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Akamai vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

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
Ranking in CDN
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in CDN
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
147
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Bot Management (1st), API Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 11.6%, down from 16.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 7.3%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform7.3%
Akamai11.6%
Other81.1%
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

JV
Sr. Strategic Accounts Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Improved security and faster operations with a seamless integration
They are one of the top solution vendors in the market. Premium though, but they're the best. We've worked closely with digital-native customers, not so much from the media segment. Fintechs, financial organizations, banking segment, manufacturing, these are the ones we have worked with. Not much on media because most of the media houses are already covered by Akamai. 95% of media houses are already covered by Akamai. It gives a seamless view of how your infrastructure is, from an attack perspective, from a threat perspective, how your assets are behaving. It gives a very comprehensive view. It depends on the customer's environment. Wherever the customer wants, but mostly it is on the private cloud or public cloud because it's a cloud-based SaaS solution that Akamai has to offer. Implementation is feasible anywhere. The solution is aimed at Enterprise customers because it is on a premium side. On a scale of 1-10, this solution rates at 9.5.
reviewer2818155 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Application protection has improved and reporting and dashboards still need refinement
I believe Imperva Application Security Platform should have a more interactive wizard. While the dashboard is good, it could be more eye-catching. Based on my perspective, I recommend modifying the dashboards, especially the main dashboard where I can see the traffic hit count, alerts, and other latest information. In terms of reporting, I find it challenging to create reports; in my earlier days, it was difficult. Over time, I have learned how to create reports, but it should be easier to do so. I have used other tools such as firewalls or SolarWinds, where creating a report is straightforward and does not take much time, unlike in Imperva, where I have to add many elements. Modifications in the integration aspects would also be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"The solution is very sustainable and flexible."
"This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming."
"If an attacker conducts an attack, we can check what query he is running and whether he wants to see our password or any other files."
"Akamai has been providing this service for 20 years and they have never had a substantial outage, they even have some products that have an uptime of over 20 years, the stability is very good."
"Akamai's scalability is good."
"It's a scalable and reliable solution."
"The worldwide reach of the Akamai CDN is one of the key values of this CDN and the agreements worldwide that they keep running."
"I would recommend this solution to others; it has been working fine for us, and it has all the features that we need."
"The solution can be configured in just a couple of minutes."
"The user-generated spam stopped after we started using Incapsula, and so we feel more secure."
"Scalability is pretty easy on the base platform. You just add another, and you're ready to go."
"We are using Incapsula as our web application firewall and for DDoS protection, and it performs really well at its job."
"As a system, it's very effective at blocking potentially malicious items."
"It's a good product."
"I see valuable benefits from advanced detection and traffic profiling during DDoS attacks, and I track some metrics related to DDoS protection performance."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."
"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."
"The solution could offer more integrations."
"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."
"The fact that it is an expensive product is its only shortcoming."
"Akamai could improve by having a more robust and responsive support team."
"After three or four months from this perspective, I don’t know all the features on the platform yet, so I am still learning about it."
"Some of the features should be included in the next release is a file integrating monitoring tool. This feature should be improved."
"I would rate the solution as an 8 out of 10, simply because of the difficulty of operation management. It's a complicated tool to keep."
"I would like to improve the tool's turnaround time in terms of support."
"HTML minification could be improved. The actual HTML minification does not provide the maximum HTML minification nor provides the best result."
"I would suggest that Imperva Application Security Platform should include new features combined with AI."
"We had an issue when securing the web applications for DDoS protection."
"The Imperva Web Application Firewall automations are good, but there is still room for improvement with them."
"It needs to be improved every time there are new attacks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"From the resource component, it's very costly, and Akamai's charges are also high. So, any organization with a high-tech budget can definitely afford it, but companies with 10-15% of their revenue as a technical budget probably won't be able to. That's where they have a lot of room for improvement if they want to onboard those early users."
"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"Price-wise, I find Akamai's pricing model's inclination to be more towards the expensive side of the spectrum, though I can't say that it is a very expensive product."
"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"It is not expensive compared to the other similar solutions in this category."
"The cost is somewhere around $10,000 a site. For every site, you pay individually. For every DNS entry, you have you pay."
"The solution's price is high for small companies."
"Pricing could be more competitive."
"Licensing can range from one to twenty thousand dollars annually. Additionally, some features, including software support, require an annual subscription as well."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"The cost of this solution depends on the platform."
"The tool is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Akamai?
Other solutions are probably easier to set up, but you have more capability in Akamai. It would be beneficial if they could make some cases less complex to set up. There could be improvements in ho...
What is your primary use case for Akamai?
We are using many of the solutions from Akamai, with the WAF in front of it and distribution to multiple targets where AWS is one of the targets. We are building up websites that we are pointing to...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai?
The pricing is good, with no complaints about costs, which is essential when deciding to have Akamai in your network.
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise. For example, the initiation of an attack on the endpoint level cou...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Capital One, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Disney, Ebay, Facebook, Google, Home Depot, HP, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, LinkedIn, McDonald's, Microsoft, Netflix, Nike, Oracle, PayPal, Pinterest, Qualcomm, Rakuten, SAP, Spotify, Tesla, Toyota, Visa, Walmart, WeWork
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Imperva Application Security Platform and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
910,956 professionals have used our research since 2012.