Akamai vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

Akamai and Imperva are both solutions in the CDN category. Akamai is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3, while Imperva is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7. Akamai holds a 11.8% mindshare in CDN, compared to Imperva’s 7.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Imperva users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

Akamai and Imperva Application Security Platform compete in the application security market. Imperva has the upper hand, attributed to its robust features.

Features: Akamai delivers global scale using a proprietary content delivery network, with advanced threat protection and automated DDoS mitigation. Imperva provides enhanced threat analytics, adaptive threat response, and a comprehensive feature set offering thorough protection and insight.

Room for Improvement: Akamai could enhance its analytics and offer more diverse threat response options. Greater customization and detailed reporting are needed. Imperva might improve its integration capabilities with third-party platforms and streamline its user interface for ease of navigation. Additional cost-effective solutions can also be developed.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Akamai ensures swift deployment and effective customer service with cloud-native integrations. Imperva features reliable deployment with extensive guidance, offering hands-on support that excels in addressing complex deployment needs.

Pricing and ROI: Akamai's setup costs are lower, giving it a competitive edge in initial pricing. However, Imperva offers a better long-term ROI due to its comprehensive security features and reduced risk exposure, despite potentially higher initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai vs. Imperva Application Security Platform Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai vs. Imperva Application Security Platform

June 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 903,807 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

Cloudflare

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 15.5%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 11.8%, down from 16.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 7.5%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CDN Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare	15.5%
Imperva Application Security Platform	7.5%
Akamai	11.8%
Other	65.2%

CDN

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal

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.

Read full review

VinuThomas John

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.

Read full review

reviewer2818155

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.

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 solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

"Stability is great; I love their mechanisms, I love their GUI, I love their front end, I love their behind the scenes, algorithms and everything, it all makes sense."

"Cloudflare makes it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple users and multiple clients, and basically go in and access their account, make the changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."

"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."

"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."

"The solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."

"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."

"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."

More Cloudflare pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

"As of now, the best thing about Akamai is WAF, and though CDN is a good feature, it comes in second place when compared to WAF. I am very impressed with the WAF offered by Akamai."

"The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively."

"This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming."

"The initial setup is simple, especially for SaaS solutions."

More Akamai pros

"The solution can scale."

"Its unique interface for managing security performance and ease of use are the most valuable features of this solution."

"It's worth it. It's a fine solution for medium/big companies worried about attacks that happen in the wild."

"It's a good product."

"Technical support provides good, quick responses."

"On the activity log, I can see the exact details, the visit, and the threat."

"Incapsula takes care of the CDN infrastructure and bandwidth volume, providing several enterprise "load balancing" features."

"The stability of the product is good since I haven't had any problems with the solution."

More Imperva Application Security Platform pros

Cons

"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."

"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."

"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."

"There are some issues with the CDN services."

"Yes, there were a few times when some of their CDN nodes would fail, creating serious speed issues with the site without any warning or notification from their side."

"However, what I still fail to understand is that why aren't they offering domains themselves."

"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."

"For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components."

More Cloudflare cons

"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."

"The solution can be improved by creating a communication pathway with technical engineers because when we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."

"Akamai could improve by providing its own cloud services. We have to use third-party cloud services at this time, such as Amazon AWS. The offering becomes a lot easier for an SMB if everything was in one single platform to be used for the services."

"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."

"On the commercials and pricing based on the region, they might have to work a bit because sometimes we lose on commercials."

"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."

"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."

"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."

More Akamai cons

"However, I'd like to be able to drill down more into the analytics that Incapsula collects."

"An improvement for Imperva WAF would be to reduce the number of false positives and create more strong use cases based on AI/ML or behavioral analytics."

"Imperva always needs to adjust to new versions of cyber attacks, it needs to be faster, improve the resiliency of the software of the solution."

"Sometimes, support tickets don't get addressed quickly."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall can improve by adding more features to the dashboard. increasing the visibility of the real-time events, besides configuring the administration itself."

"In the past, I have had bugs on the WAF."

"I think the product could be improved by reducing the price."

"They need to work on the customer support; in my opinion, this is their weakest point. Some of their support representatives really have no idea how their service works."

More Imperva Application Security Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable."

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"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."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"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 solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."

"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"

"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."

"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 pricing of Akamai is moderate, in my opinion. My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to Akamai. There are no additional costs besides the licensing costs for the solution."

"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's pricing is based on bandwidth."

More Akamai pricing and cost advice

"We have an issue with Imperva Incapsula in the Iraqi market because of the high price."

"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."

"Pricing could be more competitive."

"The solution's pricing is an issue."

"The cost is on par with other solutions such as Cloudflare and Akamai."

