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Akamai API Security vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 21, 2025

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 API Security
Ranking in API Security
1st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in API Security
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
133
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Bot Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the API Security category, the mindshare of Akamai API Security is 9.5%, down from 20.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 8.6%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Akamai API Security9.5%
Imperva Application Security Platform8.6%
Other81.9%
API Security
 

Featured Reviews

RR
Incident Manager at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Unified API visibility has transformed governance and now supports compliance reporting
The tool is blocking and only the person who has access to the tool can actually see how many DDoS attacks were blocked. Since I do not log in to the portal myself, I am unaware of this capability. I heard the word Akamai's anomaly detection from my team that they use this, but I don't know about it on the technical aspect. I am unaware of Akamai API Security's ability to adjust security policies in real-time. I am also unaware of which feature of Akamai API Security has helped us monitor API usage trends. Someone who is actually hands-on using Akamai API Security might know this.
reviewer1247523 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Solution ensures website availability and proactive threat mitigation
Over the seven years, the most valuable features of Imperva DDoS that I have found are related to DDoS attacks, which are a group of attacks, and not all of them can be resolved on the endpoint level before the website. Using the web firewall before the website is a common use case to protect against malicious requests to the website. I have utilized Imperva's Intelligent Traffic Filtering feature. This feature helps me understand how the attack is progressing and what is happening inside the requests to our website. It allows me to granularly grant or deny access to certain parts of our website. This helps when we know our customers and the types of requests that can be sent from them, enabling us to block some malicious requests. Imperva DDoS has User Behavior Analytics and Threat Intelligence on its board, and this helps us to be protected proactively. Imperva DDoS connects to its database of threats, storing whole information about attacks all over the world in one simple engine. Everyone can use this feature, which can connect to this engine and get information about what is going on at the world level. That is the way to be protected at the company's level. The integration capabilities of Imperva DDoS are very easy and simple. We can run it in 2 hours.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I already appreciate about Akamai API Security is that initially we were struggling with how to get this configured, but after that everything went smoothly."
"The support from Akamai API Security is good, the employment and support are of excellent quality."
"Akamai API Security has made a positive difference for our organization by improving our security posture and saving our team time, as we can actually prioritize tasks unless there are some false positives, but it is definitely saving a lot of time."
"The API part is effective."
"API throttling is the most valuable feature of Akamai API Security."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its integration with API gateways, WAP and with part of their SDLC."
"Scalability is pretty easy on the base platform. You just add another, and you're ready to go."
"This product is a reliable defense from malicious attacks on a network environment."
"There are some features that are configured by default, so even without doing much, it can still provide a level of protection."
"The solution is scalable."
"The stability of the product is good since I haven't had any problems with the solution."
"Technical support was very helpful."
"Learning mode and custom policies are helpful features."
"The bot management features are very effective, as they help filter unwanted traffic using keywords."
 

Cons

"I think it would be good if they can integrate more with API gateways as this is currently limited."
"More features would be beneficial."
"It would be beneficial to use machine learning and API throttling together to identify how the APIs are called and whether it's coming from the right person or the wrong person."
"The challenge I found was with contextualization and how analytics are generated."
"The main challenges we had with Akamai API Security were how to set it up on the AWS cloud environment and how to access this portal."
"The initial setup could be simplified. Every time you have to install the solution you have to get in touch with support or somebody that can to do that for you."
"Imperva now offers add-ons to add functionality, but I would like to see these included in the product, even if it would cost more."
"The signature updates could be faster. Sometimes we have to upload signatures to the Imperva portal for checking and analysis before we can use them."
"I think that better bot protection is needed in this solution."
"Users would benefit from better documentation. There is official documentation, but sometimes we need more detail. We have some use cases that are not so run of the mill. It would be great if there was a knowledge base that we could go to for more answers."
"It would be beneficial to include vulnerability management in the solution, similar to what they have for their on-premise solution."
"The support for the on-premises version needs improvement."
"We had an issue when securing the web applications for DDoS protection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a limit to the number of APIs we can use inside a bundle, and we have to pay extra if we exceed that limit."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"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."
"For enterprise contracts you will be in touch with a dedicated account manager who will guide you regarding licensing."
"The solution's price is high for small companies."
"Imperva charges us based on bandwidth, which is better than other vendors that charge us according to data transfer."
"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."
"The pricing is somewhat expensive. It is actually a huge investment when compared to other countries."
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Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Expert with 51-200 employees
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business83
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise61
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai API Security?
It is not expensive. It is practical to use and represents an excellent solution.
What is your primary use case for Akamai API Security?
I use Akamai API Security. I downloaded a report comparing WAF Akamai and WAF Azure to understand the real differences. I studied the solution to comprehend how it detects bots. For example, with A...
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 do you like most about Imperva Incapsula?
We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.
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...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai API Security vs. Imperva Application Security Platform and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.