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.

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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

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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

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.

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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.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."

"It is very clear and the information is very useful."

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"The UI is good."

"Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick."

"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability 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."

More Cloudflare pros

"Our primary use case for this solution is data transfer, and we deploy the solution on private cloud."

"All the policies of the CDNs are very beneficial."

"It's a scalable and reliable solution."

"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."

"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 worldwide reach of the Akamai CDN is one of the key values of this CDN and the agreements worldwide that they keep running."

More Akamai pros

"Great product, it will not let you down!"

"The most valuable feature of Imperva DDoS is to make our website available for our customers' requests 24 hours a day."

"The most important feature I have found to be the ease in how to do the backup and restores."

"Based on what I observed when I used Imperva Application Security Platform, it is very useful and the features are great, and it is very helpful in terms of operations."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall is stable."

"Imperva is really amazing, feature wise and performance wise."

"I suggest others looking into using Imperva Application Security Platform consider it as the best solution."

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

More Imperva Application Security Platform pros

Cons

"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."

"More insight into analytics and threats would be a good place to start improving Cloudflare."

"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."

"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."

"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."

"I would like to not need a separate server for non-www redirection under the CNAME setup option."

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

More Cloudflare cons

"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."

"Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved."

"I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options."

"Other solutions are probably easier to set up, but you have more capability in Akamai."

"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."

"One area for improvement with Akamai could be pricing."

"While it's great for solutions with high scalability, like global e-commerce, it's not really built for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It has too many options and can be complex for SMBs to utilize."

"The solution could offer more integrations."

More Akamai cons

"Learning capability of the device is quite weak."

"I'd like the option to pick your bot protection."

"The only disadvantage of Imperva is that it is a pretty costly solution."

"There's always room for improvement. Occasionally, there might be false-positive alerts."

"Its firewall should be made less penetrable so that if an IP is blocked once, it doesn't penetrate again."

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

"In the past, I have bugs on the WAF. I've contacted Imperva about them. Future releases should be less buggy."

"I would like to see automated reporting to improve visibility."

More Imperva Application Security Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."

"The price is reasonable."

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

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"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."

"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."

"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."

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

"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."

"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."

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

"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."

More Akamai pricing and cost advice

"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."

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

"Imperva’s pricing is a bit higher in the market since it offers a full-blown WAF."

"Although the pricing can be a little high, it is worth the protection and security that it offers."

"Pricing could be more competitive."

"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."

"The tool's pricing is good."

"It is a very expensive solution. The price is very high. A lot of customers tell us that they would love to use Imperva more. I have some customers who have 50 websites, but they have only 10 websites on Imperva because of the price. They would love to have all their websites running through Imperva, but they can't. They have to choose the more critical websites to protect because the price is very high. It is a very good product, but it is too expensive. If you buy a plan for 20 megabytes and you don't consume all of your 20 megabytes, it is okay, but if you consume more, you are charged for the superior traffic."

More Imperva Application Security Platform pricing and cost advice

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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

Construction Company

Outsourcing 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

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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

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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

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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

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Buyer's Guide

Akamai

July 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Imperva Application Security Platform

July 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.

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