No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Akamai vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 (3rd), Bot Management (1st), API Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 11.3%, down from 16.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 7.1%, 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 Platform7.1%
Akamai11.3%
Other81.6%
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

"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."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it has been quite helpful in our company, especially when it comes to applications needing updates frequently."
"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."
"The solution's technical support is very good...The installation phase of Akamai was easy."
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."
"Akamai's scalability is good."
"Our primary use case for this solution is data transfer, and we deploy the solution on private cloud."
"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."
"Imperva Application Security Platform has positively impacted my organization by providing strong protection for web applications, as many big companies in the UK use Imperva WAF as an essential protection layer, illustrating its effectiveness."
"Human contact Fast SLA Trustworthy and excellent communication Highly-functional back office with user friendly reports and intelligence on bad IPS and malicious software is at very high level and very quick."
"The solution can be configured in just a couple of minutes, ensures 99.7% availability for my applications, provides an additional layer of security for web and mobile applications, protects my environment, and helps maintain my reputation in the market."
"Initially, there were over 1,500 vulnerabilities, but we managed to fix almost all of them within three months, leaving only two low severity issues outstanding."
"The most valuable features are DDoS protection."
"Imperva Cloud WAF would be the most powerful option."
"I was involved in the deployment and found that all the features in this product are fantastic, especially the correlated attack validation, threat radar (reputation, fraud), and virtual patching."
"Learning mode and custom policies are helpful features."
 

Cons

"I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options."
"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"Other solutions are probably easier to set up, but you have more capability in Akamai."
"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."
"One area for improvement with Akamai could be pricing."
"The solution could offer more integrations."
"Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved."
"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."
"Its price could be improved. It is quite expensive. It will be good if we could export the configuration. Currently, to control the configuration, we need to go to each website, which is not very convenient."
"The reporting is missing some features, such as: only two export formats, and the time period does not include the last day, week, year."
"The user interface could be better."
"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."
"Pricing can be improved, as it is quite expensive."
"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."
"I would suggest that Imperva Application Security Platform should include new features combined with AI."
"It's quite expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"The data packages are higher than our needs so we end up paying for data that we don't use."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"Everybody complains about the price of this solution."
"The cost is somewhere around $10,000 a site. For every site, you pay individually. For every DNS entry, you have you pay."
"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."
"There is a license or subscription renewal that our customers pay."
"The tool is expensive."
"The price is high compared to other solutions like FortiWeb."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which CDN solutions are best for your needs.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.