"For enterprise contracts you will be in touch with a dedicated account manager who will guide you regarding licensing."

"There are some licenses that you have to buy to use some features. Its price could be better. Price is always important because, at the end of the day, customers have a budget. If you can meet the budget, you can sell, and if you don't, you cannot sell."

"The solution's price is high for small companies."

More Imperva Application Security Platform pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which CDN solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

903,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	26

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	88
Midsize Enterprise	25
Large Enterprise	70

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 34% of the time

Fastly vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Fastly vs Akamai

Compared 9% of the time

Uplynk vs Akamai

Compared 5% of the time

Windows Azure CDN vs Akamai

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Akamai

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Akamai

Compared 4% of the time

More Akamai Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 4% of the time

Fastly vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 3% of the time

Link11 vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 3% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 2% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 2% of the time

More Imperva Application Security Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

July 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Akamai

July 2026

Download Akamai product report

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Application Security Platform

June 2026

Imperva Application Security Platform report

Download Imperva Application Security Platform product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

Akamai enhances performance and security for web applications with features such as a robust CDN and web application firewall. It supports traffic management and improving content delivery speed through a global data center network.

Akamai, known for its web application firewall and CDN, provides comprehensive solutions catering to enterprises with advanced needs like traffic offloading, logging, security, and scalability. Its global Points of Presence network and threat intelligence capabilities, incorporating AI and machine learning, ensure strong security and traffic management. Users appreciate the ease of integration and management, despite the complexity and navigation challenges of the Akamai console. The potential improvements in API security, caching strategies, and migration processes alongside competitive pricing could broaden its appeal. Akamai primarily focuses on content delivery, video streaming, and caching, supporting sectors such as streaming, gaming, and businesses requiring rapid content delivery and cyber threat protection.

What are Akamai's key features?

Web Application Firewall: Protects against common vulnerabilities and threats.
CDN: Enhances website performance by reducing load times.
Security: Includes DDoS protection and threat intelligence.
Traffic Management: Efficient handling and scaling of web traffic.
Global Presence: Extensive data centers for faster content delivery.
Automatic Updates: Ensures security features are up-to-date.

What benefits do users find with Akamai?

Improved Performance: Faster content delivery enhances user experience.
Enhanced Security: Robust protection against cyber threats.
Scalability: Accommodates growing traffic demands seamlessly.
Integration Ease: Simplifies operational workflows.
Reliability: Ensures consistent uptime and performance quality.

In streaming and gaming industries, Akamai optimizes content delivery and security measures, meeting the demands for rapid, secure, and reliable services. Businesses leverage its CDN and monitoring capabilities to reduce load times and enhance application performance, whilst increasing protection against cyber threats.

Akamai

Imperva Application Security Platform delivers comprehensive and continuous web threat protection. Renowned for its ease of use, it shields web applications and databases from various cyber threats while integrating seamlessly with cloud and on-premises environments.

Imperva Application Security Platform protects web environments by offering advanced security measures against threats like DDoS attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting. As a robust web application firewall, it provides extensive monitoring and bot management capabilities. The platform integrates content delivery networks for enhanced performance and scalability, while real-time traffic analysis ensures consistent protection. Despite its strengths, improvements can be made in policy management and customization options. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and more competitive pricing models. The inclusion of AI for enhanced analytics is also anticipated.

What are the key features of Imperva Application Security Platform?

Correlated Attack Validation: Enhances threat assessment by linking related security events.
Threat Radar: Offers visibility into potential and ongoing threats.
Virtual Patching: Provides protection against vulnerabilities without immediate code changes.
IncapRules: Allows creation of custom security policies.
DDoS Protection: Defends against large-scale distributed denial-of-service attacks.
CDN Integration: Improves content delivery speed and reliability.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

User-Friendly Administration: Simplifies setup and ongoing management tasks.
Seamless Integration: Ensures smooth operation with existing infrastructure.
Comprehensive Threat Protection: Shields digital assets from a wide range of threats.
Hands-On Support: Provides timely and effective customer service assistance.

Imperva Application Security Platform is implemented in industries needing strong database and application protection. Companies use it to enforce geolocation restrictions and manage bots, benefiting sectors like finance and e-commerce where data security and threat monitoring are critical. Its ability to protect and ensure data accessibility makes it integral to business operations prioritizing cyber resilience.

Imperva

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.

Buyer's Guide

Akamai vs. Imperva Application Security Platform

June 2026

Free Report: Akamai vs. Imperva Application Security Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Imperva Application Security Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

903,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Akamai vs. Imperva Application Security Platform report.

See our list of best CDN vendors.

We monitor all CDN 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.