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Akamai vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

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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

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in CDN
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (2nd), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
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 Cloudflare is 15.0%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. 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 (%)
Cloudflare15.0%
Imperva Application Security Platform7.3%
Akamai11.6%
Other66.1%
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at bKash Limited
Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility
From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.
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

"The UI is good."
"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"Cloudflare improves performance on my websites and is a great partner for cloud infrastructure for anyone who wants to use the security service and other features."
"I get a lot of value from Cloudflare's API because it enables you to build a separate environment inside the solution. You can create a domain for performing test requests before you move to the production environment and connect various domains."
"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"The technical support on offer is excellent; they are very helpful and responsive, and we are quite happy with the level of service they provide to their customers."
"If it was not for CloudFlare, I would have to hire a dedicated resource to manage all this for me."
"The solution is very sustainable and flexible."
"Akamai provides low-latency throughput."
"It's beneficial since it's one of the best solutions in the world for CDN."
"The stability and efficiency of Akamai have enhanced our network's performance significantly."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"It's a scalable and reliable solution."
"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."
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."
"I like the user-friendly interface."
"It mitigates all of the availabilities of risks around web applications."
"I would say compare it to other solutions in the marketplace feature by feature and see how Incapsula reporting and analytics dashboards compare and bot control compares – their solution for bot control is pretty good – and check those features with other enterprise level solutions, you get a lot for your money."
"Basic setup is simple but, as with any caching/WAF setup, there are tricks you need to learn, but it works really nice out of the box!"
"The most valuable features are DDoS protection."
"Keep your sites strongly secured but sleep easier knowing Imperva Incapsula continuously baffles our penetration testers."
"The most valuable feature of Imperva DDoS is to make our website available for our customers' requests 24 hours a day."
"The solution is scalable."
 

Cons

"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."
"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."
"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."
"It looks like they don't support as many TLDs as other registrars, but since they are very new as a registrar, I expect this may improve soon."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"There are some issues with the CDN services."
"I think they have failed with their technical support."
"Honestly the product has not really improved the way of my organisation."
"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"Akamai could improve by having a more robust and responsive support team."
"Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved."
"The fact that it is an expensive product is its only shortcoming."
"Akamai should improve its integrations."
"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."
"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."
"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"Another area that could do with improvement is certificate management. I do not like the way that Incapsula handles certificates very much."
"The product could use a broader scope in the area of policies."
"Its firewall should be made less penetrable so that if an IP is blocked once, it doesn't penetrate again."
"I would like to see automated reporting to improve visibility."
"HTML minification could be improved. The actual HTML minification does not provide the maximum HTML minification nor provides the best result."
"Sometimes, the SSL setup can be a bit slow/inconsistent."
"An Incapsula website configuration instance can be in a "Pending DNS changes" state, where further work is needing to be done by the customer, while website access is otherwise fully functional."
"Imperva Application Security Platform could be improved if it allowed integration with Active Directory in the cloud, or if it provided visibility of user roles and permissions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."
"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"It is an expensive product. The licensing costs for the solution are based on the usage. If we need premium support, we need to buy it from Akamai."
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"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."
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"There are a couple of different licensing models."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall price is higher compared to other solutions. However, everything is included in the price."
"The license is on a yearly basis."
"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."
"The data packages are higher than our needs so we end up paying for data that we don't use."
"It is very costly, but the return on investment is very high. Its cost was around $70,000, and we got it back in just six months."
"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise70
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare DNS?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall.
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...
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 wher...
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 mana...
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 provi...
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 o...
 

Also Known As

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

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.
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.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.