibility deployed directly to our AWS environment, securing VPC traffic and ensuring the firewall is in place. The real-time threat intelligence is an advanced feature helping us track real-time attacks, such as anti-DDoS attacks, ransomware, or viruses that can compromise system integrity. Through the intuitive centralized dashboard, we can manage policies and set rules, assisting us effectively.

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 product is user-friendly."

"The features are powerful and better than F5."

"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."

"Everything will be handled by Akamai's system before it reaches our infrastructure."

"All the solution's features are very good."

"Traffic filtering and WAF are valuable."

"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."

"I can attest to its benefits in terms of understanding and mitigating threats...The solution's technical support team seems to be pretty responsive."

More Akamai App and API Protector pros

"It provides an ease of policy management."

"Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service has positively impacted our organization by reducing cyber threats like ransomware and phishing by ninety-five percent."

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

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

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

Cons

"Could integrate more features for each security."

"It would be better if there weren't any issues with latency. We had latency issues, but I think they are all solved now."

"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."

"The custom rules must be improved."

"Support and the pricing need to improve."

"It's fine for a simple tool, but as I recall, if you encounter a lot of bots, scrapers, and other things, you'll need this tool bot and this other thing they offer called Bot Manager."

"The performance of the cloud monitoring tool is low."

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

More Akamai App and API Protector cons

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."

"The solution is expensive."

"The product’s price is high."

"The price they are offering is quite reasonable for premium customers, but it's very expensive if you're a small and medium-sized enterprises."

"Akamai is very expensive."

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

"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."

"Its price is at the medium level. It is not very high. It is also not very low. It serves the purpose."

More Akamai App and API Protector pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Government

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	18

No data available

Questions from the Community

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.

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What needs improvement with Akamai Web Application Protector?

There are no significant areas for improvement on the WAF side or for Akamai App and API Protector solution; they are comprehensive in their current state.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Akamai Web Application Protector?

The main use case for Akamai App and API Protector is serving as the WAF, Web Application Firewall.

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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?

I see that cost can be a limitation for small businesses. Additionally, if they can provide more advanced features and customization for specific use cases, that would be beneficial. Apart from tha...

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

We primarily use Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service for raising security incidents by proactively blocking malware, ransomware, and phishing attacks to reduce breach risk and response time. Apart from that...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Prolexic vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 6% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

AWS WAF vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

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

Compared 37% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 16% of the time

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

Compared 13% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 13% of the time

AWS WAF vs Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

Compared 11% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector

January 2026

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service

January 2026

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

December 2025

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

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